Senior Men’s Golf Chairman’s Blog
As the days get longer – and the conditions on the course improve – most seniors have their eyes set on the summer golf season. But things have already started to look up. On 15th February we managed to play a team Stableford competition using the step up Waltz format. 22 golfers played and it was the first time this year that I scored better than my handicap. Being blessed with two good partners, I managed to get a share of the prize money with David Todd and Tony Durrant. The team format is a good way to enable all entrants to aspire to win at some time in the year!
February Grail
This week we played the February Grail. The forecast was for continuous rain and so I was delighted that overnight we had 43 seniors remaining on the start sheet and 39 hardy souls who actually played in the drizzly conditions. Amazingly three of our number scored well over 40 Stableford points. The prize winners were:
1st Martin Waller 47 points
2nd Raj Vara 46 points
3rd Richard R Williams 44 points
4th Paul Gordon-Brown 39 points (countback)
5th Peter Bateman 39 points
Congratulations to our winners and to all who braved the conditions to complete their rounds.
March competitions and Grail
We will not have an organised event on Wednesday 1 March as it falls in course maintenance week and so only 9 holes will be open from Monday to Thursday. There will be organised senior competitions on Wednesdays during the rest of the month, with the March Grail being held on the 22nd as, in the following week, the course will be under preparation for the Gold Cup on 1st April. Entry to the Grail will open on 8th March.
I have indicated before that the final qualifying event for the winter eclectic will be on 5th April when the course should be in good fettle following its preparation for the Gold Cup. Currently the eclectic scores are very close, partly because of restricted opportunities during the bad winter weather. This will offer one final chance to climb the eclectic leader board.
Our winter knockouts are reaching a conclusion with Jim Kumar waiting to play Stephen Jones in the final of the Colum Sharkey. The winter foursomes is lagging behind schedule with matches postponed due to bad weather in December and January but I hope that the competition will be concluded before the end of March.
Summer knockouts
Talking of knockouts, entries for the Ockleshaw Cup, the super seniors, the seriously seniors and the senior scratch are now open and entries close on 5 March. Seniors should sign up now to avoid missing the draw.
The summer eclectic will also begin after the close of the winter competition on 5th April.
Douglas Millar, Chairman