Leek Golf Club’s captain, Andrew Baxter, hosted this annual event and was extremely pleased with the turnout of 173 golfers, on a day which got better and better as it progressed for various reasons.

For example, the weather started overcast with rain threatening, but eventually developed into a beautiful sunny afternoon. The course and greens were in immaculate condition, but tricky pin positions and ironed greens made good scoring tricky to achieve. The captain had to apologise to several members about the tight pin positions (some would say ‘impossible’) on the nearest the pin holes (4th and 11th)!

The captain would like to thank John Turner and his staff for their commitment on the day and attention to detail. The first tee-time was 7am, the last at 2.40pm.

At the half-way house refreshments generously donated by Wrights Pies were offered with a smile and encouragement by Carole Nixon, Jayne Baxter, Jackie Gallimore and Wendy Geston. A lot of banter flowed at his part of the course, with some players protecting their scores by having a cup of coffee, whilst others didn’t seem to care and washed down their pies with copious amounts of alcohol!

Arising from one of the conversations flowing in that vicinity was that Nick Bowcock had amazingly achieved an albatross on the 10th with a four iron second shot, worth five stableford points!

Play continued all afternoon on schedule, and concluded by about 8pm, just prior to the presentation.

Several groups dined after their games, recounting the highs and lows of their rounds. During the whole day a basket was strategically placed at the half-way house to collect contributions for the captain’s charity Cancer Research UK, and an outstanding £157 was collected. Thanks to all for helping boost this amount with your generous donations.

When everyone had assembled for the presentation, the captain expressed his sincere gratitude to all the helpers, office staff, Greg Rogula, catering and bar personnel, and for Mike Barker for the cards.

As regard results, these are the details:

Nearest the Pins 4th hole - Rob Woolliscroft & 11th hole - Doug Molloy

1st Division (Handicaps 0-9)

1. Anthony Burn 38 points

2. Luke Brass 37 points

3. Andy Damjanovic 35 points

2nd Division (Handicaps 10-15)

1. Pete Nixon 38 points

2. Jim Lepke 36 points

3. Nigel Synnock 36 points

3rd Division (Handicaps 16-21)

1. Charles Holland 37 points

2. Brian Townsend 37 points

3. Alan Peake 37 points

4th Division (Handicaps 22-28)

1. Doug Molloy 34 points

2. Mike Brown 32 points

3. Leon Bagguley 31 points

MAIN CAPTAIN’S PRIZE

The Captain’s Prize was won by Graham McFadden with 39 points off handicap of 14. Well done!

Thanks to all for playing in this very enjoyable day, a special one and the highlight of a busy annual calendar for the captain.

Andrew Baxter

Club Captain 2016