First-4-Golf

Wrexham golf club’s young ladies have again been making an impression on the national scene when, following their successes at the Scottish girls’ Open Championships at Strathmore near Blairgowrie, fifteen year old Chloe Williams and Jessica Jones traveled to Tenby ten days ago for the prestigious Tenby Scratch 36 holes event organized by the Golf Union of Wales.

The trip to Scotland witnessed a team effort from Chloe and Jessica with Georgia Thomas of Tenby golf club as the third member of the squad. Against a par of 72, Chloe came in 4^th position with rounds of 73 and 70 with Jessica lying in 44^th place and Georgia coming in a little further down the field.

On Georgia’s home course on the lovely South Wales coast. Chloe again managed fourth place with rounds of +5 and +1 against the par. Regrettably, Jessica retired unwell before completing the requisite number of holes.

This past weekend the girls traveled to Aberdovey and to Borth for the Mid Wales Girls’ championships, again over 36 holes of play with eighteen at each venue.

This time, Chloe was not to be outdone and following a round of 77 at Aberdovey against a par of 74 and a competition scratch score of 75, she moved to Borth for the concluding eighteen holes.

Now Borth is not the easiest of courses as I have experienced the Welsh Inter Counties there both as a player and a spectator, and following a poor start on the difficult opening holes, Chloe took a couple of birdies out of the golf course and finished with an 81.

That was good enough for her to win the event by a single stroke from Emily Boyman of Pwllheli with Jessica Evans of Newport in third place.

All in all, an excellent start to her very busy season, well done.

The club Past Captains played their Past Captains’ Day last Sunday with a slightly reduced field of twenty players contesting the eighteen holes from the forward yellow tees. With a strong breeze facing the play down the first hole in meant an equally stiff wind in to the long par fours which required a good clout with a metal wood to even finish close to some of the greens in two strokes.

Played as a Stableford competition the third place in whole number terms was a dead heat between Oscar Jones, Cyril Belton and the Club Captain playing as a guest, Mr. Keith Miller.

On back nine holes reckoning, Oscar was the first to go with a sixteen point nine holes against eighteen from Cyril and Keith. Down to the back six and both had thirteen points so the back three came into account on which Cyril had five points and the Captain had seven – third place to the Captain. Second came Bill Taylor with 39 points with the eventual winner being the 2008 captain Nigel Pritchard with 40 points.

Tradition has it that we invite members of the club who had been captains of their previous golf clubs and they were seven in number on this occasion with us all sitting down to a meal in the evening.

A couple of belated results from our ladies were for a match played as long ago as the 6^th of April, namely the GUW medal and Lifeboat competition. Winner of the silver division was Jean Jones with 92 – 16 – 76 from Rita Parry Tunnah on 94 – 17 – 77.

The bronze division was won by Andrea Vaughan Smith with 98 – 27 – 71 followed by Ladies Vice Captain, Janet Brunyee, on exactly the same score and handicap, but a slightly less good back nine holes. Andrea won the lifeboat competition with her net 71 from a total entry of 34 ladies with Gayle Elson scooping the birdie twos to the value of £17.00.

The Vale of Llangollen Veterans’ section played their first match of a two way tie against Caldy for the Caldy Shield in a game played on the valley course. Utilising home course advantage the Llangollen Vets won this first leg by 8 ½ matches to 1 ½ and will be playing Eaton early this very week with results in next week’s issue.

Clays golf club Seniors’ section played Eastham Lodge at home on 13^th of the month with Clays winning by six matches to four. County Captain Tony Harcombe eagled the par four eighteenth hole with five golfers having birdie twos on their travels. The Seniors’ kitty competiton was won by Bill Duncan with 37 points from Ray Martin on 36, Tony Jackson , 34, Den Murphy, 33 and Brian Mercer also on 33. The Seniors’ Pairs betterball Stableford was played off full handicaps a couple of days later with victory going to Baz Jones and Den Murphy on 45 points. Second came Mike Griffiths and George James with 44, third were Tony Harcombe and Roy Jones on 44, with Andrew Mitchell and Brian Downes in fourth pace with another 44 point offering, again separated on the back nion e holes.

The ladies won the first round of the Daily Mail foursomes in the shape of Anne Lee and Jo Beddowes but the ladies’ team lost thir first match against Rhuddlan in the North Wales Charity Shield. Kim Harcombe won the Captain’s drive in with 34 points and Jane Bell took the April Stableford with 34 points.

Twenty eight interested players have submitted their names for consideration for the DGU league teams for the coming season, most of whom enjoyed the warm up session on March 28^th. Eleven pairs played a Stableford competition which was won by Denny Wiklliams and Steve Hart with Alan Garton and PhilDavies as runners up. The first match was aginst  Old Colwyn on Sunday 4^th April which was won by Old Colwyn by six games to two although four of the eight matches went as far as the final green, of which Clays managed only the single win. The next match is against Moss Valley next Sunday.

The Seniors played their following match against Henlle last Sunday and won by the single point whist the Ladies Stableford was won by Jane Bell with 34 points from Denise Bromley with 33 and then Diane Dare on 32.

I successfully negotiated the trip to the Sophia Gardens in Cardiff last Friday for the AGM of the Golf Union of Wales. Despite a rather poor turnout the meeting proved extremely interesting, especially the report from Welsh veteran John Jermaine who is the Chairman of the Ryder Cup committee and a life long member of the Radyr club.

The official Charity for the Ryder cup year is Tenovus which has enjoyed excellent support for the last three years from GUW.

Chief Executive Richard Dixon, and GUW Chairman, Louise Fleet, are both running the London Marathon next Sunday with all their sponsored support going to this good cause.