What a great weekend!
We started off a fantastic weekend in style on the 1st tee by raising a glass of bubbles to the out-going Chairman and Captain and the incoming Captain Adrian Northeast. It is now a long standing tradition that President and incoming Captain challenge the Captain and Pro on AGM day. It was a great day with bottles popping all the way round but we managed to just sneak a win leaving myself and Tony Filbin undefeated this year. Thank you Tony it was a great year and I thoroughly enjoyed all of our matches.
I would also like to make a special mention to our out-going President, David Barrows, for all the hard work he has put into his 'reign' as President over the last three years. David has been instrumental in pushing through the 1st tee project amongst many other important issues at the club. I know I can speak for the Club in thanking David and wish him well on his mere twenty holidays that he has booked in now he has stepped down, all thoroughly deserved. David passes the President's position over to Mrs Ann Smith who I know will be another great ambassador for the Club.
The AGM was quite uneventful this year with the highlight always being the voting in of our new Men's Captain, Adrian Northeast and Ladies Captain, Sally Morton. Good luck to you both, I know it will be another fantastic year.
So, on the Sunday's Captain's Drive In, tradition dictates that the pasting Captain's putt out on the 18th green and pass the ball over to the NEW Captain who then 'hopefully' blasts the ball up the 18th fairway to seal their new Captain's status. Now I'm not sure how many of you have ever hit a ball in front of well over 150 people, but I can certainly say it's a bit of a nervy experience, not that you would have been able to tell by the three drives witnessed by the crowds. Firstly, up stepped the new Junior Captain Joe Filbin who nailed his drive, so much so I'm not sure it has even landed yet, great drive Joe! Having to follow that was the turn of the new Lady Captain Sally, who was a little nervous not that you would know by the great swing she put on it! Finally, Adrian stepped up, and after a bit of 'getting the crowd going', launched his ball nicely up the 18th. Sorry Adrian, we only got the setup and celebration! Three great drives, well done Captains.
The Presentations
The first role of our new Captains was to make the presentations of the day's Garrett Cup Men's competition as well as the year's knock-outs and Winter League event. Firstly the Garrett Cup was won by very recently elected Vice Captain, David Barnett, with a sensational gross 70 giving him a nett 65 to take the title. What a great start to your year as Vice!
The winners of this year's Winter League event was the formidable partnership of Bill Allison and John Rice. Congratulations to John who also picked up the Victor Ladorium, for the most successful golfer over the entire year.
Congratulations to the beaming Luca Musachio who picked up the Junior Order of Merit for 2015.
Our newly appointed Captain, Adrian Northeast collected The Brodie Helder Pairs knockout, unfortunately Ben, his son, could not be there to bask in the glory. This is the second year in a row that the Northeast's have won this trophy, so come on chaps let's give them a proper challenge this year (The list is up now on the comps board for entries).
The Alexander Rosebowl was won by Mark Bennett who played superbly to beat runner up Rich Halifax in the final.
All in all a fantastic weekend at the club, so again I wish Sally and Adrian a wonderful year and again thank Tony and Diana for all they achieved last year.
This weekend's Easter Competition
I want to clarify the competition for this coming Easter weekend. We originally didn't have the numbers to warrant a competition so we decided to pull it, but since then we have received plenty of calls asking about playing this weekend. So we have now decided to run a pro shop stableford over Easter Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, with the slight difference being that you can make up your own groups and book your own tee times. As per usual please sign up in the pro shop and enter your scores in the PSI machine in the hall. There has been a roll-up booked for 9am so if you have not arranged with anyone else please join in with these chaps. I will email out the results after we close the competition down on Monday night. Good luck to all.