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Senior Golfers Report

June Grail

As there was only the June Grail to report in the last issue and no photograph of our worthy winner, I deferred my account of the competition until this edition of the Recorder. 49 Seniors entered the event played on 22nd June. Scoring was not as good as expected in high summer with only eight golfers bettering their handicaps on the day. John Dawes came third with 39 points and David Moss was second on 40 points. But our worthy winner with the excellent score of 43 Stableford points was Ken Pratt. Well done to Ken, pictured below with his trophy. A happy by-product of his great round is that his handicap has come down in time for me to play him in the next round of the Ockleshaw Plate!

Seniors’ invitation day

 

Much of my attention in the last couple of weeks has been taken up by preparations for the Seniors’ Invitation Day which took place on 29th June. With a shotgun start, we filled every hole and doubled up on the 10th. This gave us a field of 37 pairs which included 36 guests.

 

It was an eyeopener to me to observe the enormous amount of work done behind the scenes by the Club’s teams to ensure that the event went off smoothly. The grounds staff set up the course beautifully, including for competitions for nearest the pin and longest drive. The course looked immaculate. The greens were quick and true, and the fairways were great to play from if only you could avoid the rough!

 

The catering staff fed us before the start and at lunch afterwards to their usual high standards. Tristan McIllroy and Louis Laville made our organisation appear as seamless as it could be. The Club was certainly on display at its best.

Results

 

We had some familiar names winning prizes. The best Four Ball Better Ball score was achieved by David Moss and his partner, Philip Warley who carded 46 points. For technical reasons they were unable to claim the main prizes but were rewarded for their efforts with a bottle of fizz each.

 

The official winners on countback were John Gilbert and his guest from Worplesdon, Martin Sumpton. They scored 45 points as did Danny Gesua and his guest Pip Smitham from Royal Mid Surrey. Sneaking into the frame in third place with 44 points was a pairing of myself and Grahame Falconer from the Richmond Club.  It goes to show if you want to win a prize, choose a good partner!

All our winners received excellent tops or polo shirts from the Sports Shop, and I want to record our thanks to Ricky Pharo for offering these at a favourable price. Some of us will be showing off the kit we were fortunate enough to win at the summer progresses!

 

Nearest the pin and longest drive

In the competitions for nearest the pin, the winners were:

7th hole – Guest: Pip Smitham, Royal Mid-Surrey and Member: Nicholas Brown

13th hole – Guest: Nick Dobby, Royal Wimbledon and Member: Simon Culliford.

 

The longest drives were measured on the 16th hole, with Pip Smitham again winning among the guests and Ken Ukoku the winning Member.

All these individual winners received boxes of Titleist golf balls.

Aftermath

I was not surprised to feel exhausted when I arrived home after the event as the event had involved a lot of nervous energy. By the next morning, however, I was testing positive for Covid-19. I had previously tested negative on the preceding two days. I hope to be back on the course in the next week or so, subject naturally to testing negative for covid again! I hope I did not pass it on inadvertently to anyone else. I want to thank everyone for taking part and our visitors for their kind words about Roehampton Club.

A more modest competition was held this week, in which I was unable to take part.

Douglas Millar, Men’s Seniors’ Golf Chairman