Captains Cup

After some early morning refreshments kindly provided by the new Captains, the customary drive-in took place for this year's new captains. Club Captain Jeremy Twaits, Ladies Captain Jan Hinks and Junior Captain Jack Unsworth all successfully hit their tee shots to the appreciation of the crowd gathered round the 13th tee.

Jan Hinks, Jeremy Twaits and Jack Unsworth

The 18-hole Captains Cup Stableford was then contested in tricky conditions with a brisk south-westerly keeping all the players on their toes. After a shot-gun start, it was back to the clubhouse for the presentation of the prizes and the customary raffles. The clear winner of the Captains Cup today with a super score of 43pts was Roger Tillett. The next four players were all tied on 37pts so count-back had to be invoked to separate them. The lucky runner-up was Paul Tebbutt who just pipped Jack Unsworth, Jim Green and Captain Jeremy Twaits courtesy of a better back nine score. Full result - click here.

Winner Roger Tillett with the Cup

To view more pictures - click here.

The longest drives were won by Sarah Purvis and Gordon Souter, whilst the nearest-the-pin prizes went to Allison Holmes and Lloyd Childs. The charity parking space raffle was won by Mark France who will now have further to walk to his car than his normal parking spot!!!!! There was also a charity raffle with prizes donated by many generous members. The Captain's charity benefits from today's proceedings to the tune of approx £391 which is a good start to the year.

This is another event that counts towards the Order of Merit. With this win, Roger Tillett has just sneaked into the lead one point ahead of Fay Unsworth. With points earned yesterday, Jack Unsworth is now in third place - Full listing - click here.

There are many people to acknowledge and thank for their part in helping to make today's event the success it was. Judy Willson, Tina Hawkins and Jon Miller for their early morning shift extracting money for captains drive-in pegs and raffle tickets, Andrew Buchanan and Dan Green for collecting the pegs and balls, Jon Miller and Paul Tebbutt for processing all the score cards, the clubhouse team for an early start to provide the refreshments, the green keepers for preparing the course in excellent condition and Brian Grace for collecting the forgotten longest drive marker in his buggy despite the fuel gauge being in the red!!!!
Most of all thanks to all the competitors who turned out today to make this a very successful event.   

September Weekday Stableford

This month's weekday Stableford was played on Thu 27th and Fri 28th Sept. Nine men and three ladies competed for the prizes and the scoring was excellent.
Steve Cobb came out on top with a fine 43pts. Runner-up was August winner Jamie Hines (42pts) followed by Adrian Hayward in third spot (41pts). Leading lady was Allison Holmes (36pts). Full result - click here.

September Junior Medal

The Junior Medal was played today in beautiful sunshine. Max Nicholls followed his win last month to make it a double by winning this one as well with an excellent net 66 and the lowest gross of 68. Just one stroke further back was runner-up Jack Unsworth (67) followed by Luke Gregory then George Baker. Full result - click here.
Jack Unsworth has a healthy 18 point lead in the Junior Masters with only three counting competitions to go. Full details - click here.

Captain's Cup

The Captain's Cup and drive-in will take place this Sunday 30th September. It is a shotgun start and the draw for starting tees will be done on the day before the start of the competition.
 
The drive-in should take place at 08:30 and the competition approx 20 minutes after that. Please arrive in plenty of time to draw your starting tee and place pegs out for the captain's drives.

There will be a raffle after the event and if anyone wants to donate prizes for this (no matter how big or small) please contact Jeremy Twaits on jeremy.twaits@nrgc.co.uk

Seniors Bowmaker

The Seniors competition today was a Bowmaker strokeplay event with seven teams of 4 taking part and the best two net scores to count on each hole.
The winning team were Sam Whiting, Lesley Cratchley, Ofer Ben-David and Frank Morley with a score of 124. Runners-up were Malcolm Passey, Stephen Vale, Geoff Denner and Chris Piper (126) followed by Paul Tebbutt, Judy Willson, Alan Gray and Linda Vale (127) in third place.
Full result - click here.

Course changes

As discussed at the AGM, the new course changes have now taken place.
The first hole is now a par 4 for both men and ladies, the second hole is now increased in length (still a par 3), the third hole is now reduced in length (still a par 4) and the tenth hole is now a par 5 for both men and ladies.
The resulting changes mean that the par for both men and ladies is now 71. The SSS will remain the same on all tees for the time being and there is no change to the stroke indexes.
Once the racecourse car park changes have taken place, there may be some modification to these holes to lengthen them. There will also be some "featuring" around the new greens in time.
Competitions will continue to run as normal on the modified course but with some slight changes to Competition Handicap Allowances in mixed gender competitions.
The yardages for the changed holes are as follows:

Hole   Par   White   Yellow   Red
 1      4     394     374     310
 2      3     168     155     140
 3      4     318     300     290
10      5     490     475     437

Thanks in advance for your patience whilst these new changes "bed-in".

AGM

The 18th Annual General Meeting of Newbury Racecourse Golf Club was held on Wednesday 19th September. Speeches and reviews of the year were given by Maria Tillett (Treasurer), Jon Miller (outgoing Club Captain), Sam Whiting (outgoing Ladies Captain), Mike Willson (outgoing Seniors Captain), John Hoskison (Juniors Coordinator), Nick Mitchell (Head Professional and Golf Centre Manager) and Stephen Higgins (MD Newbury Racecourse). No specific resolutions were tabled for discussion. 

The new committee for the year were nominated and will be as follows:

Managing Secretary - Nick Mitchell
Club Captain - Jeremy Twaits
Ladies Captain - Jan Hinks
Treasurer - Maria Tillett
Vice Captain and Matches - Vacant
Ladies Vice Captain - Vacant
Handicaps Secretary - John Christopher
Competitions Secretary - Vacant
Seniors Captain - Roy Whiting
Juniors Co-ordinator - John Hoskison
Admin Officer - Vacant
Press Officer - Judy Willson
IT Officer - Paul Tebbutt
The new Junior Captain is Jack Unsworth

As you can see, there are some vacant positions still to be filled. If you would like to help the Club in any one of these positions, please let any of the committee know.

Jon Miller and Jeremy Twaits

Sam Whiting and Jan Hinks

9-Hole Committee Stableford

Nick & Lorraine kindly organised a nine-hole Stableford competition for members of this years committee who were available today. Early beverages and bacon rolls were supplied before the nine-hole competition played in glorious sunshine, followed by the prize-giving.
Max Nicholls deservedly won first prize with a fantastic 4-under gross score and 23pts. Runner-up was Maria Tillett on 20pts followed by Mike Willson (19pts) in third place. Highest placed lady (not in the top 3) was Sam Whiting.
Many thanks to Nick and Lorraine for organising this event and to Nick, Lorraine and John Hoskison for also playing in the event which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

The players ... Andrew Buchanan, Roy Whiting, John Christopher, Mike Willson, Judy Willson, Max Nicholls, John Hoskison, Nick Mitchell, Maria Tillett, Jon Miller, Sam Whiting, Lorraine Storey & Paul Tebbutt

The prize winners ... Mike Willson, Max Nicholls, Maria Tillett & Sam Whiting

Seniors Captain's Day

Today's get together was for Senior Captain's Day - superbly organised by this year's senior captain Mike Willson (with more than a little help from Judy!!).
The competition was a Dallas Scramble with 3 players to a team. Twelve teams took part with a shotgun start. The winning team with a score of 63.8 were Alan Owen, Andrew Buchanan and Jim Green. Runners-up were Roy Whiting, John Day and Ray Tillen (64.4) and in third place on 64.6 were Ted Fitzsimons, Gordon Turner and Bob Stevenson. There were many other prizes as well for Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive. Full details - click here. Afterwards, the players were treated to a very tasty buffet.

More importantly, today was a celebration and thank-you to Mike for being our Senior Captain (and Senior Treasurer) for the year. Mike has not only done superb work for the Senior section but also for the Club as a whole by being Senior Club Captain previously and Club Treasurer for many years. He has also lent his help to many Adult and Junior competitions as well as Opens and many other things behind the scenes too many to mention here. Much of this work taking place when he wasn't in the best of health. So a HUGE thank-you to Mike and we hope he can learn to take things a bit easier now ... he certainly deserves it!!!!

To view some pictures of today's event and prize-giving  - click here.

36-Hole Stableford

Only a small field for the 36-Hole Stableford played today in warm, dry conditions but well done to those who did enter and play in this competition.

Men
After the first 18 holes, Nick Turner's 40pts was one ahead of Max Nicholls and two ahead of Jack Unsworth and Roger Tillett. Dave Warwick was just in touch in 5th place on 35pts. Unfortunately, Nick could not repeat the performance in round 2 and fell to 6th place. Another solid second round from Max Nicholls ensured he took the title with a total of 79pts. Dave Warwick also scored well in round 2 to secure the runners-up spot just ahead of Jack Unsworth in 3rd and Roger Tillett 4th. 
Full result - click here.

Ladies
An opening round of 39pts gave Fay Unsworth an early lead and she followed this up with another good round to take the title by nine on 76pts. Runner-up was Sian Soanes following an excellent 40pts in round 2. Maria Tillett grabbed third spot with a total of 70pts. 
Full result - click here.

Order of Merit
Today's competition also counts towards the Order of Merit. Fay Unsworth continued her great form this year and today's competition was her fourth win of the year (Bader Cup, Ladies Club Championship and Parker Hart were her previous wins). This puts Fay firmly at the top of the Order of Merit on 49pts. The nearest challenger is Roger Tillett on 39pts just ahead of Kim Richardson and Sian Soanes. Full listing - click here.

TEL - Final

After 15 weeks, the Thursday Evening League finally reached it's conclusion today. The 18-hole final was played in glorious sunshine with all members of each team eligible to play.

The Bottle Jobs team, captained by young Dan Green, kept their nerve, and after 5 wins in the last 6 outings (including today) took the league title with a total of 106pts. Runners-up were Birdies & Bogeymen followed by Easily Second (winners for the past 3 years) in third place.

With the course firming up and only a slight breeze, the scoring was excellent today. The 18-hole winner with a superb score of 45pts was Kim Richardson. Count-back was required to decide the 2nd and 3rd places with Dan Green just beating Ian Folwell on the back nine after both scored 40pts. Janice Paulin and Andy Vine, also on 40pts were the unlucky losers. Special mention for Jack Unsworth who knocked it round in a great gross 69 today.

The Best5 prize was decided last Thursday and the winner was Sean Sargeant on 98pts closely followed by Jack Unsworth, Josh Wallin and Dan Green on 97pts, 96pts and 95pts respectively.

For details of all the scores, etc. - click here.

Many thanks once again to Nick & Lorraine for organising this unique event and thanks to all the players who turn up in good and bad weather to support this competition. Hope to see you all again next year.

TEL - Week 15

The final Thursday games of the league were played this evening. Just the final 18-hole Saturday to go in two days time.
As the league nears the end, it gets harder and harder to return good scores, but still they keep coming!! Tonight's individual winner was Lorraine Storey (Check Us Out) who just beat Alison Holmes (Birdies & Bogeymen) on count-back after both scored 21pts.
After what can only be described as a mediocre season, Check Us Out finally came good and were tonight's winning team with 55pts. Runners-up were Easily Second on 53pts followed by Birdies & Bogeymen on 52pts just beating Bottle Jobs on the fourth score.
The league has yet to be decided. Bottle Jobs are top leading by 8pts from Birdies & Bogeymen with Easily Second 1pt further back. Bottle Jobs are odds-on favourites to win the league, but there is no such thing as a certainty in golf!!!! Full details - click here.
The 18-hole final on Saturday does not count towards the individual Best5 scores so we have a winner. Sean Sargeant tops the list on 98pts narrowly beating the Bottle Jobs trio of Jack Unsworth, Josh Wallin and Dan Green.

As there are a few teams who cannot field a full team on Saturday, we have slightly adjusted the fixture list for the final day. There will be no 08:40 tee time on either the 1st or 10th tees. Hopefully, this will ensure there are no players left "stranded" on the tee on their own!!
Click here for the latest fixture list.

Seniors September Medal

A good field of thirty-eight (33 men and 5 ladies) played in today's seniors medal. A pleasant day, but scoring was obviously not easy as not one of the players managed to break net par.

The top three in the men's competition had to be separated on count-back after all returned net 72. Ofer Ben-David was the winner capturing his first seniors medal. The silver medal went to Ted Fitzsimons followed by Allan Trotman. Fourth place went to Harry Jackson just one shot further back. John Day carded the lowest gross of 82.
Full details - click here.

In the ladies competition, Linda Vale was the victor, also on count-back from Jan Hinks after both scored net 78. Liz Evans grabbed third spot from Lesley Cratchley with Sam Whiting in fifth spot with the lowest gross for the ladies. Full details - click here.

Only two 2's today ... Bob Evans at the 2nd and Jeremy Proud at the 11th.

September Medal

Another small field today for the September Medal (19 men and 5 ladies), so it was played as a mixed competition in two divisions. There was some early drizzly rain to contend with, but dry conditions to finish. 

Division 1

An excellent round of net 67 (gross 79) secured first place by three shots for Kim Richardson in division 1. Max Nicholls was runner-up with the lowest gross of the day 72 (net 70) followed by Ian Turner in third place on net 73. Full details - click here.

Division 2

Division 2 was a bit closer with two shots covering the first 6 places. Roger Carter, playing in only his second medal at NRGC, was the victor in this division with a net 70. Runner-up was Paul Tebbutt who just pipped Sarah Purvis on count-back after both scored net 71. Third place went to George Baker again on count-back from Ofer Ben-David and Mike Chamberlain. Full details - click here.

Two's

Three 2's were recorded today. John Baron at the 2nd and Ian and Nick Turner both at the notorious 14th!

Owen Millennium Trophy

Only one strokeplay medal left to count for the Owen Millennium Trophy. Max Nicholls is certainly looking favourite to take the title as he sits on top of the table on 286 with a 28 point lead! Josh Wallin is currently in second place on 314 followed by John Day on 330.
Full details - click here.