John Murray

We Need You!!

It's hard to comprehend that just over a week ago the courses were full of golfers.

It’s a difficult time for many people with uncertainty over jobs or reductions in salary for many. It is therefore understandable that your golf membership may not be top of the priority list right now.

However, if you're able to continue to support “YOUR CLUB” then please do so as we need our members to stick by us more than ever right now.

When it comes to golf, there is no rescue package. YOU are the rescue package.

Subscription income is more than half of our overall income and this is usually complemented by Visitor Fees and Bar Income which together amount to 40%.

It is already manifestly clear that visitor income will fall dramatically as will bar thus the dependence on member income will become even greater.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support of the club and let’s hope we are all back on the Links very soon!

Just for fun

The lockdown calendar

We came across a lockdown calendar last week and it revealed some highly amusing answers for the team, so we wanted to get you involved too!

All you need to do is match your birth date and your birth month with the answers given and you’ll create a brilliant lockdown scenario, like these:

Baking with Rory McIlroy
Cleaning your car with Fred Couples
Taking your bins out with Tiger Woods

It’s a little bit of fun whilst the majority of us find ourselves at home, so click the link below to take part. Don’t forget to email us your scenarios at the end!

View lockdown calendar here

Results

There was so much else going on with everything here last week that I forgot to include the results from the Winter Cup finals day on Saturday 21st March. The results were as follows:

Division 1

Ken Scott (7) BIH, Stuart Duff (6) 38pts, Peter Laird (7) BIH, Davie McKenzie (6), Davie Johnston (5) 37pts, John Petrie (6), Stephen Murdoch (7), Iain Kelman (8) 35pts

Division 2

Neal Anderson (13) 42pts, James Spence (15) BIH, Anthony Blake (15) 39pts, Jay Anderson (11), Barbara Caie (21) 38pts

Magic 2s were worth £7 to the following players :

Brian Ross, Peter Laird, Kenny Harrison, Stephen Murdoch, Stuart Rothnie, James Mitchell

Virtual Tap Room

These are incredibly tough times for so many small businesses like ourselves. Unfortunately, we have had to close but for any local businesses that are open, we’d like to encourage people to shop local where possible. Therefore I’m going to promote local business on here every week where possible.

This week I’m supporting local brewery, Windswept who are having a virtual beer tasting from their tap room in Lossiemouth this Friday evening. It might be a little late to take part but I thought it was a great idea to kick start your weekend and it’s the next best thing to getting out to the pub for a few beers. Check their facebook page by clicking here

Home golf

Thanks to some of our members for sending in their practice setups during our first week in lockdown. It’s great even for my own sanity to get some photos or videos showing me what your all doing in your spare time to keep busy.

This one was sent in by Stuart Duff who not only managed to work on his short game but also ingeniously managed to include an auto-return function in his indoor setup. Well Done Stuart!!

Click here to see Stuart’s set up.

Members Practice 1

Members Practice 2

Our second video was from Keith Ingram who decided it would be easier to get someone else to do the practice for him (haha)

Eventually practice made perfect!

Click here to see Keith’s indoor practice routine.

Members Practice 3

Finally it was Mhorvan Sherret who managed to set up an outdoor range facility utilising some tarpaulin and a large hedge in his back garden.

“ I went to all that trouble and started hitting balls. Wow, it was like a shotgun going off! Loud echo all around the neighbourhood. Would only be a matter of time before the police turned up ?????? so had to take it all down??”

I would love to know how Mhorvan got the net on top of the hedge....that could have been a great video in itself!!

Click here to see Mhorvan’s hi tech outdoor set up.

Thanks again to Stuart, Keith and Mhorvan for sending in their videos and please keep sending in anything you think may keep us entertained during this tough time. If anyone has any suggestions for future newsletter content then just drop me an email on johnmurraypgapro@icloud.com.

Hopefully, we can all come together to make the coming weeks that little easier to handle!

Stay Safe & See You on the Other Side

John

Weekly quiz

Something new for our readers

Us golfers are competitive at heart, so we thought we'd try to harness some of that spirit by introducing a new feature to our weekly emails.

We're going to kick things off next week with our very own Masters Quiz - it was supposed to be Masters week after all - so be sure to do some research before then!

For now, we have put up a short poll on our website that we'd love you to answer by clicking the button below. We'll let you know the results next week.

take our poll >

Weekly challenge

It’s times like these when thinking outside the box can result in all sorts of fun. So, we’ve rummaged through the garden shed and come up with a little game for you to try at home! If you don’t have any buckets or pots to hand, try creating different sized rings using string, tape or even ties – this would make it indoor friendly too.

The set-up

Mark out your hitting zone like we’ve done using a mat in the image above. Then, from smallest to largest, lay your targets out so they get progressively bigger as they get further from the hitting zone. You then need to decide how many points each target is worth, with more points awarded to the smaller targets.

How to play

The great thing about this game is that you can play it by yourself or with the rest of the family. If you’re giving the challenge a go alone, you have five balls to get the highest score possible. You can play the same way with others or you can set an overall target score (e.g. 50 points) and the first person to reach that score wins!

message the team >

Golf at home

This part of our newsletter is all about trying to keep your golf game ticking over whilst we’re being told to stay indoors. With putting being such a vital part of lowering scores out on the course (and the easiest to practice at home), we’re going to kick things off with a simple putting drill for you to try.

The set-up

Grab your putter, six golf balls and a tee peg. Place the tee upside on the ground – this will be your target. From here, measure out a putter’s length from the tee and place a ball down. Repeat this five times at equal distances apart so that you have a circle of golf balls surrounding the tee peg – just like in the image above.

Too easy? Make it harder

Your goal is to go around the circle and hit the tee peg with each putt. However, if you miss, you’ll need to go back and start again – a nice way to mimic some pressure from the golf course. If you complete the circle, keep going until you miss to set yourself a target to beat next time or try increasing the distance of each putt from the tee.

message the team >

Video of the Week

What's Padraig Harrington laughing at here? Well, if you ever needed reassuring that even the world's best golfers are human, give this video a watch! Enjoy.

European Tour | Worst Shots (14 Club Challenge)

I hope you have enjoyed this week's update.
We hope to see you soon
John

Moray Golf Club
Stotfield Road
Lossiemouth
IV31 6QS

Phone: 01343 813330

Visit my website
Visit the club website
Contact me
Your profile

This email was sent to you by John Murray and is provided as a service for the members and guests of Moray Golf Club and the customers of the Moray Golf Club Pro Shop and has been supported and sponsored by advertisers in this mail and by our partner suppliers: Foremost Golf, UK's largest golf retail group, delivering value through expertise for the Club Golfer

® The Crest is a registered trademark of The Professional Golfers’ Association Limited