The Tatton Trophy is ours !

The headline this week has to be our winning the Tatton Trophy for the first time since the inception of the Tatton League in 2001, 23 years ago. Our team captain, Bob Mycock, chose to present the trophy, on behalf of the team, to Paddy Moran, citing Paddy as the elder of the team, who is nearing his 80th birthday.

It’s been a long wait.

The Tatton League is a league for senior (over 55) golfers of six golf clubs in and around the historic civil parish of Tatton.

Rob Taylor, my newsletter predecessor, often had to try to make light of our Tatton team regularly coming last. I’m delighted therefore to be able to report that we have dramatically turned things around! And long may it continue. Unusually, since Bob took the captaincy three years ago, Lymm has consistently played a team of low-handicap seniors with a desire to win. Indeed, in every round this year, our average handicap has been by far the lowest of all six clubs. The strategy has worked out. It was good to receive congratulations from the other teams yesterday, including that our efforts this year were “well deserved”.

Thank you to Mike Pigott, our Tatton League vice captain, who has written a 2024-roundup, that I have posted at the end of the newsletter.

Seniors’ Championship, Friday 6th September

Firstly, apologies if I get this report wrong. I have had numerous emails to wade through, due to what Peter Willson describes as ‘gremlins in the system’. Even Fizz, in the pro’s shop, was at odds to explain why last Friday’s comp did not finalise correctly. Peter is standing in for our ‘regular’ comps administrator Paul Foster, who is, yet again, somewhere abroad!

After much toing-and-froing, I can confirm that Mike Pigott is this year’s senior champion.

Apologies to Eric Cox, who was initially posted as the winner of the championship, but in fact came second.

Here is Peter Willson’s report:

Held on a fine dry, breezy day with the temperature rising to 26 deg. C at the finish.

21 players took part on the day – finishing just in time before the Junior’s Fundraising Shotgun Start competition was held at 13.00 hours.

A superb last 6 holes by Mike Pigott who was 2 under gross, including 3 birdies.

Some initial confusion on the published results after a glitch in uploading to the website but fully corrected on Sunday.

Winner: Mike Pigott – 32 points 

2nd: Eric Cox – 31 points

3rd: Alan Copeland – 30 points   

Congratulations to all who qualified and took part on the day. 

Abergele Seniors Open

Reporter: Peter Broady

On a cool overcast but dry day we all set out to play in their Seniors Open Competition.
The course was in great condition with fast undulating greens. Sometimes not easy to two putt!
We entered 4 teams of 4 balls, best 3 Stableford points to count for each team. We were hopeful to acquire as many points as possible before reaching the notoriously tough 17th and 18th holes.

Unfortunately Ron Thornton was unable to make it on the day. Ron was replaced with a Ghost player to even the teams up for our in-house comp, which we ran alongside the main competition.

The main Competition this year was won with 113points  team from Hawarden GC.
We all fell short of the target this year, but we all enjoyed the day, and are looking forward to next year.

 The winning team in our in-house Competition with 97 points:

 Steve Gosling
 Grahame Brickell
 Peter Willson
 Ghost player. (Pete Broady).

 If anybody would like to join us next September, I have pre booked 5 tee times from 10.50am onwards.  Dates to be confirmed by the Golf club

Interclub friendly, Northenden Away, Monday 9th September

Match Reporter: John Armstrong (CoD)

A day that threatened rain turned out to be OK. The course was in nice condition both fairways and greens. There were several bunkers rated GUR, this is because they have a rolling programme of bunker refurbishment.

There was a high standard of play where Lymm players scoring pars were undone by the opposition doing the same, but with shots awarded through higher hc’s. The honourable draw went to Northenden 6.5 to 1.5. With Bobby boy and Sammy Lee being our only winners. Grahame Brickell and John Woodward getting the half. Most matches were close, Lymm loosing mostly by three holes a match. A fine meal of fish Chips and peas, followed by sticky toffee pudding, went down a treat.

Happy Mondays, 9th September

Reporter: Peter Willson

A dry but breezy day – the promised rain stayed away and rather chilly at first 

Game: Team Stableford

5 teams – 17 players 

Winners: Pete Broady, Eric Cox and Ron Thornton – 28.7 points per player 

Second: Alan Copeland, Steve Gosling, Ray Rigby and Dave Waggitt – 27 ppp

Third: Mike Bennett, Colin Crail and Richard Yates – 26 ppp.

Tee-booking schedule for tomorrow (Thursday 12 September)

Happy Mondays tee-booking schedule for Sunday 15 September

[ Note: The game we had planned for Monday 23rd will not take place, due to the course being closed for Autumn maintenance. ]

Bottle-of-wine Comps

Reporter: Peter Willson

Friday 30th August 

Played whilst Interclub Match vs. Davyhulme being held: 

1st Place: Mike Kendal – 34 points
2nd Place: Dave Waggitt – 30 points
3rd Place: Michael John – 29 points 

Friday 6th September

Held whilst Seniors Championship took place – only 9 entrants / cards received because of Championship game and some members taking part in the Junior Fundraiser Shotgun start:

Winner: Martin Lowe – 27 points – CPO over last 6 holes
2nd: Alan Ranscombe – 27 points
3rd: Phil Lomas – 26 points

The Tatton League – 2024 Roundup

Reporter: Mike Pigott – Tatton Team Vice Captain

The six rounds of the Tatton League 2024 were held at – in chronological order – Antrobus, Birchwood, Styal, Heyrose, High Legh and Lymm. Four pairs from each club aggregated their better-ball Stableford scores, giving total points for 24 rounds of golf.

This season started in the wet month of April at Antrobus. With a team of Ian Whitehead and Phil Young, Mike Pigott and Dave Meir, Russ Sollitt and Rick Shaw, and Richard Cooper and Martin Franks, Lymm finished runners up with 139 points 5 points behind the home club winners Antrobus.

The second round was at Birchwood, where some alterations to the team were made due to availability and form, with Mike Pigott pairing up with Sam Leach, Rick Shaw with Pete Barrett, Martin Franks with Graham Brickell, and Mark Pickles with club captain Phil Young. Lymm again finished second on the day with 149 points, finishing behind Birchwood who took over the league lead, with Antrobus second and Lymm third.

The third venue was Styal Golf Club and a team of Mike Pigott and Paddy Moran, Mark Pickles and Ian Whitehead, Martin Franks and Richard Cooper and Rick Shaw and Russ Sollitt scoring 139 points and finished in third place, 9 points behind the aggregate leaders Birchwood and 3 points behind Antrobus.

The forth club to host was High Legh on a tough windy wet day in the middle of July. The team had a similar look to it with Mike Pigott and Dave Meir, Russ Sollitt and Rick Shaw, Ian Whitehead and Martin Franks and Mark Pickles with Lymm GC Vice Captain Andy Timms. All four of Lymm’s teams had fantastic scores away from home totalling 157 points finishing only one point behind hosts High Legh, picking up 13 points on Birchwood and 8 points on Antrobus. We were now the leading team.

The next leg of the league was at Heyrose with a very similar looking team of Mike Pigott and Richard Cooper, Martin Franks and Ian Whitehead, Russ Sollitt and Rick Shaw, and Mark Pickles and Andy Timms. It was a low-scoring day in difficult conditions, but Antrobus had an outlier pair scoring 44 points. We finished third behind Antrobus on the day, followed by the home team Heyrose. Birchwood finished last and blew themselves out of contention completely. This result left Antrobus first in the league, 5 points ahead of Lymm but with our home leg to complete the season in early September. High Legh were a further 5 points behind Lymm but it had a feel of a two horse race.

The final Tatton match took place at Lymm, yesterday, Tuesday 10th September on a blustery cloudy day with spells of heavy rain making conditions very difficult for scoring. However, all four pairs got down to the task in hand, posting 4 fantastic fourballs scores, totalling 167 points. Lymm won the day by 15 shots from Heyrose and picked up 24 points on Antrobus. This meant that Lymm won the Tatton League, for the first time in the club’s history by 19 points from Antrobus who had been holders for the previous two years.

Special mention has to go to Dave Meir and Martin Franks who had the best individual score on the day with a phenomenal 49 points.

The team’s thanks go to the Captain Bob Mycock who was there at each game lending his support and to all the players who played and made up a very tight-knit squad.

Here are yesterday’s team results, with the final scores for the year in the last column.

[ Editor’s Note:
I would personally like to offer a special ‘thank you’ to Bob, who not only served us well as team captain in the sporting sense, but in doing all the unseen admin in the background, making arrangements with five other golf clubs, and with the managers and caterers of LGC. This year we hosted the sixth of the six rounds, and we were therefore responsible for catering for the end-of-season meal and presentation.

Bob is not new to sports captaincy, having captained Rugby Union teams for the RAF and Joint Services, at the time when Rory Underwood (RAF navigator in strike command) made it into the England national team. ]

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles