almerimartoday

Another day, another photo. This one of the ground floor reception area just inside the front door with the bar area behind.

I have just received a text from Juan Francisco saying that the Almerimar clubhouse will open on Wednesday 15 September 2010.

So I have cancelled the Tuesday tee-times for next week that we booked for a competition to celebrate the opening of the clubhouse. Instead we have just booked tee times for a competition to celebrate the opening of the clubhouse on Wednesday 15 September. First tee time is 10:40.

The entry list will go up on the noticeboard by the pro-shop later today.

Here is a photo of the double height building on the upper terrace of the clubhouse

Sometimes Spain, Almerimar and Almerimar SL amaze me.

Read More for details.

Here is todays clubhouse opening countdown photo. This is from the terrace on the roof of the clubhouse.

Thanks to Primera for sending us the link to this interesting information about golf clubs and golf club manufacturers.

You can read more on Tom Wishon´s site here.

In theory the new Almerimar clubhouse is scheduled to open 1 week from today on September 14th 2010. However given the Spanish approach to planning it is possible that we may see a last minute change of mind.

Anyway, in the run up to the proposed date for opening the clubhouse I plan to publish a photo a day of some aspect of the building. Today it is the sign close to the entrance to the clubhouse.

I hope I have taken enough photos to allow us to cope with a delay to the proposed opening date if one occurs. 

As the new golf clubhouse is due to open soon I asked in the pro-shop about golf bags stored at the hotel being moved to the clubhouse.

I was told that they would prefer individuals to take their own bags and trolleys to the new golf bag store room in the new clubhouse if people are here in Almerimar. They said that they would let people know when they were ready for the clubs to be moved.

I believe anyone whose bag is stored at the hotel who isn´t here at the time of the move will have their bag moved to the clubhouse for them as they will be clearing out the golf club storage in the hotel.

However, my guess is that clubs transferred for people will probably just be left in a corner of the new store room in the clubhouse.

The layout of the new store room is such that everyone who had paid to store clubs will have their own designated space for storing their bag and trolley. I guess people will choose their storage space in the many racks available once they turn up in Almerimar and identify their clubs.

We had a friendly game of golf with Alan and Sharon this afternoon.

When we turned up at the pro-shop we were chatting and found out that that the closure of holes 10-18 and reopening of holes 1-9 of the Master Course planned for tomorrow (6 September) will not take place.

At least for tomorrow people will continue playing holes 10-18 of the Master Course followed by the Classic Course. So it appears that the work on the greens of the front 9 of the Master Course may not yet have been completed.

The problems with the greens continue here in Almerimar and  I am not as confident as Fred (Doug) who was saying in a recent comment that "The good news however is how quickly the greens recover and our Autumn and Winter friends will probably find them in pretty good shape by the time they arrive."

I really hope Fred is right but at the moment I am not too confident.

The notice has now gone up for the golf match between Almerimar and La Envía. They have changed the date to Sunday 5 September 2010.

The venue is still La Envía and the cost is 30 euros a player which covers a round of golf and a barbecue on the La Envía clubhouse terrace afterwards.

There is no entry list up on the noticeboard by the pro-shop so if you want to take part I suggest that you speak to whoever is working in the pro-shop.

The story here on the BBC site was pointed out to me recently. Mildly amusing.

Read More for a few bits and pieces about golf at Almerimar over the coming weeks.

Congratulations to Carlos for winning the scratch category of the pitch and putt competition at Almerimar yesterday with a fantastic 5 under par gross score of 49 shots. Also, congratulations to Lynda H who came second in the handicap section of the competition with a nett 5 under par, just one shot more than the winner Salvador Ruiz Peralta.

You can see a photo of Salvador plus photos of all the winners of the junior competitions here in the Gallery. 

PS Thanks to the chiringuito for the free drinks after the competition and also to the course for providing free bottles of water to everyone while we played on what was a pretty hot day.

We are just back from picking up the entry list for Friday golf from the pro-shop.

While there we spotted that new information has gone up on the board. It says that from 13 September 2010 the Classic Course will close until further notice. This seems to fit in with the proposed opening date for the new clubhouse of 14 September 2010.

I can imagine that while there are low numbers of people playing the course they will keep the Classic course shut. However my guess is that if we get a good number of players here for the winter season they will reopen it again.

I have been informed that over the next 2-3 weeks the greens at Almerimar will be hollow tined. The plan is for 9 holes to be closed at a time starting with the Classic course then moving on to the Master course.

There will always be 18 holes open for play during this work.

We can only hope that the hollow tining will improve the quality of the greens in the longer term as there are problems with brown patches of dead grass on a number of the greens at the moment. As well as hollow tining I think they may have to returf parts of some greens.

It is good to see some effort being made to work on the greens. Lets hope it is a success.

Jacqui has just been told that the easiest way of entering the upcoming Andalucía pitch and putt competition at Almerimar this coming Saturday (28 August 2010) is to fill in an entry form that you can collect in the pro-shop.

Entry fee is 20 euros a person and closing date for entry is Thursday 26 August.

You need to be a member of the Spanish Golf Federation to take part.

I was just looking through the photos from the José López memorial competition and I noticed this one with two of our younger players on the 13th green at Almerimar.

I think it highlights perfectly the problems we are having with the greens here at the moment. As you can see they are pretty patchy and sadly I have not seen much effort being made to improve things.

Where there is grass the greens are OK but a little slow and a little bumpy.

I love the course here and it makes me a little sad to see the greens in this condition. Hopefully something can be done soon to improve things.

Here is a photo of the winner of category 3 of the competition waiting for her dinner last night.

After a late night where we didn´t get to bed until after 3am we have now just finished publishing the results and photos on the Bahía San Miguel site. You can see the results here and 129 photos from the day here in the Gallery.

Here is a video of one of the people at the dinner singing on the terrace of the new clubhouse (not suitable for people on dial up or pay as you go USB modems as it is 14MB in size).

Thanks to everyone involved in organising and running the event.

Well doe to Sharon for scoring 41 points in the competition today. We are not sure whether it will be good enough to win her category but it was a great score. We will find out all the results at the prize giving dinner in the new Almerimar clubhouse this evening.

I guess we will have a busy day publishing results and photos on the Bahía San Miguel website tomorrow.

Thanks to the committee of BSM for all their hard work arranging the event today. Also, thanks to Juan Francisco and the staff in the pro-shop and on the course for their efforts as well.

A sign has gone up by the pro-shop that work is underway to try to repair the 8th green. Around half of the green has been marked as ground under repair while they try to get some grass growing on the back half of the green.

There are a number of other greens that are looking like they are a bit iffy at the moment so I guess we might see more of this sort of thing over the coming weeks and months.

Well done to Paul Miles for winning the Virgen de Agosto golf competition today at Almerimar. He had a medal score of 67 that means that his handicap will reduce quite a bit.

There were prizes for lots of people today. Rudolph had a 70, Carlos had a 71 (playing off 2!), Marilena had a 71, Mimmo had a 73, I had a 74, Bryn had a 74, Maria had a 76 and John F even won a prize of a golf cap for his score of 78.

Almost 50 people won prizes today. Sadly, Jacqui, primera and Eduardo didn´t figure in the list of prize winners.

UPDATED: The BSM Committee have now confirmed the location of the prize giving. 

The entry list for the José López memorial golf competition to be held at Almerimar on Saturday 21 August 2010 is now on the noticeboard by the pro-shop.

This competition is only open to members of the Bahía San Miguel golf society.

The prize giving will take place in the evening at the new clubhouse.

We had a windy day for Friday golf today. We tried out the new Texas Best 2 format that seemed to go down well with the people taking part. So we will add this format into the regular mix from now on.

Well done to Rudolph, Maria, Tom E & Andy E who won with a great score of 106. Last place was very close with two teams on 92 points. I just avoided the chocolates as my team had a lower combined handcap than Sharon, Hans O, John F and Peter E.

Well done to Jacqui for nearest the pin. She was only 1.49m away but was the only one in her team to miss out with the birdie putt.

Jacqui, myself and many other Almerimar golfers were thinking of Leif while we played today. 

Here is a photo of Leif from happy times in March 2010 when his team won the Golf Rules Quiz.

 

Ideal has now published the results from the 4th regularidad competition held last Sunday here at Almerimar. Read here.

They also mention the forthcoming Virgen de agosto competition this Sunday, 15 August. There will be prizes for the top 30 scores.

As John mentioned, the prizegiving will be held in the new clubhouse and Ideal have announced the official opening of it´s doors will be on 14 September.

 

Some time ago Vicky and Paul mentioned a new golf format that we could try out on a Friday. They called it a Scram-am but I have renamed it Texas Best 2.

We will be trying out this new format this coming Friday.

Read More for details.

I have updated the event on our Events page to show prices, handicap limits and to confirm that the post competition drinks and prize giving will take place on the terrace of the new clubhouse.

See here for details.

As a lot of our readers know John and Roisin Andrew do a great amount of work in support of the Francis House Children´s Hospice. Including organising a number of golf events in various locations.

Some years they bring a large group of people to Almerimar in October and other years the group plays elsewhere. This year the main October competition will take place in Turkey but John and Roisin have decided to hold a single day competition for locals in Almerimar on Friday 5 November 2010.

Read More for details.

We played in a pairs betterball stableford competition at Almerimar today along with 29 other pairs.

Jacqui and I played OK but hardly managed to sink a putt of any significance. We had so many lip-outs and near misses but still managed to get 41 points between us.

Two of the young guns, Leandro López Hidalgo and Francisco Javier Martin Garcia won the competition with a fantastic joint score of 47 points. Well done to them.

Next week it is the Virgen de Agosto comeptition which is medal play. There is normally a good turn out for that one and I think there are normally a lot of prizes given out.

Eduardo and Hans O now get a mention on Ideal´s site for their great win in the Virgen del Carmen golf competition. Read more here. 

Eduardo had certainly found form as not only did he win the Virgen del Carmen with Hans with a fantastic score of 46 points, the following weekend he came 3rd in the 2nd category of the Regularidad with 38 points.

The José López Memorial golf competition for 2010 organised by the Bahía San Miguel golf society will take place on Saturday 21 August in Almerimar.

I´m sure that further details will be published here and on the BSM site in due course.

In the meantime see here on the BSM site for the results from 2009 and here for the photos.

 

Optica Cervantes have now published lots of photos from the event which you can see here on their site.

Note due to the size of the photos, it is not suitable for dial up or pay as you go USB modems.

Please note that Friday golf may start a little earlier this week. Either at 10:16 (or 10:08) as there are some hotel guests booked in for just after 11am.

The exact start time will depend on the number of people we have enter this week.

Jacqui also won nearest the pin on hole 9 as well so well done darling. Her new handicap is 10.3 which on the ladies slope gets 13 shots at Almerimar.

We had lunch and the prize giving in the new clubhouse even though it isn´t open yet.

Thanks to Optica Cervantes and all of the other sponsors for a great competition today. Plus thanks to Juan Francisco and all of the staff for making us feel most welcome for the first time in the new clubhouse. 

It isn´t finished yet and is unlikely to open for normal business before September 2010. However, I guess we might have the odd prize giving and meal in it between now and then.

Here is a video of the ground floor of the clubhouse (not suitable for dial up or pay as you go USB modems as it is 26 MBs).

 

And here is the ground floor wrap-around terrace.

There are stacks of photos here in the Gallery but we feature a few of them if you want to Read More.

As you can see from the starting list here there is a really big field for the competition tomorrow. Well over 100 people are scheduled to take part in the Optica Cervantes competition.

It will be really interesting to see what sort of atmosphere this size of crowd creates in the new clubhouse.

The Roquetas and Almerimar edition of the Sol Times is normally available to be collected in various location around the town every Wednesday.

Each week the results from the previous Friday´s friendly golf competition are published.

The paper came out today in Almerimar and as you can see from the image above contained the results from last Friday(23 July 2010).

We are just back from having a practice round of golf at Almerimar. When we played the 16th we noticed that furniture has been set out on the roof terrace and was being set up on the ground floor of the new clubhouse.

After completing the round we checked the noticeboard by the pro-shop in the AR hotel.

A notice has just gone up on the noticeboard saying that the entry list for the Optica Cervantes golf competition this coming Saturday (31 July 2010) is full.

A second notice has gone up saying that guests can be invited to the lunch and prize giving after the Optica Cervantes competition at a price of 25 euros for adults and 12 euros for children.

A THIRD NOTICE HAS ALSO GONE UP SAYING THAT ALTHOUGH THE CLUBHOUSE IS NOT YET OPEN FOR GENERAL USE IT WILL BE OPEN FOR THE PRIZE GIVING AND LUNCH AFTER THE OPTICA CERVANTES COMPETITION.

A fourth notice says that the clubhouse should be opening soon and people with clubs stored at the hotel should speak to the pro-shop staff about when to make arrangements to move the clubs to the clubhouse. 

Yippppeeeeeeee. We must be close to the clubhouse opening fully. Perhaps in the next week or two?

Yesterday we had our first planning meeting with Alan & Sharon from Alcor Properties for the golf events that we will be organising over the autumn, winter and spring.

We have sorted out some initial details for the Woodsly Cup 2010. Changes this year include the 2nd dinner being held on Saturday evening (30 October) rather than straight after the golf on Friday. Also, we plan to have some live music at the Saturday dinner.

You can find out some more details via the link in our  Featured Events menu on the top left of the page.

It is likely that we will play our pretty regular friendly Sunday afternoon game of golf with Alan & Sharon this afternoon.

One thing I am not looking forward to is putting on the greens here at Almerimar. When we played on Friday most of the greens had been top-dressed to try to save them from burning away.The ball rolled quite well on the top dressed greens but bounced quite a bit if you hit a lump of the top dressing.

The bigger issue is that I have a feeling that a number of the greens may be past saving and we will be putting on a number of bare, brown greens again this summer.

At present I think it is unlikely that the quality of the greens will improve in time for the Optica Cervantes competition this coming Saturday. However the staff are at least trying to do something to improve the greens so maybe they will be a bit better in time for the José López memorial competition on 22 August 2010.

Just back from a practice round of golf and the list is up for entry into the Optica Cervantes golf competition at Almerimar on Saturday 31 July 2010.

There was a rumour that they were trying to have the clubhouse finished in time for this competition.

However the list has a description of the holes where there are going to be nearest the pins and the longest drive based on the current course layout. Also, the notice says that the 40 euros entry fee includes buffet at the hotel and the prizegiving is going to be on the terrace at the hotel after lunch.

I guess this means that the latest target date for opening the new Almerimar clubhouse of by the end of July 2010 looks like it is not going to be hit. This date was published in the Ideal newspaper a while ago. I guess we will have to look out to see whether a new target date gets published.

We had a practice round at Almerimar this afty and when we got there we were told that the 9 holes on the La Ladera side of the road was closed for the day. There was no announcement of the closure so I guess it was a last minute decision.

Looking out of our window it appears that they have top-dressed the green on the current hole number 11 directly outside our apartment. Hopefully they will have done the same to a number of other greens as well as they were in danger of being burned away.

Next golf competition is the Optica Cervantes on Saturday 31 July 2010 so they have only got around a week and a half to try to get some improvement in the condition of the course.

We played in the 3rd round here yesterday on a very hot and humid day. It was not a shotgun start with everyone teeing off from the 1st. The first group teed off at 08.15am and we played in handicap order. John was in the 2nd group and I was in the 4th, so it was an early start for us. Read More.

Further to the article here that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. We are just back from playing in a golf competition at Almerimar this morning.

At the moment the course really does need some tender loving care. Rather than getting better the state of the course seems to be deteriorating as the opening day for the clubhouse gets closer.

It will be such a shame if the owners of the course and hotels miss out on the opportunity that the new clubhouse and hotel is likely to offer Almerimar over the next 12 months and beyond.

As if the golf isn´t exciting enough, some of the outfits are certainly getting everyone´s attention.

Ian Poulter as always, turns heads in his eye catching golfwear (pictures below).

 

But this year, the top prize has got to go to John Daly for his unusual outfits and to keep it in the family, his girlfriend has been wearing the same patterns (below).

This list of results is now up on the noticeboard by the pro-shop. As we already published Hans O & Eduardo came first with 46 points. Two pairs of junior golfers from Almerimar came second and third with each pair of golfers scoring 45 points. Very good scores indeed this year.

Ideal have published a story about the recent Bacardi Golf comp held here at Almerimar on 4 July. Read more here.

The full results from the Virgen del Carmen golf competition at Almerimar yesterday have yet to be published. 

However Eduardo Pacheco has been told by Juan Francisco that he and Hans Ooft won the competition with a score of 46 points.

Well done to Eduardo and Hans.

As promised to Marianne on email the other day. Here are some updated photos of work on the clubhouse.

As you can see they are laying out the gardens. My guess is that they are going to have to put up a fence between the 16th tee where I took the photo above from and the clubhouse. Otherwise I can imagine balls going through the window.

Read More to see a few more photos of the clubhouse we took while we were playing Friday golf today. Including one of a rather nice Golf Almerimar sign in plaster they are installing and painting to the left of the entrance. You can also see the mature trees that they have planted in the gardens to make it feel like the clubhouse and gardens have been around for some time.

You can see the Almerimar Golf Course here on Facebook.

One feature of interest is the ability for Facebook members to review the course. I have entered my initial review of the course and will be happy to provide an updated review in due course depending on whether circumstances change.

I feel it is a brave decision to give people the opportunity to review the course. It does give people a chance  to give feedback to the owners of the course on a public forum.

If you do choose to use the review facility please try to be positive about things and say how things can improve rather than just slag the course off.

Well done to Manolo Gomez Escudero for winning the competition at Almerimar today with 40 points. Second  place went to Pepe Escobar with 37 points who beat John Flynn (who also had 37 points) on lower handicap.

John Fielding also had 37 points but was just out of the prizes due to his higher handicap.

Afterwards we all had lots of mojitos or Bacardi & cokes plus tapas and runny rice. There was also a very good sorteo where Isabel F, Roisin, Jacqui, Alan Sl, Robbie and many others won lots of prizes in the raffle.

Time for a relaxing evening on the sofa now.

I am normally a ´glass half empty´ type of person but I have tried my hardest to make this article as positive as possible.

Read More for my views on why the owners of the Almerimar Golf Course have a great opportunity at the moment.

 

The owners of the house with the glass front made an ombudsman complaint about stray golf balls

This article on Costa News caught my attention.

A British couple claimed they were driven out of their home because it was being continually hit by golf balls.

Read more.