Winter League – Round 6 of 10

Reporter: Paul Foster

A bitterly raw winter’s day, with a light-to-medium arctic breeze off the ship canal to shiver me timbers. An assortment of silly hats on view across the course, not quite as silly as Les ‘silly hat’ Fecitt or MAGA Barlow, but still silly. Nobody told me I played 12 holes with my hat inside out ! I blame you, Eric Cox, but you did have your wrong glasses on.

Twelve holes in play again, although one group tried to sneak in scores for the 13th on their cards. I’ve spotted it you, three rascals. Please enter your scores on I.G. for 12 holes only.

Two players achieved the ‘keep a 6 off your card’. That was Paul Foster and Paddy Moran.

A field of 40 runners, 22 players from Division 1 and 18 players from Division 2.

Four 2s recorded today, all on different holes, Michael John on the 2nd, Art Laird on the 5th with a simply gorgeous chip in from off the green, and Russ Jones on the 9th.

And get this:
Bob Ellison engineered a quite incredible 2 on the 7th. How on earth??? Bob got 5 points for the hole.

Dandy to see the return of the Friday Wine Club (I must try and join you in the Sadlers), as Art Laird has rejoined the nest. Also good to see Joe Priestner and George Clarke both playing under par, and both having their handicap docked.

Division 1 Results
Winner – Paul Foster with 29pts
R/up – Paddy Moran with 28pts (Paddy, you are becoming boring now)
3rd – Richard Smyllie with 26pts on a CPO

Division 2 Results
Winner – Jeff Chapman with 31pts (a winter league high score)
R/up – Colin Hughes with 26pts on a CPO
3rd – Alan Thomas with 26pts on a CPO

Paddy Moran extends his lead in the 1st division from Grahame Brickell. Jeff Chapman who has a 10pt lead over Richard Yates, tops the 2nd division.

Two 1st division players put their wrong hcap down, and two 2nd division players put their wrong hcap down. Spooky…

Nine out of forty cards marked incorrectly…the players score should be entered under the ‘A’ column, and the stableford points entered under the ‘Points’ column, nothing else, besides your own score under the ‘Marker’s Score’ column, seems fairly simple to me!

Nice to see all scores were on Lymm Golf Club cards. 40 cards handed in, 36 entered into Ig.

Happy Mondays – 17 Feb

Reporter: Peter Willson

Another very cold day with a biting South Easterly but it was dry and the sun made a fleeting appearance 

Game: Team Stableford. 5 teams – 16 players.

Well it was that man again – Dave Craggs – with another stellar scoring round – albeit with slightly dodgy mathematics which were resolved in the clubhouse and the team still came out on top

Winners: Paul Collins, Eric Cox, Dave Craggs and Paul Foster – 25.3 points per player
Second: Kevin Bocquet, Pete Broady and Steve Rowley – 25 ppp

Kevin Bocquet – came out on top with an individual round score of 32 points. 

Tee-booking schedule for tomorrow (Thursday 20 Feb)

Happy Mondays tee-booking schedule for Sunday 23 Feb

Nutty’s Notables

Arthur Nuttall suggests we have ‘player profiles’ as a regular feature in the newsletter. I think it’s an excellent idea. Last week Arthur provided a profile of Colin Lees. This week it’s John Hayes.

I don’t doubt that everyone in the senior section has a notable personal history that would be of interest to fellow members. I hope that Arthur continues to investigate! I would be particularly interested in Paul Collins, the reason being, I was playing in a senior interclub friendly home match against Sale GC last year, and one of the Sale pair was a retired prison officer. We were on the 14th tee, and he pointed to the 15th green, asking, “Is that Paul Collins?” I replied in the affirmative. He said, “I’ve not seen him for a while, but I’ve known him for years”. I thought I’d better not ask how!

Focus on John Hayes

Reporter: Arthur Nuttall

As some of you will already be aware, John is originally from Yorkshire, and as we know, Tykes can be pretty good at “blowing their own trumpet”. Well, John is a bit different – he actually plays the euphonium and is a member of the Lymm Concert Band.

Having started playing a flugelhorn at the age of 9, John had a 50-year gap before he eventually took up his musical hobby once again, switching to the euphonium. Lymm’s next concert will be at the Arley Hall Garden Festival at the end of June. The repertoire of their music is quite wide and includes film music, selections from current and traditional musicals, big band, military band and light classical.

Not content with his blowing activities, John is also a member of a Choral Society. In the mid-1980’s, he was “volunteered” to join a choir, on the grounds that the choir was desperate for male voices. Given that he could already read music, he was considered good enough to join without further ado. Much later, in 2011 when he moved to Lymm, he was invited to join Altrincham Choral Society, which, having upwards of 100 members, was a much larger choir than he had been used to singing with. The choir produces three major concerts each year, performing mainly classical music in the form of oratorios and requiems by the major composers. These are held in a variety of venues, including the Royal Northern College of Music Theatre in Manchester.

But that’s not all. After retiring in 1993, John took part in voluntary projects, including leading a team to carry out construction work in rural Tanzania for a small UK based charity. Prior to leaving for Tanzania there was a series of introductory weekends where the volunteers were given training in all aspects of the proposed trip. The purpose of the project was to help villagers to construct a Health Centre within the confines of the village. Very rudimentary in terms of construction, but of vital importance for the village. At the end of our tour of duty they had got the building up to roof level; the next group to follow were able to complete the building ready for use. 

As you can see from the photos below, John hasn’t changed much!

Newsletter Editor: Mark Pickles