Captain’s Blog No 7, (15.06.20)
In these very strange times I wanted to mark the delayed beginning of the competitive golf season with a significant event – hence ‘Not the Captain’s Drive In’ on Saturday. It was a wonderful day. The weather was great (much better than forecast!), the turn out (112 players) was fantastic and the generosity of members was stunning (we raised nearly £2000 for Prostate Cancer UK).
There are many people to thank. Rachel for her calm organisation, the greens team for setting up the course and the gazebo on the 9th, IPC Ian Jackson for his early morning starting duties, VC Gordon Wallace for his marathon stint on the 1st tee, Sue Worrall and Alan Dunne for sorting out all the scores and results and Isabelle for her unflagging support both in the lead up and on the day. A huge thank you to you all.
And most importantly thank you to everyone who took part or donated to the charity. It was a real pleasure to meet everybody on the 9th tee, many familiar faces but also lots of new members. There was a lovely atmosphere all day, everybody had a smile and a kind word (even those who sliced their tee shots into the car park!). Days like this emphasis why Pryors Hayes is such a great club to be a member of.
For the record the Prize Winners were;
Ladies Men’s Division 1 Men’s Division 21st, Margaret Davies 37pts 1st, Steve McLetchie 36pts 1st, Keith McLetchie 48pts
2nd, Pat Coulson 37pts 2nd, David Ephraim 35pts 2nd, Andrew Jackson 40pts
3rd, Linda Heaher 34pts 3rd, Michael Smith 35pts 3rd, Hugh Rowlands 39pts
4th, Erica Cowley 33pts 4th, Alan Runciman 34pts 4th, Thomas Gibbons 37ptsNTP, Pam Stonehouse NTP, Steve Winterson
Captain’s Challenge
11 (only 11!) hit the green and won a sleeve of balls,
The roll of honour; Steve Winterson, Pete Reynolds, Alan Runciman, Tony Gibbons, Bob Grindey, Fred Worrall, Dave Williams, Pam Stonehouse, Alan Hughes, Garry Randles, Howard Davies
39 players beat the Captain. They were entered into a draw and the winner of a fourball voucher for Llanymynech Golf Club was;
David EphraimWell done to the winners, I will try to see each winner at the club over the next week to make a social distanced presentation of the prizes.
Other Competition News;
All 3 competition groups (Ladies, Men and Seniors) are now up and running. Perhaps the most notably feature of the first rounds of competitions has been the very healthy numbers taking part, clearly we have all missed the thrill of competition.
The Ladies kicked things off with the Porter Challenge EWGA Medal on June 4th. Some players might have been rusty but not Karen Jones who won with an excellent net 65. Even more remarkable was Ann Yue’s winning score in division 3 of the Saturday stableford on June 6th, 49pts!! Fantastic round, well done.
The Men have started with a couple of stablefords, with the best return to date from James Page in the midweek stableford on June 10th with 42pts, good round. In the next couple of weeks there are several trophy competitions coming up, so its time to sharpen up the game!
The Seniors programme started with a stableford on June 9th, the best result was 43pts for past Captain, Dave Tweddle, pretty impressive stuff!
Captain’s Matchplay Challenge
I am delighted to report that I have had quite a number of challenges, with several matches arranged for the coming 2 weeks. So far I only have 1 result to report, a defeat! Chris and Karen Jones beat Isabelle and me 4 and 2, so are the first names on the role of honour, into the draw for the fourball voucher and early contenders for the Matchplay Challenge prize. Well done (through gritted teeth!).
Final thought – we are still in a pandemic
Playing golf and certainly on a day like Saturday it is easy to forget that we are still in the middle of a pandemic, so it is important that while at the golf club we all continue to observe social distancing and the play safe, stay safe protocols.
All the best
Dave