Club News

From Albert Sinfield, Golf Manager: It has been a pleasure seeing you all at the club in recent weeks enjoying the golf course, perfect golfing weather and the club house and terrace that is now fully open. With the Government restrictions lifting recently, I wanted to remind you that the wearing of face masks/coverings will be optional within the club house facilities. Please respect the choice of other individuals, including the staff who will also have the option to wear face masks whilst completing their daily duties, or simply as a matter of personal preference.  

There will be no restrictions on mixing with other households throughout the club, but we will continue to have the furniture set in the bar to encourage social distancing between tables. Sanitising stations will continue to be present throughout the club house, allowing golfers to use when passing. 

Following the refurbishment of the club house the men’s locker rooms are now open and anyone that is yet to have their locker reallocated please feel free to reach out to me when next at the club. If you have not had access to a locker in the past, we can allocate you a new one at a cost of £50 for the year.  

Date for your diary: 

We have re-arranged the member Q&A with Get Golfing CEO Edward Richardson to take place at 18:30 on the 12th of August 2021, in the club house at Redlibbets.  

The evening is set up so any member can ask questions direct to Edward Richardson, who is ultimately responsible for the future of Redlibbets within his capacity as Get Golfing’s CEO and also to get to know us better, what we stand for as a charity, and it provides us with an opportunity to share the charity’s future plans for the Club. 

There will be a complementary drink on arrival, and it is hoped that the Q&A takes no longer than an hour or so. 

Safegaurding Policies:

Please note the club safeguarding policies are located on the club notice board outside the men’s changing facilities. If anyone would like to read and review these policies they can be found here.

CWO SafeGolf Poster

One final note from me is to say a big congratulations to Ed Money who had a hole-in-one whilst playing in the Invicta Match Vs Dale Hill. Better still, the ace closed out a win for Ed and his playing partner in their match for the day, what a win!

Course News

With the temperatures and rainfall exceeding expectations for the month, growth has been excessive to say the least. Torrential, sudden downpours have caused issues around the course but the Course Maintenance team has worked extremely hard to reinstate and maintain the playing surfaces to the standard you, and we expect here at Redlibbets.

We have continued our programme of aeration using, the ever growing in popularity, ninja tines to remove organic material from the greens soil profile to encourage microbial activity and root growth. This operation is beginning to show signs of improvement within the greens, the plant is looking healthier within the sward and the playing surfaces are responding significantly better than before.

As we are achieving some success on our greens, we will begin to turn our attention to other areas of the course. The tees have already received a deep verti-cut to remove as much lateral growth as possible. This promotes vertical growth improving the quality and playability of the surface. We will continue to work on the tees with more aeration and top dressing to follow the coming weeks. Approaches and fairways will be receiving more focus to further improve their conditions, scarifying and verti-cutting these surfaces is planned to take place soon within August, assuming conditions are favourable for this type of maintenance.

Our current plan is to improve overall conditioning throughout the course, with the Club Championships just around the corner we have our work cut out but with the expanding Course Maintenance team, we are sure that we will prevail. We again thank all members and visitors to the Club for your support and appreciation.

Captains’ Update

From Darren Reed, Club Captain 2021 and Lynn Craven, Lady Captain:  

 Thank you for everyone that supported us in our Charity Day that took place on Saturday July 17th. The day was a huge success with over 130 players taking part in the day. We couldn’t have asked for more support from members from all categories enjoying a day’s golf with a fantastic BBQ to follow.  

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the day:  

Team 

Mike Crabb, Gillian Crabb, Michele Saunders, Andy Saunders 128  

Louisa Cluett, Andy Cluett, Christine Young, Lynne Roberts 126  

Kevin Burroughs, Stephen Brown, Craig Jeffrey, Paul Salvage 125 

Men’s individual:  

Sam Patterson 42 points  

Ladies’ individual:  

Michele Saunders 42 points  

Guest score:  

Barry Jenkinson 38 points  

Congratulations to Craig Jeffrey’s Hole in One on the 15th Hole. Well done Craig on your perfect golf shot.  

During July we also played the Captain’s Stableford when there was some great golf played. Congratulations to Brian Taylor on winning the day.  

Ross Jones’ Update

Get Golfing takes the conditioning of all of the golf courses at our sites incredibly seriously. We want to ensure all our members and visitors have the best playing conditions possible. We are also aware that lot’s of our sites have had some large projects taking place on their golf courses, and our Head of Course Maintenance, Ross Jones, here shares a few videos explaining some of the processes the team uses to improve your course.

The work the teams all put in across all the sites to present our courses in such great condition is outstanding. Why not visit our other sites like Warley Park and check out the progress made in person?

Community Outreach

From Stuart Williams, Community Development Officer (Education, SEND and Communities), Get Golfing: We are pleased to announce the appointment of Faydra Mitchel to the role of Community events coordinator at Redlibbets. Her role will be to engage with our local community, schools, healthcare providers and local groups to ensure Get Golfing plays an active and positive role in the local area.  

Her focus will be to utilise our beautiful site and clubhouse to host social interactions ranging from Dementia coffee mornings to school art competitions, Music performances to Memory Walks as part of our Community HUB (Helping Unlock Barriers) programme. 

Along with some of Get Golfing’s national partnerships and programmes, such as with This Girl Can, NHS Blood and Transplant, The Great Dog Walk Together, we are pleased to announce a partnership with The Alzheimer’s Society and its battle to beat this horrendous disease. 

Taking place on September 19th at 4pm, you can join us on the day, donate to the charity and enjoy a beautiful stroll around our lovely site that starts and finishes at the clubhouse. The Get Golfing Memory Walk is family and dog friendly, so why not gather a group together and join us for a great cause? 

If you would like to help us run the event by marshalling or serving refreshments as we raise funds to fight this terrible disease, do please get in touch with [email protected] 

Our next community dog walk is on August 5th, and it would be great to make some new four-legged friends (meet at clubhouse at 6pm). This free social event is great for the dogs but also the humans… 

Our national partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant continues this month with the recruitment team heading to our Hampton Court Palace site for their awareness campaign on August 14th. They will be visiting Arkley in September and Pyrford Lakes in October. 

Please remember it is about more than just blood, with people also needing stem cells, tissue and platelets. For more information visit NHS Blood and Transplant. 

Girls just wanna have fun: Our first Mums & Daughters session at Mill Green took place in beautiful sunshine in July and saw more than 20 ladies and girls having a super session delivered by the coaching team at the Club. They are great social events that see everyone making new friends, enjoying hitting it further than mum and finding a new sport that they can enjoy together. This Girl Can Get Golfing has been trialled at our Hertfordshire site and will be rolled out across all sites in the next 12 months. 

If you would like more information about Girls Golf Rocks please click on the link- Girls Golf Rocks – England Golf 

Music is Healing: As part of the Community HUB (Helping Unlock Barriers) programme, Get Golfing is partnering with Music24, who will have free use of a room in the clubhouse at our Hertfordshire site to run its monthly music therapy sessions. 

Music24 is a registered charity offering music therapy and other music-related activities as a creative outlet for people who are socially isolated and vulnerable. It works with various groups across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire who face difficulties, such as those living with dementia, neuro-disabilities, learning disabilities or mental health illnesses. 

We hope to partner with similar charities at all our sites in the future and if you know of any local groups who need a free space to operate out of, we would be happy to help. Please contact [email protected].

Proshop News

From Nicholas Darby, Golf Retail Sales & Operations Manager: We are pleased to announce that we now offer Callaway clubs and apparel in the Pro shop as well as Titleist and TaylorMade soft goods. Click here to view. 

If you can’t find a specific product from any of our brands, please contact [email protected] and he will be happy to assist you.

We have also launched our Pro Shop Sale. Grab a bargain with some discontinued merchandise on the website today! 

Remember the profits made by the Pro Shop are reinvested into your club. 

Reviews

Redlibbets has again received some fantastic reviews this month. Here are a few of our favourites: