Hills open day a huge success

The Hills Golf Club’s recent open day was a huge success, according to general manager Craig Palmer. 

Palmer, firstly explained why they did it.

“We are constantly inundated with requests from people who just want to come and have a look at the place. Because of our private model the answer is always no.

“So we thought it would be really nice to create one day each year where we could actually say yes, so that was the reason we decided to do it. 

``We did little advertising this year because we wanted to see how it went. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t great, but we were still busier than we expected. We had to have someone assist with parking.” 

The car park filled quickly so the overflow areas were fully utilised.

There were three experiences on the day. 

The opportunity to play The Farm par three course and with a full field of 84 there was a morning tee time and an afternoon tee time. There was the option to dine in the clubhouse and also to walk the course and enjoy the sculptured art work. 

Palmer added: “Very few non members have played The Farm course so it was nice to share that with our compliments.

We asked how many people turned up. 

“There were hundreds. We probably should have had a counter at the gate and the other thing that would have been nice was have somewhere for people to write something about their experience. 

``We will definitely do things a little bit differently next year. People might think doing it midweek is a bit silly but it is the perfect time to do it as the big course is always closed for green renovations from Monday to Thursday that week each year …. and people don’t have to dodge golf balls or anything else so they can have a very good look around.

“Next year we may have a coffee cart at the front of the clubhouse as the restaurant got too busy to handle takeaway coffees, We did think about it for this year but didn’t know how busy we would be. Next year we will get a local company involved and even may have a food truck out on the course as well for snacks. “

The thought of a charity event did come up. 

“We did think earlier this year to have it as some kind of charity event but we decided to make it free of charge and just get a few people through the gate to enjoy the experience. One chap said he would happily pay so we might find a way to make it happen as a charity event. “

Considering it was a rainy and windy day and everyone booked to play The Farm turned up it was a remarkably successful day for the local community. — By Neville Idour.