Dear Members,

Happy Holidays to everyone. 2022 is almost in behind us and 2023 is fast approaching.

This will be my first December in Gauteng for the first time in 8 years. To those members fortunate enough to go away on holiday, I trust you will enjoy all the beautiful areas our Country has to offer.

For those of you staying home for the festive season, the golf course will be busy and I am sure there will be a great vibe at our club as everyone is more relaxed.

Please make your bookings well in advance. The course has turned into a green paradise. WOW, what a beauty.

I am very happy with the condition of the course and the Golf Data team are hard at work to provide the best possible playing surfaces.  We can all be very proud of our club and the change that is happening.

Our Ladies

I am so proud of our Ladies section. They are proactive and organize fun events.  It is brilliant to see such an active Ladies section, Jo and your team, Thank you so much and congratulations.

Just in November they hosted: CGGU Ladies Christmas Alliance – 100 players Ladies Protea Bowl – 80 players

Mixed Open – Ladies are the driving force behind it Ladies Christmas Lunch – 60 Ladies

Please note that the course and club will be closed for our Annual Staff Appreciation Day on 5 December 2022.

This is the day that we celebrate our hard working teams and thank them for their efforts during the year. Our team has certainly lifted their game and service and food consistency is much improved.  We have a great team here and we are going to celebrate them.

We will be trying out a new event on 16 December call Summer Golf Vibe.  

We are going to push the traditional golf attire boundaries by allowing all golfers to dress up in beach wear. If you do not want to dress up in beach attire, you can stick to your normal golf attire.  This event will surely raise a few eyebrows. We are not changing the dress code at the club, we are merely creating a different vibe for 1 day.

Captain’s day at Parkview

I was lucky enough to be invited to represent Kyalami CC during the Bobby Locke Festival at my second favourite JHB golf course during the first week of November.

Keeping up with tradition, I invited Glenn Schoeman our Captain to join me. Filling up the remaining two spots were Steven Adelaine and Cliff Millar.  We tried our best but left some out there, making 86 Points. To our surprise we were counted in for the win. Not our best yet still good enough.

Membership Subs and Green Fees for 2023

The membership subscriptions were sent out earlier in November and we would like to thank the membership for their continued support.

Our club will stay strong and grow even stronger in the future. There was a minimal increase of 5%

Central Gauteng Open

The rain we experienced of late caused havoc during this historic tournament. What should have been 54 holes was reduced to 18 holes. Round 1 was not completed on Friday with the last groups playing only a couple of holes.  Round 1 was completed Saturday morning with a big push to complete round 2.

Unfortunately this was not the case and round 2 could not be completed on Sunday with no golf possible as the course was flooded with water and lighting around for the majority of the day.  This forced the cancellation of round 2 and round 3.

Round 1 would be taken to determine the winner with Yurav Premlall crowned the Champion. Yurav has now won this tournament for the 3rd time. 2018 (Randpark), 2020 and 2022 (Kyalami Country Club)  With this victory Yurav claims the NUMBER 1 Amateur ranking in South Africa.

The former number 1 Kyle De Beer unfortunately picked up an injury that prevented him to play in the championship. I have followed the career of Yurav, a GOLFRSA Squad member for years and he is being groomed to be a world champion in the future.

His current Handicap Index in +6.2 😊

Although the weather was testing the scoring was phenomenal.  Just to get a top 10 position you had to post a score of under par.  

Good Letter

I received a thank you letter for Vicki Traut (Ladies A Division Champion), about the GOLFRSA Champions of Champions we hosted recently:

I was a part of the Western Province team that recently played in the Champions of Champion Tournament at Kyalami Country Club. We would just like to thank the members for lending us their course for the week. What a pleasure to be able to play such a lovely course.

The course was in a great condition, and we could not have asked for a better venue. The greens were running and yet so receptive with the approach shot. You have such beautiful well-planned holes that are both challenging and exciting at the same time. What a privilege to be able to go strength to strength with some of our countries best.

Thank you for the opportunity to play at such a beautiful course under tournament conditions. We can't even imagine the amount of work it must have taken to get the course in such a pristine condition.

Thank you for the hard work! Kind regards, Vicki Traut

Western Province

Hollow tining

Please take note of the dates that the club will be closed for the annual hollowtining. This is necessary to ensure our greens remain healthy and some of the best in Johannesburg.

Kyle and the Proshop team will secure reciprocity at clubs in our area during the time that the course is closed.  We will open the course on the Saturday with a fun event.

This will not be a normal golf day – it will be fun and different.

And just like that the year is done, the weather is warm and we’re all gearing up for our annual travels.

For those of us ‘stuck’ in JHB this December we have once again negotiated a sparkling reciprocity deal with some of the finest golf clubs in the province.

The details of the offer vary from club to club and we have placed the list on the website and link below to help you better navigate the deals.

Please ensure you identify yourself as a Kyalami member when booking and upon arrival to ensure you’re charged the correct rate.

The course will also be closed on Christmas Day and New Years Day along with the clubhouse.

League kick offs early in 2023 and if you’d like to get involved please chat to the proshop and we will put you in touch with the relevant captains.

From the Shed.

Greetings to all our members, this news letter comes from ‘ the Shed ‘ where it all happens and good things come out the Shed. Once again there was a comment raised about the greens and why are they slow? It is fair to say that the greens were a bit slow yet the roll was true. We have certain limitations in gaining speed and keeping them consistently fast.

Firstly we can cut them lower to achieve more speed and this in turn will cause the green to stress more in warmer and hotter conditions, not ideal as this will in turn not encourage new membership and also chase existing members away. To improve the speed the following can be done and will definitely speed them up but then again will also have negative side effects.

We can roll more to speed them up and it will increase the compaction and firm up the greens, Great yes we will have faster greens but also compacted greens which will not allow water penetration. We can also starve the greens of nutrition this will cause the grass to become unhealthy and growth will be sparse and coverage will be poor.

Other clubs yes they might have faster greens but may also have different strains of bent grass, Ours was chosen because of its high tolerance for Salts which are present in our Grey water that is used to water the course. We are therefore limited to cutting the greens to low and 3.4mm is the accepted Height.

Taking into consideration that the holiday season is also going to have an effect on our greens and will be raising the height to protect the greens from traffic.

To those members who will be going away for the holidays I wish you safe travels and enjoy your well deserved break and have a Blessed Christmas, to the rest who will be staying in Joburg I will see you on the fairways .

Thank you

November has been a busy month, which started with the 2 day Handicap Trophy challenge.  This was won by Vera Da Silva with Noma Migogo as runner up.

The LGG Christmas Alliance was hosted by Kyalami and had a capacity turnout with clubs represented from around Gauteng.

We are proud of our KCC ladies, Ashley Bester, Katherine Gasgoine, Heather Duvet and Rachel Sellers who won the event

The Champ of Champs challenge was also played over 2 days with Ruzanne Blyth clinching the title and Heather Duve as runner up.

The Protea Bowl challenge was a phenomenal day too with 16 Clubs represented and a field of 74.

Winners of this Better Ball Combined stableford comp were Leigh Rose, Zandi Shakerly, Pam Wilson and Claire Lindsay. Festive vibes were created at prize giving and the luncheon with the Christmas Market and 11 vendors selling interesting merchandise.