A sensational 38 points over 15 holes by Les Fecitt took the honours in Round 6 of the winter league last Friday.

The top of the Division 1 leaderboard is unchanged, with Charlie Heath and Michael John in first and second place respectively. However, the handicap committee (Bob, Paddy and me) meets tomorrow. I have had a cursory look at our spreadsheet, and I suspect that Charlie will be ‘knocked’, as will Michael – our mathematician-in-residence and former member of the Handicap sub-committee – who will doubtless be analysing (to no avail) the arithmetic mean, and median and modal averages for the last 8 matches!

In Division 2, Phil Perry, has been overtaken by Colin Hughes. See the Leaderboards page for more details.

A reminder of the handicap rules established last year: single-figure handicap players can choose to use their WHS handicap. Although we had hoped that everyone would be committed to WHS, this has not transpired, and so we need to maintain a separate system for the senior section.

I don’t doubt that the Div 1 and Div 2 league leaders will uncomplainingly accept any redress to handicap, and, in good sporting spirit, maintain their good form going into the closing matches of the season. In other words, it’s still all to play for!

Staying on the subject of handicaps, Peter Willson reports that 4 people used a wrong handicap last week. In the Senior Section, you won’t be disqualified for marking against the wrong handicap, but please do check your handicap on the Senior’s noticeboard before marking your card on Friday morning, to make Peter’s task a little bit easier in his weekly scrutiny of every scorecard before he populates the spreadsheet.

Match Report for Winter League: 6 of 10 – Friday 10th February

Started from the 10^th hole. Mainly dry, still cold weather but the course continues to dry out, allowing the bottom fairways to be cut.

Results:

Division 1:
1st Les Fecitt (38 points)
2nd Graham Brickell (36 points, on countback)
3rd Dave Meir (36 points)

Division 2:
1st Alan Thomas (35 points)
2nd Jeff Chapman (34 points)
3rd Colin Hughes (34 points)

2s: Michael John; Charlie Hill; Bob Mycock; Colin Chisnall

Happy Mondays

Monday 13th Feb. Team stableford: all players to score and divide the result by the number of players in the team.

Four teams competed in the event. It was a fine day which improved continously from the early starters at the ungodly hour of 07:32, when saw Chissie and Alan T set the ball rolling as a 2 ball due to no-shows.

3 balls followed, Charlie Heath, Steve Barlow, & Les Fecitt. Next: Ron Thornton, Tony Lambert and Charlie Hill, and finally the 4 ball of Bob Mycock, Paddy Moran, Peter 2LLs and Steve Rowley.
Struggling to cope with their reduced team, Colin & Alan scored 26pts (div by 2 =13pts),
then Bob, Paddy, Pete & Steve R scored 108pts (div by 4 = 27pts),
followed by Ron, Tony & Charlie Hill with 85pts (div by 3 =28.3 pts),

and the winners were:
Charlie Heath, Steve B & Les with a score of 99 pts (div by 3 =33pts).

As the weather improves let’s hope to see more teams turning out for our ‘Happy Mondays’.

Match Reporter: Les Fecitt

Message from the Committee on Friday and Monday Availability

David Craggs asks us all to let him know, a few weeks in advance (if possible), of any Fridays for which we know we are going to be unavailable, be it for holidays, dental appointments, looking after grandchildren, etc,. Please help David to produce a more realistic booking schedule by informing him of your known Friday absences.

Peter Willson looks after the Monday competitions. He asks members to let him know if they no longer want to be regularly included in the ‘Happy Mondays’ bookings. If you only play on Mondays very occasionally (as I do) you can usually find a spare slot without needing to be included in the regular bookings.

Wednesday Greens Volunteers (‘Dad’s Army’)

Those of us who play golf regularly on Wednesday mornings often see familiar faces of the Senior Section working on the golf course. They look after everything from the smallest details (such as repainting the engraved letters on the stone markers), to refilling and re-seeding divots, to more arduous tasks, involving chainsaws and heavy lifting, all in support of our remunerated staff and their guidance and expertise. The volunteers are a fit bunch of men, by any standard! And with some former civil engineers on the team, they know a thing or two about drainage, construction and groundworks.

Last week, Andy Timms, John Tomlinson, Grahame Brickell and Phil Young, ably led by Andrew “Captain Chainsaw” Cox, cleared away some of the saplings that had seeded on the bank to the right of the 11th and then (see picture above) cleared away the damaged branches from the willow to the left of the 3rd after it suffered storm damage a few weeks ago. It looks a bit tidier round there now, and it should make it easier to spot your ball if you tug your drive over there!

Andy Timms, former civil engineer, has agreed to update us regularly about ongoing projects.

I spotted Andy Timms this morning. They let him out in the little red buggy. Here is his report today, in which he introduces the team:

How far is it?

The greens volunteers numbered just two this week, namely Cox and Timms. However we covered quite a lot of ground. We picked up and jet washed all the 150 and 100 yard markers on the course, and then neatly replaced them. No excuses now for not knowing how far it is to the green!

Just the two of us is an unusually low number to turn out. I must acknowledge the efforts of the much larger army of “regulars” who turn out on a Wednesday morning. The team currently includes (in no particular order), Andrew Cox; Phil Young; Duncan Clarke; Paul Lennie; John Tomlinson; Tim Langley; Richard Cooper; Barry McGuigan; Grahame Brickell; Bob Ellison; Dave Jones; Ken Everett; Mike Pigott; Ted Broady; Nigel Boucher; Koos Alders; Richard Catchpole; Andy Timms.

If anyone else is interested in joining us on a Wednesday morning for a couple of hours, get in touch with Andrew Cox or Phil Young and they’ll get you added to the WhatsApp group.

Greens Volunteers Report: Andy Timms

And finally

Congratulations to Tony Lambert, who, with his son Steven Lambert, came 3rd in the Saturday competition (Canadian foursomes), scoring 41 points over 15 holes.

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles