Seniors Fun Singles

35 Seniors turned up to play our Fun Singles competition on Tuesday 8th March. It was originally scheduled for February 15th when it was to be “Beyond the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” but due to all the recent storms we didn’t get it played until today when it was tagged “The Incident of the Mad March Hare”. We were glad we waited as the weather was glorious and the course had dried out nicely. Our greenkeepers did us proud by preparing a really good track with all 18 summer greens in play.

We played a singles stableford off 95% of yellow tees handicaps. Mulligans were available for purchase at £1 each and every competitor bought the maximum of two. In fact with the £2 entry, £2 for mulligans and £1 for the raffle, it was pleasing to note that every competitor went for “the full Monty” of £5 entry.

When we got in we had a pleasant surprise as Jim Ferguson had provided whisky for us to celebrate his recent birthday. Thank-you Jim, it went down a treat.

Many thanks to Jo Latham for checking the cards for us today.

Our winner today was our Seniors’ Chairman, Roger Sharples with 42 points (back 9 of 24). Jo presented Roger with his voucher and then Roger went on to present the other prizes. 2nd place went to David Barnes who also had 42 points (back 9 of 22). There were two scores of 41 points, but Rob Sloman took third place (back 9 of 22). The best front 9 (not in first 3) was also won on a card play-off by Richard Wise with 22 points (last 6 of 15 points). The best back 9 (not in first 3) was won by Eddie Renshaw with 23 points.

Our nearest the pin prize on the 18th was a bottle of whisky (kindly donated by David Sutcliffe) and this was won by John Waugh (1.2 metres). The “busiest golfer” prize (sleeve of balls) went to Douglas Dale with 18 points. We had 4 nominations for our “shot of the day” prize. David Barnes described his tee shot on 7 that went right up the middle only to miraculously disappear. Peter Baines described his 3 foot putt on the 8th that somehow went 6 foot past the hole. Richard Wise described his putt on the 6th that went in for a par – his playing partners were flabbergasted when he declared “that’s 4 for 5 points!”. Finally Stuart Foulds described his tee shot on the 10th. According to Stuart he had played quite well up to that point, but was dismayed when his ball hit the wall and rebounded into Myer’s Dyke. As he still had a Mulligan to use he declared “mulligan” and teed off once more (without penalty). Unfortunately this shot also rebounded off the wall and again went into the dyke. To decide the winner, our “Yes-o-meter” was deployed. As the “YES” for Stuart Foulds was nearly deafening, he was awarded the prize (a mug with a funny word printed on it).

Finally we had our raffle. We thanked those Seniors who had brought bottles for our raffle: Mike Pearce, Rob Sloman, Tony Pidgeon, Steve Abbott, Stuart Foulds and Jamie Vernon. After the raffle it was confirmed that with the entry money and donations by Derek Middleton and Mike Pearce we had collected £205. As we had been quite stingy with the prize vouchers (£35), this meant that we had made £170 for the Pro’s charity – Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund. This may increase as we are promised more donations by a few Seniors who could not play today.

A very good day was had by all.

Jo Latham presenting Roger Sharples with 1st prize