Men’s Golf Captain’s Blog

Roehampton Club has a deep and wide pool of golfers – one of the joys of Captaincy is playing with people with whom you’ve never before ‘teed it up’ with.  Last weekend I was delighted to join Tim Frosdick, Paul Viita and Danny Glasner in an early morning round. Thanks, chaps, for letting me join you!

As I write this blog I am very much looking forward to the Men’s Golf Dinner on Friday 18th November. This is an absolute highlight of the year and close to 120 Members are looking forward to questioning the BBC Sports Broadcaster Andrew Cotter about his experiences and his now famous dogs Olive and Mabel. This coming weekend Ricky Pharo and I will be taking on Neil Anderson and Graham Terry in Captain and Pro. With a clear day between the Men’s Dinner and our match, I fear they may be in good form!

This past week saw 16 golfers from the scratch section grace the fairways of Amendoeira in Portugal in a bit of bonding to celebrate the end of the competitive golf seasons. Messrs Birn, Musikant, Tonge, Crotty, Begley, Findley, Wells and Bamford took on Gorman, Verbeek, Skogland, Hunt, Hamilton, Truman, Conlan and Hamilton in a ‘man on man’ Ryder Cup style match.

 

Played off scratch, every match went to the last putt and the glory of delivering victory to ‘Team Gorman’ 10.5 – 9.5 went to Will Major with a stunning last hole victory over Alex Tonge.

 

Finally, as conditions get ever softer can we all be vigilant for pitch marks on greens.  Through the winter even the lowest shots leave pitch marks and many of us are simply not used to looking for them!  The received wisdom is to look for your own mark, repair it and then repair two others. If we all do this, we will keep magnificent surfaces into next season.

Keep it straight!

Simon Butler, Men’s Golf Captain