Good evening, all.

The senior section activities have certainly started to ramp up since the main golfing season started earlier this month. If you’re playing in the seniors’ singles knockout, and you haven’t got a bye in the preliminary round, please try to organise your match as soon as possible, because the first round needs to be played before 9th June, which means you only have about 6 weeks to organise two matches.

Whilst is it great that we have two new clubs for the inter-friendly matches (Sale and Bramhall), it means John Armstrong is particularly busy organising the events, contacting our own members and communicating with the other golf clubs.

Our Treasurer Steve Gosling also has his work cut out, chasing up payments for home and away matches. Please pay your match fees as soon as you know you have been selected for a team.

To help communicate with our own members, John Armstrong has created a WhatApps Group:

WhatsApp Group: Lymm Seniors Matches

We appreciate that not everyone is familiar with WhatsApp, but if you have a ‘Smart’ phone, it is easy to download and use. Please do join the group. John has started to add names to the group to communicate with everyone who wants to play in the inter-friendlies.

I know that many of our senior section use WhatsApp, and would be willing to help novices to get started.

Here is a screenshot of Lymm Seniors Matches group from my own phone. Please not that you can ‘mute’ notifications (to stop your phone pinging incessantly), and just look at the group chat once a day, or more regularly if you’ve got a match coming up.

When you join the group, please only use it for relevant communications. If you want to send jokes that you have found on social media, please keep those to the ‘Sultans of Swing’ group, which, I have to admit, I permanently ‘muted’ long ago!

Match Report for 21 April: Round 4 of the Summer League

Reporter: Peter Willson

Date played: 21^st April 2023
Game played: Round 4 – Summer Session  
Number of cards submitted: 39 – Division 1 – 23 players and Division 2 – 16 players
2’s recorded: Dave Waggitt

Division 1:                       
Winner: Phil Perry – 34 points
2nd: Paul Collins – 32 points (CPO over last 6 holes from Mike Pigott)
3rd: Mike Pigott – 32 points

Division 2:
Winner: Colin Chisnall – 34 points
2nd: Joe Priestner – 33 points
3rd: Sammy Lee – 31 points (CPO over last 6 holes from Andrew Ransom)

Notes
Course drying out – played over 15 holes.
Cold wind – light showers around 12 noon
Handicaps – All correct this week!

Scandal Note!
Phil Perry had an interesting hole on the 12^th:
1^st shot in the pond,
4^th shot into the field OOB
7^th shot front edge of green at least 50 feet away
8^th shot into the hole for 1 point !

Moral: don’t give up or just get lucky!

Tee Booking Schedule tomorrow (Thursday 27th April)

This is the tee booking schedule for play on Friday 12th May. Due to a match against Helsby GC, there will be no league match, and therefore a prize of a bottle of wine. If your name is in the left column, please book for your group. 

Happy Mondays 24th April

Reporter: Peter Willson

16 reasonably Happy golfers set out from the 1st. At least it wasn’t raining and the ground is drying out, but it was nippy at first.

The greens are improving and getting measurably faster.
6 teams: 2 x 2 balls and 4 x 3 balls – played Team Stableford although there was some confusion over the format at first. A re-think needed I feel.

The winners – Steve Barlow, Steve Gosling and John White – 94 points or 31.3 per player
2nd – Mike Bennett and Richard Yates – 59 points or 29.5 per player
3rd – Pete Broady, Ken Narraway and Peter Willson – 81 points or 27.0 per player

Welcome new member !

A warm welcome to Steve Bramhall, who joined us this week. I asked Steve if he would like to introduce himself, and he has kindly provided the following:

“When I retired in 2017 from over 50 years of full-time work in the construction industry, I undertook to play more golf and to improve. After three more years of part-time work, I undertook to play more golf and to improve. In the process of moving to Grappenhall Heys, I have recently joined Lymm Golf Club and I intend to play more golf and to improve! We’ll see! Wendy, my wife of 46 years and our 3 children and 5 grandchildren, in Jersey, California and Thelwall Village, all tell me that they have heard this before!”

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles

Lots of news to get through this week! Our 2022 Championship took place, as did the first round of the Tatton League, hosted at Lymm. We have played two inter-club friendlies since the last newsletter. The promise of better weather is attracting players back to ‘Happy Mondays’. And we have good news to report on Mike Pigott’s progress in the Cheshire Super Seniors (over 65s) scratch team.

Thank you to Rob Taylor for his help in reporting, and to the inter-club friendly captains for their reports. Also, thanks to Tatton League captain Bob Mycock, with support from Les Williams and Rob Taylor, for superb organisation in hosting the Tatton League and welcoming all the visitors from our neighbouring clubs.

Championship 2022 – Played Friday 14th April 2023

Reporter: Rob Taylor

No, not a misprint – it is the 2022 competition.

Cast your minds back. This final was scheduled to be played in the September of last year but had to be postponed because of the drought and the fall out from the failed storage tank in the irrigation system .

So, on a Friday in April ( some 8 months later) ,  22 of our finest players were invited to compete for the coveted “Green Jersey” . The winner to be  be named the  Senior Champion of 2022.

Now April . . . weather wise?

Well,  ever so perversely, it actually rained.

A light drizzle when the first group tee’d off at 08.00 but it got steadily harder  – you know, the right-through- to- your- underwear harder. And it kept on raining until well after the last group staggered in from the 15^th hole some 3 ½ hours later.

17 players made it to the start line ( the missing 5 had produced notes from their mothers along the lines of “Johnny gets a chest if he plays out in the damp”) but only  13 made it to the finish. One of the later groups decided to call it quits at hole 12 – cards were soaked and mostly illegible anyway so probably a wise decision.

And the results?

Only 2 players managed par or better. The runner up was Mark Pickles with a creditable 30 points, just pipped at the post by the new 2022 Senior’s Champion, with 31 points . . . . .

Paul Lennie, presented with the ‘Green Jersey’ by our chairman Mike Bennett. And a photo of the scoreboard for those who may be interested.

Many thanks to all that stayed for the presentation.

Tee Booking Schedule tomorrow (Thursday 20th April)

This is the tee booking schedule for play on Friday 5th May. Due to a match against Hale GC, there will be no league match, and therefore a prize of a bottle of wine. If your name is in the left column, please book for your group. Please note that if your name is not included below, you are most likely on the provisional list for the team match against Hale GC.

Match report for 14th April

Individual Stableford, for those who did not play in the championship. The difficult weather conditions were as the reported in the championship of course.

13 cards submitted.

Winner: Steve Gosling: 30 points.
Runners up: Peter Willson and Eric Cox: 29 points.

A nice bottle of Rioja went to the winner Steve.

Inter-club Match away at High Legh – 13th April

Captain’s report: John Hayes

Lymm Senior’s Team headed towards the match at High Legh full of optimism and intending to come back with the bacon. Unfortunately something didn’t quite work and the result was an honourable draw heavily in favour of the opposition. However the captain took full responsibility and has suggested that he be rested from captaincy for the remainder of the season!

J Hayes (C) / A Timms: Lost 3 and 1
M Pickles / M Lowe: Won 1 up
R Taylor / P Ormesher: Lost 2 and 1
B Mycock / P Moran: Lost 2 and 1
K Narraway / J White: Lost 3 and 2
S Lee / T Williamson: Lost 3 and 2
S Barlow / A Laird: Won 3 and 2
P Perry / P Lennie: Lost 1 up

The overall result was therefore a win for High Legh by 6 to 2.

The course had suffered heavy overnight rain [as had Lymm GC, where the bottom half of the course had to be closed] and there were several areas of standing water. The saving grace was that it didn’t rain whilst we were playing despite being forecast by the media, which meant that we were able to enjoy the game. The greens were fast and true which took some getting used to for some of us. Given that the games were all quite closely fought the overall result could have gone the other way. We were provided with an excellent meal to end the day and we look forward to entertaining High Legh at Lymm later in the year.

Inter-club Match away at Leigh – 18th April

Captain’s Report: Duncan Clarke

Duncan Clarke/Grahame Brickell: Halved
Mike Bennett/Steve Gosling: Won 6&4
John Armstrong/Steve Barlow: Lost 4&3
Richard Yates/Peter Willson: Lost – 2&1
Peter Broady/Paul Collins: Lost 4&2
Colin Crail/Stuart Baird: Lost 4&3
John Higgins/Alan Ranscombe: Lost 3&2
Sammy Lee/Mervyn Roberts: Won think 2&1

Wonderfully sunny day  and a real hint of spring – very enjoyable. All left with a smile on our faces although in some cases it might have been wind!

Tatton League, Round 1 of 6 – 18th April

Reporter: Rob Taylor

Today saw the opening round of the 2023 Tatton League competition being played here at our Lymm home course.

And the course looked its spring-time best in the brilliant, but oh, so deceiving, sunshine. The benign green fairways with a backdrop of fluffy white clouds belied the voracious shot-devouring beast that it became.

A gentle breeze soon turned into a “beast from the East”. Playing off the white tees, most of which were right back on the plates (perhaps Captain Bob had arranged it?), and with little run on the ball on the lower fairways, it was tough! Paddy Moran reported that his playing partners from High Legh described the course-difficulty level as ‘brutal’. At LGC, we prefer to call it ‘character building’. 😉

Alas – here are the all-important scores:

Styal: 124
High Legh: 131
Antrobus: 133
Birchwood: 135
Heyrose: 142 ( defending champions – 2 years running)
Lymm: 145

A great start to our campaign for this season. The good news doesn’t stop there though:

Best pair score of the day – 39 Points. Mark Pickles and Andy Timms. A bottle of wine apiece for their fine efforts. And you want more?

Longest drive – 15^th hole. The band wagon rolled on – Mark Pickles collecting his second bottle of the day.

The only accolade not scooped by our team was the nearest the pin on the 9^th which went to Ray Hodgkinson from Antrobus.

So  – after round 1. We have our nose in front. We have a pool of talented players. We have an immensely experienced manager guiding the team – Bob Mycock!

What could possibly go wrong!

Heyrose on 16^th May – the next challenge is already on the tee.

The Tatton League page will keep us abreast of the 2023 campaign.

‘Happy Mondays’ 17th April

Reporter: Peter Willson

Eleven happy-ish golfers set out from the 1st happy mainly because it wasn’t raining – bit of drizzle around the 6th.

Game: Team Stableford
Winners – Phil Lomas, Dave Waggitt and Steve Barlow – 83 points or +7 / 27.7 per player

2nd – Colin Chisnall, Alan Thomas, Charlie Heath and Jim Russell – 103 points or -17 or 25.8 per player

3rd – Ken Narraway, Les Fecitt (how many trees did he hit and bounce out of today?), Charlie Hill and Pete Willson – 97 points or -23 points or 24.3 points per player.

Mike Pigott at Cheshire ‘Super Seniors’ (over-65s)

Mike was selected to play in the Cheshire over-65 squad get-together at Stockport GC. Five evenly-handicapped fourballs were picked. A scratch best three from fours counted for the teams.

Mike’s team had the best score. And Mike had the best individual scratch score!

Mike tells me he now has a fair chance of being selected for matches against Lancashire, Cumbria, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Shropshire and Hereford later in the season.

Well done, Mike! All-in-all a good week for Lymm GC Seniors: some wins and two ‘honourable draws’ in our away inter-club friendlies! 😉

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles

No Friday-league match report this week as we skipped a week for the Easter holidays.

Tee booking schedule for tomorrow (Thursday 13th April)

This is the tee booking schedule for play on Friday 28th April. Due to the Heyrose match, there will be no league match, and therefore a prize of a bottle of wine. If your name is in the left column, please book for your group.

Inter-Club Matches

Leigh, Away, 18 April:

John Armstrong has drawn the team for the away inter-friendly at Leigh Golf Club on 18 April.

Duncan Clarke
Mike Bennet
Graham Brickell
Alan Ranscombe
John Armstrong
Richard Yates
Peter Broady
Peter Willson
Steve Gosling
Paul Collins
Dave Meir
Ken Pearce
John Higgins
Colin Crail
Stuart Baird
Steve Barlow

Reserves:
Sammy Lee
Ken Narroway
John Hayes
John White
Art Laird

Heyrose, Home, 28 April

And here is the team for the home match against Heyrose on 28 April:

Jeff Ashurst
Mervyn Roberts
Mike Piggott
Ken Narraway
Bob Mycock
Paddy Moran
Mark Pickles
Phil Perry
Colin Hughes
John Hayes
John White
Art Laird
Trevor Williamson
Rob Taylor
Phil Ormisher
Andrew Cox

Reserves:
Peter Broady
Steve Barlow
Duncan Clarke
John Armstrong
Grahame Brickell

John will supply full details for the inter-club matches, including start times and pairings, when he has confirmed them with the other clubs.

Ron Thornton cannot stop winning, and is first in Div 2 league for the third time in a row. I think that, at the next handicap-committee meeting, Ron could be heading for the biggest senior handicap reduction in recorded history! Alan Ranscombe has also posted two successive runner-up scores behind Ron. Well played guys!

Match Report for Summer League: 3 of 10 – Friday 31st March

48 cards posted (26 Div 1 and 22 Div 2).

Standing water in places and muddy – played over 10 holes starting from the10th. Cool, stiff breeze, 11 deg C. Light rain for early starters.

2s recorded: Ron Thornton, Colin Crail, Bob Mycock

Division 1	Division 2
1st: Paul Foster 38 points	1st: Ron Thornton 36 points
2nd: Paul Lennie 36 points	2nd: Alan Ranscombe 36 points
3rd: John Higgins 35 points	3rd=: Gordon Ballentyne, Richard Yates 35 points

I have updated the leaderboards.

‘Happy Mondays’ Report

Reporter: Peter Broady

Yet another senior moment on Monday! Six teams entered the competition, 3 teams played off the correct format, 3 teams played off the wrong format. All scores should have been added together then divided by the number of players in the team, as email instructions.

And so all agreed that the game should be void. I have the cards and money for those who left early.

Tee booking schedule for tomorrow (Thursday 6th April)

This is the tee booking schedule for play on Friday 21st April. If your name is in the left column, please book for your group.

Inter-club friendly match at Warrington

We played the first senior inter-club match of the season today, away at Warrington. Peter Broady was captain of the day, and announced that the recurrent ‘honourable draw’ did not, unfortunately, go Lymm’s way this year!

Result: Lymm lost 2.5 to 5.5.

Peter Broady and John Hayes: lost 4 & 3
Steve Gosling and Peter Willson: won 1 up
Mike Bennett and Mark Pickles: lost 4 & 2
Ken Pearce and John Higgins: lost 6 & 5
Paul Collins and David Meir: won 2 & 1
Mike Pigott and Andrew Cox: lost 4 & 3
Paddy Moran and Colin Crail: lost 1 down
Andy Timms and Stuart Baird: halved

High Legh friendly match (Away)

John Armstrong has now announced the team for the away match against High Legh on 13th April. John Hayes will be captain for the day. Tee off 09:06.

Here is the team:

Start on 1st Tee	Start on 17th Tee
1. John Hayes and Martin Lowe	5. Ken Narraway and John White
2. Mark Pickles and Ron Thornton	Start on 16th Tee 6. Sammy Lee and Trevor Williamson
Start on 18th Tee 3. Rob Taylor and Phil Ormesher	Start on 15th Tee 7. Steve Barlow and Art Baird
4. Bob Mycock and Paddy Moran	8. Phil Perry and Paul Lennie

John Armstrong has emailed full details to all team members, including timings and payment.

Congratulations to Dave Craggs!

Dave sends us this photo from Australia of the marriage of his daughter, Lorna, to Jarrod, an Aussie. The proud parents, Stella and Dave, will themselves soon be celebrating 50 years of marriage!

Padeswood and Buckley Golf Club Senior Open Tuesday 4th July

John Hayes approached me today to say there is still one place left for the trip to Padeswood and Buckley. The format is 4 ball better ball and tee times are 10:30 onwards. The cost for the event is £18 per head. Please contact John Hayes if you are interested – first come first served!

Send me your news

If you have anything to report that might interest the senior section, don’t forget that you can use the ‘Report News’ page on this website. However, the feature does not accept graphics or attachments. If you would like a picture included in your news, please email it to me. If you do email, it would help if you could write ‘Newsletter’ as the email subject, to help me filter things when I put the newsletter together.

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles