TW3

 So another week passes with far too much golf and one or two other ancillary events to keep everybody focused. It all started with another match in the mixed Winter league, and that finished much as our previous event, with a fairly comprehensive defeat at the hands of the pre-tournament favourites. We were, however, holding our own on the terrace until I realised I was driving, so to paraphrase Fiona Richmond, 'I made my excuses and left'!

The Seniors played two competitions on Monday. I was honoured to be able to present a new trophy to the section to recognise my appointment as Captain, and it was agreed the competition would be a 'Champion of Champions' event. Consequently the winners of all the Senior trophies in the 2019/20 season played off to identify the Victor Ludorum. The competition running along side it was the Senior major competition for the Golden Jubilee Trophy. Derek Mountfield, the ex-Everton central defender, was fortunate to win both with an excellent score of 40 Stableford points. The newly refurbished clubhouse will include an honours board for the Senior major, so Derek will have his name up in lights. well done!

On Wednesday it was the turn of The Visionaries to take centre stage as we turned out at Heswall for our monthly competition. Jayesh and his helpers made it a wonderful event not withstanding the deluge which accompanied us down the first few holes. The day improved, as did the golf so we now look forward to competing for some silverware when we play against The Eagles at Ormskirk in a few weeks.

Thursday and Friday were reserved for friendly fourballs. Firstly at Wallasey I was joined by our 2004 Captain and both our respective equivalents from West Lancs. Unfortunately local knowledge counted for nothing ans we were soundly beaten 3 & 2, as fatigue gripped me in the middle part of the round. On the Friday I ticked off another local course as I played West Derby with their captain and his regular fourball partner. The captain of Royal Liverpool made up the four. He had been a junior there when he was 13 years old and had not played the course for many years. It was a delight to understand the history, changes and memories for those bygone days. To add to the enjoyment I had my first victory of the week!

Social distancing guidelines continue to influence how each Club tackles the golf and hospitality and I am pleased to see that so far people seem to  be respecting the rules and golf can continue at the moment in an enjoyable manner.

Yesterday was one such example of that. Usually at Wallasey the Captains Prize event is a straight forward knock-out in which about 130 people participate. We had insufficient time to fit that into the calender this year, so it was agreed that there would be a qualifying Saturday competition in which 8 people would progress to sudden death knock-out over the coming weeks.

Over 150 people entered even with the weather being so severe, and the scoring was pretty good considering. I ran a fund raiser alongside the competition and was delighted that it raised over £350 for my chosen charity, Autism Together. They, like all charities, have suffered as their traditional fund raising events have had to be curtailed or modified, so cash flow has become a problem. Every little helps, as they say, so we at Wallasey will try to do our bit

Next week is looking to be a bit quieter on the golfing front, but that could all change in the blink of an eye. Fore!

Game face

 Another hectic week draws to a close and reaffirms the fact I am not as young as I think I am.I am definitely cutting back on golf commitments for the next few weeks.

The early part of the week saw me compete in the Spring meeting and end up a couple over par. It is a bit late for such an event but we are trying to squeeze as much as we can into the short time available to us. There then followed an embarrassing defeat 6 & 5 in the Senior Summer Knockout at the hands of ex Everton defender Derek Mountfield, and I followed up with a tired mid-table position on Wednesday in the Townley Walker Cup.

Today was the Stableford Challenge Cup and I was definitely challenged, but I can now look forward to four days off to get some energy back and rediscover my swing!!

That should see me in better shape for the Winter mixed league which has just kicked off.

Now all that was local. On Thursday I played Dean Wood near Wigan with my fellow 2020 Liverpool Captains. Dean Wood is another course I have not played but it was good to tick it off. The back nine in particular was a fun test and my partner from Ormskirk, and I recovered into third place, just outside the prizes.

Next week we play at Widnes, another new venue, and some of the girls are off to Royal Liverpool for lunch.

It is still all go but great fun. I also have a new golfing emoji. Might have overdone the botox though.

Technical Knock-out

This week has been gruelling. I have played five consecutive days, when I promised myself that three would be my maximum. The problem is previous Captains have said .Say yes to everything, so I am!!

It started on Tuesday with another scratch team competition, this time at Caldy. IPC Simon and I won our Captains challenge on the 18th hole and the scratch team won 3-0 to maintain their 100% record. A win against Heswall tomorrow will see them win the East Cheshire scratch league. Whether there will be a play-off against the West Cheshire Champions remains to be seem.

On Wednesday I played my knock-out match in the Senior section and managed to carve out a win 2 & 1. It was a bit disjointed as we were a two ball racing round the course and several 4 ball groups stood aside to allow us through. That then caused us both to rush and make a complete mess of our game startegy. Hey ho, I am into the quarter finals and await news of who my opponent will be.

Thursday saw a Wallasey team take on the Wirral Police in an annual fixture at the Club. I partnered the Wallasey chairman against the Captain of the Police and his colleague. We ran out winners again and were lucky with the golf and the fact that we were able to stay dry on the patio while eating out after match meal. I said a few words which I hope went down well, and left the taxi based players to have a few more tinctures.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to play at Prestbury on Friday with Steve Williams, who is a member there and at Wallasey. we ere joined by the Prestbury captain and the President of the Cheshire Union of Golf Clubs. Both organisations are celebrating their Centenary this year, but sadly have had to put everything on hold until 2021. the Sandiway club are in a similar position. We had a most enjoyable round, in which I played some of my most consistent golf for sometime, finally posting a nett 69 off the white tee's with a couple of gimmies, but Mr president parred the final hole to halve the match.

Saturday is best forgotten, as I parred the first and the 18th but what went on in  between was not the best. it is so frustrating how two days can be so different, but fatigue certainly played a part..

I was at the Club yesterday for my first official duty which was to present the cup to the winner of the Club Championship. This is a 36 hole gross tournament played in one day and the conditions were very, very testing. Dylan Thompson won with two rounds of 74 which was excellent golf on the day and after I got to say a few words somebody took a photo!

This week will be a bit quieter, the clubhouse may open and we can take another step down the path to normality.

'Royal' Bidston

This week was tinged with sadness by the passing of Marty, but I had golf commitments through the week which had to be honoured and I know he would have wished the same.

Monday started the week off with a matchplay against a team from Portal Golf Club in Cheshire, and, as often happens the Wallasey course inspired them to greatness and we were well beaten on the day. The club is part of the MacDonald hotel group, and they seem to be suffering from the Coronavirus knock-on with limited staff managing the course and the group reassessing their way forward. Let's hope all goes well for them.

The KO was sponsored by Linksbook, a golfing network community being developed by Milestone Events who were the organising Company behind the Virgin Atlantic golf league. That league has also been canned now by Virgin so one hopes that Linksbook will fill the void left by their pull out.

Tuesday saw a change in fortune as I and the immediate past Captain took on our opposite numbers from prenton golf club prior to a scratch match between the two Clubs. It has been a long standing tradition for the captians to lead out the teams, although their result does not count towards the scratch league result. I am pleased to report though that we won our match as did the scratch tem. They have now won two out of two and move on to Caldy golf club tonight.

On Wednesday my year group in the Liverpool Society of golf clubs met at Bidston golf club  and had a very enjoyable day playing their course. The wind kept everybody honest and the large turnout gave us the chance to meet up and chat as well as receive our year group shirts. They were described by FootJoy as athletic fit which amused those of us with the fuller figure. The bar and catering side of things was open so a very enjoyable day was had by all

That was all the golf for the week. I spent Thursday and Friday cutting down trees for number two daughter and then filling a skip.

I now have six rounds of golf in the next seven days, so stay tuned as fatigue is bound to kick in and that is always good for a story or two!!.



 

Marty Collins ( 1940-2020)

SWMBO lost her lovely father, Marty, on Thursday. He went with his family around him after degrading quite rapidly over the last few weeks.
Marty was a gentle giant. When I first met him he had long finished in the Liverpool docks, but it was there that his personality was formed. He was a hard worker and a hard player, part of a diminishing generation who lived life to the full and if you did not live life on the edge you were wasting space
.
The various dock boards across the Country were great rivals. They would hold weekend sporting events in a type of mini-Olympics. Marty would compete in the swimming and in open boat, skiff type rowing and regardless of who won, a vast amount of alcohol would be consumed.  They could be in Leith, Tilbury or Portsmouth, but everybody would clock in on time  the Monday such was the work life balance of the day!!

He was also a first aider and they too would travel away to London for 'conferences'. It was a very full and active social enviromment.

He taught his four children how to swim and was an instructor to many others, and he welcomed me into his family like another son. It was quite early in our friendship that I found out why they called him ' three gulps' Marty and we had to work out a shift pattern to keep up with his drinking in the pub!

He worked in Saudi Arabia after leaving Liverpool docks, as many of his colleagues did, and that allowed him and Winnie to buy a house in Formby village. They also enjoyed time together in Paris as a half way house due to the restrictions on him returning to England for tax reasons.

Apart from Win and his family, Liverpool FC was his first love. He was a long term season ticket holder and can still be seen behind the goal in old footage from the Sixties. He is there in his big joe90 glasses with a cigarette in his mouth. It has been his wish for 30 years to see Liverpool once more atop the football pyramid, and while he was in Istanbul and at other European finals nights, it was the Championship he craved for. It is with a tinge of sadness, therefore that he was not able to follow the final few games live, nor will he see the parade as and when it is scheduled.

He will leave a huge hole in the lives of those that knew him and he will be sadly missed. RIP Marty, you will never walk alone.

Ashes to Ashes

The first week as Captain has been one of sadness as today we buried our good friend John Williams. John was a stalwart of the senior section and had been for many years. He was nearly 87 years old and had recently become an honorary member. This title is bestowed when your age and membership years totals to some very high number!!

John was for many years a member of the dawn patrol, a group who would venture out early on a Sunday morning. In the past, all new members would be invited to play with them to allow them to meet existing members of the Club and so extend their social circle. While the dawn patrol name lives on, the new member tradition has fallen by the wayside in that respect.

John and his wife Sylvia were compulsive cruisers, usually with P & O. and I used to call him my cruise consultant as there was not a port of call that he could not name a beach to go to or places to see, or occasionally just recommend you stayed on the ship!! Unfortunately their last cruise was caught up in Coronavirus politics and nobody would let the ship dock so they had to sail home. John you will  be sorely missed.

My other main duty this week was to play out in front of the Scratch team against Bromborough, but bad weather forced our Captains four ball to be cancelled. I hope to have better luck at Prenton next week.

I managed to survive  three medal rounds without an increase in handicap, and just missing out on the places by virtue of a bad hole here and there. Tomorrow I will feel like I am a member of the dawn patrol myself as I tee off at 07:30 as part of my 'meet the members' initiative. That's another medal, will my luck hold I wonder? 

The year starts here

A few months later than planned, I have finally been invested as Captain of Wallasey golf club, along with the Lady Captain, and what a fine pair we make.

So hopefully there will now be some activity to be able to report, and a history which this blog can capture. We were voted into office via a Zoom AGM, which,  for those who have not yet discovered the medium, is an on-line conferencing facility. It has grown in popularity during the lockdown as family and friends have used it to keep in touch with each other.

We have been running our Council meetings using it but with social distancing rules being relaxed recently we could both be in the same room for the AGM and hence the photo opportunity.

My first duty was to drive to the Club and make sure my car fitted into the Captain's parking space!! I have never had my own parking space before as living in London for many years, I had to fight the other neighbours for a space in the road which was not under a tree, as the pigeons used to take delight in depositing on the cars overnight!

The first golf experience yesterday was interspersed with members wishing me good luck for a successful remainder of the year, and there is promise of a second term if I keep my nose clean during the first one!  The golf was actually quite pleasing albeit I look 7 to get off the 6th tee which rather scuppered my chances of posting a competitive score.

This coming week see's me playing in competitions on Monday and Wednesday, and sandwiched in between is an opportunity to play with my Bromborough year group captain as we go out for a thrash prior to the scratch team match between our clubs. I understand these matches used to be a bit of a bun fight afterwards, but nowadays the good amateur golfers are themselves fit athletes ( mostly) so they limit themselves to soft drinks. I think its up to the Captains to down the ale.

I am aiming to meet as many members as I can throughout my year, so have spread my Saturday tee times randomly in the next few weeks. Its a 07:30 tee off on Saturday, a time I had no idea existed!! Let's see how that goes and then I will be able to report back on the week and post what is scheduled in the future. The highlight I suspect will be a visit to 'Royal' Bidston.