My wife has recently taken up golf. This involves her asking many questions about golf terms, rules and etiquette that most us take for granted. I have come to realise what a huge and strange glossary of terms we have!

All golfing terms have their own history of course. Just a few examples: ‘Fairway’ was a nautical term for a navigable channel. ‘Stymie’ is from the Dutch ‘stuit mij’ meaning ‘it stops me’. ‘Par’ was borrowed from the stock exchange, where a stock was considered above or below its normal or ‘par’ figure. ‘Stableford’ comes from Frank Stableford, who first used the scoring system he conceived at a competition at Wallesey Golf Club in 1932. ‘Bogey’ apparently dates to 1890 at Great Yarmouth, where a Major Charles Wellman exclaimed that someone was playing ‘like a bogeyman’… More recently, the term ‘Honourable Draw’ was invented by seniors at Lymm Golf Club as a euphemism for ‘we lost again’!

Our unbroken series of Honourable Draws has continued in the past week, with an Honourable Draw at home against Heyrose, and an Honourable Draw away at Sale. However, I think we are making some progress that gives us reason for hope!

Inter-club match versus Heyrose, home at Lymm – 28 May 2023

Captain’s Report: Grahame Brickell

Having just returned from 3 days golf in sunny Spain with 3 of our good golfers I was hopeful of a Captain’s performance, but unfortunately the chilly, dull, and dampish conditions on Friday morning didn’t feature in my plan and hence my partner Jeff Ashurst and I were 1 down after 1! Didn’t fair much better on the rest of the front 9 and after one of our opponents nailed a 15 footer on the 9^th for a 2, we walked to the 10^th 4 down! And it basically stayed that way coming to 15, and with my missed par putt so a half there ended the match!… sorry team.

Overall, it was a better team performance compared with the away matches played so far, but then we were at home! With some after match cries of ‘handicap fowls’ it ended being a win for the apparent Mexican’s from Heyrose by 4.5 to our 3.5

Grahame Brickell (CoD)/Jeff Ashurst Lost 4&3
Andrew Cox/Mike Bennett Halved
Alan Ranscombe/John White Lost 2 Down
Trevor Williams/Phil Ormesher Won 1 Up
Mark Pickles/Peter Willson Won 2&1
John Hayes/Rob Taylor Lost 2 Down
Colin Hughes/Art Laird Lost 5&4
Phil Perry/Ken Narraway Won 2 Up

The individual steak pies were greatly enjoyed by all!

Grahame Brickell

Interclub-match away at Sale – 2 May 2023

Captain’s Report: Mark Pickles

This was Lymm’s first ever inter-club senior friendly with Sale, and I think we all found it very enjoyable. Sale Golf Club made us feel very welcome, and I hope that my brief ‘thank you’ speech successfully conveyed our appreciation. (I decided it was better not to tell a joke this time, because no-one laughed at the joke I told when I was captain-for-the-day at Northenden last year!)

Sale’s captain of the day had decided to match the handicaps in all matches as closely as possible. I think that this worked really well, and everyone enjoyed the competitive spirit of the day. My match partnering Steve Barlow went down to the wire, with the last putt on the 18th. And Steve Gosling tells me that his match partnering John Armstrong was similar. Well done to Bob Mycock and John Hayes, and to Andrew Cox and Richard Yates on winning away from home on an unfamiliar course.

All the matches were fairly close, and they all went to at least the 16th hole. I think this was good, considering that some of the team had never played at Sale before yesterday.

Result: Lymm lost 6 to 2
Mark Pickles (CoD)/Steve Barlow Lost 1 Down
Bob Mycock/John Hayes Won 2&1
Grahame Brickell/Rob Taylor Lost 2 Down
Andrew Cox/Richard Yates Won 4&2
Paddy Moran/Mike Bennett Lost 3&1
Steve Gosling/John Armstrong Lost 1 Down
Paul Lennie/Jeff Ashurst Lost 2 Down
Pete Broady/Phil Lomas Lost 3&2

Individual Stableford, 28 May (alongside Heyrose match)

Cards submitted: 35
Weather: Chilly breeze, cloudy but sunny spells later in the morning – 11 deg. C.

Winner: Stuart Baird – 35 points                                                        

Second place: Paul Collins – 34 points                                                        

Third= place: Eric Cox and Pete Broady – 33 points  (CPO over last 6 holes)

Bottle of wine goes to the winner, Stuart.

Tee Booking Schedule tomorrow (Thursday 4th May)

This is the tee booking schedule for play on Friday 19th May. Due to a home match against Bramhall, 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. 

If your name is not on the booking schedule, you are probably in the provision team list for the Bramhall match. Here is the provisional team (15 names so far):

S Gosling CoD
M Marsland
J Higgins
B Smith
J Hayes
P Broady
B Mycock
J White
P Collins
M Pickles
P Willson
D Craggs
M Piggott
P Lomas
G Brickell

The WhatsApp Group for Inter-club friendlies

John Armstrong reports that there is too much ‘chat’ activity in the group. Please keep your inputs to essential information for John to arrange the matches. This makes it easier – for those of us who need to ‘mute’ notifications – to search for the information we need when we need it.

You do not need to tell us all when you have paid your fees to Steve Gosling. Steve can see who has and has not paid into the bank account.

Steve reminds us to pay as soon as possible, and to please include your surname in the payment reference. (I think that money from some bank accounts automatically show the name of the payer to Steve, but other accounts do not.)

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles