HISTORY
Des Murray First President 1983
Like many social societies, Tee Set started as group of friends with a common interest in golf and with no ambition or forethought as to what the future may look like, only a desire to get together each Sunday for some friendly competition and a few beers afterwards.
As such, the annals of Tee Set past are rather bare and so the below is a piece-meal summary gleaned from the hazy recollections of the more tenured members still around to contribute and a few records which past Presidents have been able to retrieve from the days when computers had entered the Tee Set administrative universe. We certainly welcome further contributions and any corrections as these may become available.
The Jakarta Tee Set Golf Society, as it was initially known, played its inaugural game at Sawangan Besar on 4th September 1983. The players at this first game included Des Murray, Dale Potter, Jack Larson, Jean Bammel and Ed Jack.
In early 2007 Tee Set collapsed to only 4 players and the president put the Handicap flash drive and cash pouch on the table stating that he was leaving Indonesia. This occurred at Riverside where Alex Kushnir, David Tarcy, Geoff Thwaites and Peter Richlmier were the only players. Tee Set was on life support for half an hour until Geoff and Dave decided to keep Tee Set alive. After a few months the number of players improved with the introduction of Website, open to non-oilfield hands etc. Including Championship event, a fact we know as they were all still going strong when Tee Set celebrated its 25th Anniversary at Pangkalan Jati in 2008. Who else was there is unknown but we do have an photo from one of the early years, an early playing of the Tee Set Championship looking at the trophy taking pride of place on the chair.
CLUBMANAlthough whether he was at the inaugural game is not known, we are fairly confident that Clyde Wickiser was our longest serving active member (at least for now with Anthony King passing 31 years at 2019 Championships); Clyde was active in Tee Set from the earliest years until 2015 before ill health forced him to stop playing, although he continued as member until he passed away in 2018. In recognition of his long association to Tee Set, the Clubman of the Year award was established by President Roger Finnie in 2018 as the Clyde Wickiser Memorial Trophy.
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Clyde Wicker Inaugural Clubman in recognition of his long service with Tee Set
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Tee Set, being largely a group of expatriates working in oil and gas in the early years, went through some ups and downs linked to life and the economic situation here in Jakarta. Its low point (or at least one of them) was on 4th February 2007 when just 4 Tee Setters turned out for a game at Pangkalan Jati: Geoff Thwaites, Dave Nesbitt Ric Wymer and Alwyn Nesbitt being the recorded attendees that week. Since then Tee Set has grown and thrived thanks to the various efforts and initiatives of each subsequent President and their Committees.
Spurred by the low turn out, Tee Set sought to expand its player base beyond the oil and gas industry by reaching out to potential and existing players digitally, starting with the creation of a new website by Geoff & Sam Thwaites in 2007/8 and further enhanced by the blog site created in 2012 by our current Web-Guy Keith Miller, a development which also enabled us reach out to potential new players/arrivals to Jakarta through links to new arrival web-sites and latterly Facebook. Presently, Tee Set has over 20 nationalities turning out week in and week out and their business occupations are as diverse as Jakarta's economic environment. Our weekly blogs are followed by over 600 current and past players and almost 400 (397 to be precise!) different players participated in a Tee Set event in 2019.
Spurred by the low turn out, Tee Set sought to expand its player base beyond the oil and gas industry by reaching out to potential and existing players digitally, starting with the creation of a new website by Geoff & Sam Thwaites in 2007/8 and further enhanced by the blog site created in 2012 by our current Web-Guy Keith Miller, a development which also enabled us reach out to potential new players/arrivals to Jakarta through links to new arrival web-sites and latterly Facebook. Presently, Tee Set has over 20 nationalities turning out week in and week out and their business occupations are as diverse as Jakarta's economic environment. Our weekly blogs are followed by over 600 current and past players and almost 400 (397 to be precise!) different players participated in a Tee Set event in 2019.
FIRST LADY COMMITTEE MEMBER
Cucu Chandra was appointed to the Tee Set committee as the first lady of Tee Set in 2022. Cucu has been a strong supporter of Tee Set since 2009, she has contributed to and participated in many of our great events. CONGRATULATIONS !
