The Comfy Chair

 A whole month goes by and no posting on here again!! I think I am playing far too much golf to find time to post, but I am now able to report on some real highlights.

It was great that the Royal Liverpool Spring Dinner was able to take place and myself and a number of my colleague captains were at last able to wear their red jackets. We were joined by the Captain of the Royal & Ancient golf club of St Andrews and in total about 125 people dined in the wonderful Royal Liverpool club house. Hopefully this is the start of the dinner and ball season as we see COVID restrictions starting to be lifted.

Wallasey was able to host the 2019 captains from the Liverpool golf society shortly afterwards and there were 60 or so people in attendance there. Another first allowed mt to sit in the Captains chair, an item presented to the Club by |Sir Ernest Royden in 1924, the year he was Captain.

Golf has started to stabilise now so my chart looks less like a heart beat and more flat line!! I have played Prenton, Ormskirk, Huyton & Prescott, Royal Liverpool and Hesketh recently and they all provide their own challenges. Next week I am at West Derby and have a few holes with the Wallasey ex-Captains before tucking into a bit of dinner. I am sure drink will be taken!!

Royalty

After many a false start it now feels like my tenure as Wallasey golf club captain has started. Yesterday my 2020/21 year group were delighted to be invited by our 2013 past captains to the links of Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, Golf Club for our first Salver day. Each year group holds a Salver day and your club captain for that year invites you to attend. Some club captains reach a stage where they can no longer play golf, so on that occasion you miss out but yesterday there were 25 of the 27 clubs represented.

The day started with a very competitive round of golf for said salver, and the winners were Grange Park with 42 points, a very good score considering the wind conditions. The Wallasey effort contained the same two numbers, but in a different order!! 

Attention then turned to the main event of the day, the dinner in the first floor dining room. Although I  have dined at Hoylake before, this was the first visit to the dining room. The Liverpool captain was also very kind in showing my 2013 captain the library and a couple of other rooms tucked away upstairs making the whole experience very enjoyable for everybody.

We are fortunate to be playing at Hillside in a couple of days, and then in the Mockbegger trophy on Sunday so at last I will be able to record my thoughts and achievements in the blog, as I committed to do well over a year ago.

While I had a great time, yesterday was also tinged with sadness when we received the news that long standing member, Roy Bulmer, had sadly lost his fight with cancer and passed away. Roy was in his 90's and until recently had still managed the occasional nine holes around Wallasey.  Roy was one of a number of members who took care of me in my early days as a member, a gesture I have never forgotten. He was also a very competent amateur golfer. He was a seafaring man who would always take his clubs with him so to take advantage of any opportunity to play. One of his greatest achievements was to finish second in the Tasmanian PGA tournament in the day.

He also became the archivist for the golf club and I hope he was able to see the way the club is now using much of his collection of relics to the benefit of the clubhouse and social media sites.

I wrote to him only last week in an effort to update him on club news, I do hope he had an opportunity to read the letter and understand he was in all our thoughts. Rest in peace Roy.

St Andrew

It was  a big weekend for me, just past, as I had been asked by the current Wallasey Golf Club captain to speak at the St Andrews Dinner and propose the toast to him.

The St Andrews dinner is one of the most popular dinners on the circuit. It is attended exclusively by members of the golf club, is a black tie event, and signals the last formal dinner hosted by the 2019 captain. People have lived or died by the speech they have given.

The Spring dinner in April is the main externally focused event. The Captain invites fellow captains from other golf clubs, the Captain of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club (Hoylake) traditionally proposes a toast to Wallasey Golf Club, and a Wallasey member will then tell stories concerning the other invited guests.

The St Andrews is a lot more relaxed, until that is, one has to get up and speak. Many ex-speakers came over to me to offer advise, and I was invited into the pre-match drinks reception, so to speak, where ex-Captains also offered words of comfort.

Nothing prepares you though for the moment when you stand on your feet and the room goes hushed, except the work you have done yourself beforehand.

Now I was not first choice, but the original speaker got his availability wrong. He was courteous enough though to give me a copy of his speech, from which I was able to get an idea of the flow and timing. I wrote down ideas as I thought of them for many weeks prior to the event, and had some brutal editing sessions along the way. That said, the start of the speech only came to me in the car driving to the Club, and several chunks were removed as I sought shelter in the 'little room' during the evening meal.

I am pleased to report that the speech went down pretty well. There was a constant hum of amusement during it with several raucous moments.when I made some pointed remarks about the Club infrastructure. All in all the Captain and past Captains liked it, and many members came up afterwards to congratulate me.

So job done and onto 2020 to see what entertainment is in store at the Hot Pot supper.