Where are they Now? Rob Guthrie

Here is a picture of Rob performing one of his duties at the Winnipeg Winter Club. (It's really him in the suit)

For those of you who were members when I first came to Carman in 1994, my first assistant Pros were Glen Sirkis and Rob Guthrie. For this episode, I will talk about Rob.

Rob came to us as a free agent from Glendale Country Club in Winnipeg. He worked with us for a year before leaving to become the Head Professional at Kenora Golf Club in Kenora.

Rob fondly looks back at his year here in Carman as one of the most enjoyable of his life. When I caught up with him recently, he had nothing but good things to say about our club. "I made many good friends during my time there and still keep in touch with many of them" Some of his favourite memories include working out in the basement of the Ryall Hotel and finding the front tire of his Honda CRX floating in the pond one Men's Night.

"I thought I had Lee pretty good tying his shoes to his bag, but he definitely got me by throwing the front tire of my car in the pond on the first hole. I'm glad we still had the boat around so I could go and get it."

Rob was sad to leave, but couldn't turn down the opportunity when Kenora came knocking at his door. " It was a sad day when it was time to leave, but the greener pastures of Northern Ontario were just too good to pass up"

Rob stayed at Kenora for 12 years before deciding to move back to his hometown of Winnipeg. He is now the General Manager at the Winnipeg Winter Club.

"My golf game was really beginning to go downhill and I thought that I should look for other work before I really started embarrassing myself on the golf course. When players like Sirkis and Gottfred started beating me on a regular basis I knew it was time to leave."

Rob hopes that some of his old friends from Carman look him up when they are in Winnipeg and drop by the Winter Club.

Stay tuned for more "Where are they now" reports in the coming weeks.

Part Time Work

I am looking for some part time help in the Pro Shop if any one is interested. There might be a few hours in the Shop and some course marshalling as well. If you are interested, please email me at gottfred@mts.net with a resume and I will get back to whoever is interested.

Mike

Aeration Done!!

We had a small window in the rain and managed to finish the areation on Monday morning. Hopefully the rain will stop soon and we can get out and enjoy them.

Kevin Giesbrecht at it again

Kevin Giesbrecht is off to a hot summer again. He was low qualifier in the Manitoba Match play Championship last weekend in Winkler. Matches began today at Niakwa Golf Course in Winnipeg. You can click on the above headline to get updates on the matches.

Tournament Next Weekend

The Louis Riel School division are having their golf tournament with 144 players out here next Saturday, June 2. They are having a shotgun start at 1:30. To accomodate our members and green fee players, we will be using the 1st and 10th tees between 7:00 and 8:45. This will allow us to get 120 player out on the golf course before the tournament. Please call the Pro Shop for more information or go to our website to book your tee times.

Aerating Update (again)

Rob and his crew got the front 9 aerated on Friday between the rain and the greens came through fairly well. We are hoping to get the back 9 done on Monday, weather permitting, so we can get back on track. The long term forecast is starting to look like summer may be just around the corner, so lets keep our fingers crosssed.

Aerating Update

If the weather cooperates (likely chance) we will try and aerate the front nine on Friday and the back nine on Monday. Keep posted or call the Pro Shop for updates.

Men's Night

Men's night will go on tonight. The weather seems to be cooperating, so Men's Night is on. We have our fingers crossed that it stays that way.

Member's dinner club

Don't forget to come out for dinner and be a part of our dinner club. When you purchase 10 meals from our dinner menu your 11th meal will be free. And as a bonus, for every time you purchase the 10 dinner items, your name will go in a draw for a 2008 adult membership.

Andre will keep track of the meals at the counter, but make sure you let them know you are a member when you purchase your dinner.

This promotion does not include Tuesday or Wednesday nights.

Ladies Night Cancelled

Another casualty of the wet weather as the rain continues. All leagues scheduled for Tuesday were cancelled because of the wet weather. We received a total of about 2 inches from yesterday to this morning with more (unfortunately) in the forecast.

Stay tuned to see if Men's Night will be going.

Aeration Update

With the heavy rains this morning and the rainy forecast, we have delayed aerating the greens. Please check with the Pro Shop before you come out for the latest updates, as we will begin aerating as soon as it is possible.

Once again, thank you for your patience.

Aeration Schedule

We are scheduled to begin aerating the greens Monday afternoon and finish on Tuesday, but the weather forecast may slow down the operation. If you are scheduled to play on Wednesday or Thursday, please call the Pro Shop before you come out and we will give you an update on the operation.

The sand that goes into the aerated holes has to be dry and wet conditions can slow this down considerably.

Please have patience as we would also like to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Handicap Computer

The handicap computer in the shop seems to have all the issues resolved. It now displays the correct tee with the corresct slope and rating before you put your scores in, so you don't have to change the tee. Unless of course you played from the blue tees.

The course handicap is also now correct.

Green Aerating

Next week brings our semi-annual greens aeration. We will be starting Monday afternoon at 3:00 on the 1st hole and go on from there. We hope to be done by Tuesday afternoon.

If you have golfed lately you will have noticed how hard and compacted the greens are. Aeration softens the greens up and allows them to breathe. The short term pain provides us with the nice greens we are accustomed to the rest of the year.

Please have patience with us and understand the importance of doing this.

http://www.usga.org/questions/faqs/turf_grass_maint.html

If you go to the above link, you will find some interesting questions and answers about golf course maintenance including aeration.

Golf Club off to a busy start.

It's been a busy week here at the club for early May. Both evening leagues had their fun scrambles with nice evenings for both groups. We also had a couple of big tournaments also this week with the boys and girls from 17 Wing in Winnipeg here on Wednesday and the Manitoba Senior Golf Association on Thursday. Between the 17 Wingers and Men's Night, Rob says they have never been as many beer cans in the garbage as there were on Thursday morning. It must have been the heat.

I'm going to feature some "Where are they now?" articles about former employees on this blog in the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for some of your favorite former employees.

League Schedules

League schedules are now up on the website.

Handicap Computer

Please be careful when putting scores in on the handicap system. The RCGA system does not have the correct tee information when your name comes up. Even if it says white or red tees, the correct slope and rating is not there. You will have to change the tee in order to have the correct slope and rating.

After you post your score, the course handicap that comes up is also not correct. Your index is correct, but not the course handicap. You will have to look at the conversion chart that we have by our computer to find the correct course handicap.

I talked to the RCGA for about a half hour the other day and they are working on fixing it. They haven't seen our particular problem before and are working with the software developers to fix it.

Thank you for your patience.