This has two parts... as a golfer I am starting to work on my game at Golfareena and Season golf hopefully laying the
foundation for a successful season but currently a lot of my time is spent on thinking about the competition activities at Kytäjä along with my fellow members of the "kilpailutoimikunta".
The kilpailutoimikunta has been very active since the start of 2012, meeting every 3-4 weeks, and planning which activities to focus on for the season ahead.
As a result of this activity we have added a few new competitions to the 2012 calendar:
- The Kytäjä Club Tour - a similar idea to the FedEx Cup, you accumulate points for your performances in the competitions throughout the season and then the top 30 players have a chance to compete in the grand final at the end pof the season.
- The Nelipallo Cup - a "fourball" matchplay competition (correct term in english is "betterball" but the Finnish Golf Union uses "Nelipallo") where pairs of members can compete against each other
- The Eclectic - a fun competition which gives you something to fight for in every round you play throughout the year
- The Kytäjä Cup - a Ryder Cup style team event to be played in the middle of the summer
When adding these events we have a few things in mind. Firstly we wanted to increase the number of club competitions that were available for the members... but we wanted to do that in such a way that we respected the opinions that were expressed to us both personally and via the survey that we conducted earlier in the year. The survey feedback stated that a small increase in the number of competitions would be a good thing but expressed concern over the availability of tee times (the course should not always be booked for competitions!). The survey also expressed a real interest in playing competitions in pairs (this is something which was not offered in the previous years apart from in the mixed foursomes) and strong support for a team competition.
The Kytäjä Club Tour is something that we strongly believe in as an idea, it gives the season a sense of continuity and encourages people to participate in multiple competitions, it will reward those who play well and gives everyone something to aim for over the course of the season. As the points are calculated based on existing events it allowed us to add something new without increasing the congestion on the course, the KCT final will be added to the calendar but we have "made room" for that by removing the kuukausikilpailu final.
The Nelipallo Cup is a matchplay competition, played at the players own convenience, so it will not cause the tee to be blocked out for any longer periods and the Eclectic is a fun competition which you are able to play in every single time you tee it up.
The Kytäjä Cup is a new competition and will cause an additional booking on the course one wednesday in mid-June... we really hope that this is something that many members will enjoy playing in. Team golf is very enjoyable and social!
Overall we have managed to add these four new competitions but only caused the tee to be booked during one day during the summer. Naturally you cannot please everyone all of the time but we feel like we have made a good attempt at respecting the wishes of the members.
Another issue which we have strong feelings about is the flow of information surrounding our competitions. This was one of the main motivations behind creating these web pages... we intend to use these as an information source for members, advertising material for new members and also a historical record of Kytäjä competition activities.
We aim to make further improvements in the flow of information to and from the members as the year progresses.
Please feel free to leave your comments to this blog (click the "add comment" link below) or contact me (or any other member of the kilpailutoimikunta) directly on any matter related to Kytäjä competitions!
Wishing everyone at Kytäjä a great year on the course in 2012!
Andy