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When will this rubbish weather end as we had another men’s comp, Medal 7, rained off on Saturday. Last Wednesday’s seniors stableford was also cancelled.

Ping Mixed 4BBB

Well done to Kerry Bailey and Phil Long for winning the rescheduled Ping Mixed 4BBB with a great score of 44 points on Sunday. Jane Wilkinson and Johnny Yates were runners up with 40 points. The Bryants, Joanne & Graham, were third with 38 points.

Ladies Competitions

Sally Wright won the Hilda Timpson trophy on Thurday 20th July with a nett 68. Terri Broadbent recorded the same score but was beaten into second place following a card play off. Tracey Thompson finished third with a nett 69.

Sally Blackburn won Thursday’s nine hole max medal with a crackings nett score of 32. Vicki Wells was second with a nett 35.

The results of the ladies Centenary trophy will be announced in due course.

Holiday

I’m really looking forward to going on holiday with the family for ten days on Sunday. If there is anything we can help you with during that time, please pop into the shop or call on 0161 249 8427 and Will or Phil will be able to assist you. Thank you.

The rearranged Ping mixed fourball betterball competition takes place this Sunday and at the time of writing, there are still slots available.

Clothing and Accessories

I am shortly going to be placing an Autumn / Winter clothing order with FootJoy. Some of the items will have the Hale GC crest on and some won’t.

Should you wish to add anything to my order, please click here to take a look at the Autumn / Winter 2023 FJ catalogue and let me know what you would like me to get for you. I can get it with or without the crest on.

I am also about to place an order with Patersons. They are a Scottish company who make great club crested accessories. I buy my caps, ball markers, towels, headcovers, ball markers, pitchmark repairers, beanies, water bottles, shoe bags etc from them.

Again if you’d like any larger items such as holdalls, shoe bags or travel covers in leather or leatherette and with or without the HGC crest on then please let me know and I can quote you a price and if acceptable, order the item(s) in for you. Please click here to visit the luggage section of their website.

Irrigation Project Review

On Tuesday evening, I attended the first of two presentations about the club’s proposed irrigation project. It was hosted very professionally and informatively by president John Gower-Jones, Chair of Greens Brian Greenbank, project manager Andrew Hay and club tresurer Glyn Isaac. If you didn’t make this one but can make the next one (which takes place on Mon 21st Aug at 19:30), I would thoroughly recommend doing so.

Gentleman Captain’s Day

Thank you to lady captain Jan Ravenscroft for the following words to describe the day.

The winner of the 18 hole Stableford comp was Sally Budd with 37 points and Louise Gerald was second with 35 and Kairen Seaton with 34. Caroline Massey  won the 9- hole comp with 18 points and Sue Fallows 2nd with 17 points. 

It was a super day despite very poor weather at the start and all the playing ladies very much enjoyed being treated to chocolate, Pimms and afternoon tea which was generously provided by  the Captain Roger Laitt . Lovely to see so many past Lady Captains and guests too. 

Junior Nine Hole Stableford

Well done to junior captain Matthew Hodder for winning Saturday’s junior comp with a cracking score of 22 points. Ollie Grieves was second with 18 points.

Unfortunately Saturday’s dreadful weather meant that the Summer Stableford was cancelled. It has now been rearranged and the new date is Saturday 26th August.

Over on the Wirral, Brian Harman at 5’8′ and 150 pounds was taming Royal Liverpool and his big hitting counterparts to win the Open. It probably wasn’t as close and as exciting as we would have liked but he just did an amazing job of keeping hold of his lead. His putting stats from 10 feet and in were simply out of this world.

Also, as decribed in a really interesting Golf Digest article, Harman’s driver clubhead speed of 109 mph puts him in the bottom 10% on the PGA tour and his driver distance puts him at 142nd in the tour rankings. However he has a strategy to combat this – he hits driver on virtually very par four and par five.

Consequently if we look at the all drives stat —the average distance of literally every tee shot hit on par fours and par fives. You’ll see that Harman ranks 98th, within 0.3 yards of tour average and this bumps him up to 48th in strokes gained off the tee. While other players are playing three woods and two irons from many tees, Harman’s driver is knocking it past them.

Seemingly he spends an enormous of time working on his driving – hitting it high, low, left to right and right to left. He’s as straight with that as the bigger hitters are with their shorter clubs. So, reassuringly, it’s good to know there’s another way to win golf tournaments beyond smashing it as far as possible off the tee.

Johnny Yates was the winner of the Open Sweepstake btw. Thanks to everyone of you who took part.

Ladies Competitions

The results for the Hilda Timpson will be revealed at tea this Thursday.

In the back nine hole max medal, Ann Coulson and Barbra Spark both scored excellent nett 33s but Ann won on countback. Kerry Gill was third with 35.

Seniors Stableford 4

Bob Siddle romped home with 24 points to win this event which was played over the back nine. Great score Bob.

There were then seven (yes seven!) players who tied for second spot with 21 points. They were Lee Bramley, John Moss, Robert Spark, Richard Robinson, Glyn Isaac, Steve Bates and Roger Dawson-Smith. Lee B finished second following the mammoth card play off.

Summer Party

The Abba tribute night based on the photos below looks like it was a fantastic triumph. Top marks to the effort everyone made with their fancy dress. Well done Jo Egerton, Tom Sloan and team for putting such a super evening.

Wahoo it’s Open Championship week and hit’s here in the north west! Hope it’s another great tournament and thank you to all of you who have entered the Pro Shop sweepstake. I’ll keep you posted on who’s won what as the week progresses.

Medal 6

Congrats to Rob Manley for recording a nett 68 on a challenging day weatherwise on Saturday. Second place went to Jez Allen with a nett 69. Martin Bramwell was third with a nett 71. Only two twos were recorded over the two days!

Adult Junior

Well we dodged the weather on Friday evening and thankfully everyone that played remained dry.

It ended up being another great win for Olly & Joe Mills so big congrats there…… a large handicap reduction has followed!!

Other great scores were recorded by Matthew Hodder, Ollie Grieves and the two Williams – Meadowcroft and Hutchinson.

William M leads the OoM with one event to go. This final competition will be taking place on Friday 8th Sept with tee times from 1710. Please let me know if you’d like to enter.

Ladies Ping 4BBB

Kairen Seaton and Sally Budd won the ladies Ping fourball betterball competition last Thursday with a whopping 45 points. Runners up were Emma Daynes and Claire Makin with 39 points.

Sally Blackburn won the front nine stableford with 20 points. Kerry Bailey was second with 18 points.

A Week in the Life of a Very Keen Junior Golfer

Thanks to John Book for keeping us posted on Ollie Grieves’ golf in the last week or so! Here’s his recent schedule along with some fab photos:

• Sunday 9th July – back to back golf lessons with Will at HGC.
• Monday 10th July – nine hole junior stableford at Hale, which Ollie won with 18 points.
• Friday 14th July – Adult Junior comp at Hale, which Ollie finished joint 3rd with 21 points.
• Sunday 16th July – Northern Junior Golf Tour nine hole comp at Barrow Golf Club, where Ollie finished 4th with a nett of 3 under par, only 2 shots off the winner. The photos below don’t give you the full picture as it was blowing a gale with the course on the exposed hillside overlooking Walney Island, and which Ollie couldn’t even keep his Hale Golf Club cap on!!! This was the last of four events which Ollie had entered, albeit late into the proceedings, but for which next year he is hoping to register early in more of the fourteen competitions, so that he can try and qualify to play in the finals competition. This is all great experience for Ollie, and anyone else thinking of getting involved in the Tour.

Today we have a round up of the weekend’s Pro Am, the ladies Bridgford and Moir Cup competitions plus some Ping demo day and wood working news! Please enjoy.

Pro-Am

The forecast was mixed for Saturday’s Pro Am but we just about escaped the bad weather until approximately 7pm when the last group of Jonny Gray, Johnny Yates, Ian Goulty and their pro Matt Tottey were playing their 18th hole. The heavens opened and the rain was biblical within seconds. They were tremendous sports finishing off their round in dreadful conditions as yours truly was squidying the final green! A big thank you to the four of them for their help in enabling us to complete the competition.

So onto the results. The winners of the Pro Am were Chris Brown, Paul Hilton, Nick Maxwell and their pro Matthew Pritchard with an an excellent 122 (18 under). Second place, on 125 (15 under) after countback, went to Paul Gilbert, Andy Gething, guest Christian James and their pro Haydn McCullen. Third spot was also decided on countback and that was Tracey Thompson, Tiff Fielden, Mandy Gilbert and pro Paul Jones.

In the professional individual event, Jason Dransfield breezed it round in 63 to shoot a new course record. The previous one was 60 by Chris Sands a few years ago but that was on the old layout (before the introduction of the par three 4th / 13th) and so that no longer stands. Jason is a great player and also a great guy so I’m delighted he ended up as the winner. Second place with 68 was shared between Haydn McCullen and Anthony Waddell.

Many thanks are required after hosting an event of this nature so here goes (my sincere apologies if I’ve omitted anyone). Thank you to the club for enabling us to host the event and all the amateurs who kindly spent their hard earned money on entering a team. Thanks to my fellow pros for coming along and also Iwan and Michael the hard working PGA staff on the day. The course was in magnificient shape so big thanks must go to Russell, Dave and Phil for their hard work in preparing it. Thanks also to Ben and the bar & catering team for doing a great job before and after play in keeping the golfers well fed and watered. Finally thank you to my super team of Will and Phil for lookinng after the shop and also playing in their first Pro Am in Will’s case. Roll on 2024….

Bridgford & Moir Cup

Last week was a big one in the Hale ladies golfing calendar as the Moir Cup and Bridgford took place on Wednesday and Thursday. The winner of the Moir Cup was Tiff Fielden with a gross score of 155 over the two days. Michelle Rea was the runner up..

The winner of the Bridgford was Joanne Bryant with nett scores of 72 and a superb 62 (yes, you read that correctly!!) for a total of 134. Tiff was second with 139 and lady captain Jan Ravenscroft was third with 142.

The winner of Thursday’s 18 hole max medal was Terri Broadbent with an excellent 66 and the winner of the back nine hole max medal was Diana Harris with a nett 33. The winner of the most improved player from day 1 to day 2 was Louise Gerald.

Tiff also won the day one nett prize and Jo Bryant won the day two nett.

Well done to all the winners – there was some really great golf played. A big thank you to Gill Kay and team for organising the event.

Ping Demo Day

Thanks to everyone who attended on Monday. Alex from Ping and I had set everything up on the practice ground, only for the pesky weather to intervene again! We had a quick change of location to the swing room. Alex was very attentive so hopefully all those that came along found the experience really useful and informative. From the Pro Shop’s persepctive, we’ve made some sales which is great news for the business!

Touchscreen Cabinet

Below is a photo of Kevin Gerard posing with his handmade, beautifully crafted cabinet which now houses the computer that resides outside the Secretary’s office. It is made from oak, some of which is from fallen trees from our very own golf course. On behalf of the club, thank you very much Kevin for this wonderful looking and highly practical cabinet.

We have lots of results and photos this week as the season rumbles on so let’s dive straight in.

Last Call for Pro Am & Ping Fitting Day

We have some spaces left in Saturday’s Pro Am if you would like to make a late entry. Also we have one space left in the Ping demo day which is taking place on Monday 10th July. To book or find out more, you can reply to this missive or call the shop on 0161 249 8427.

Men’s Summer Meeting

Well it was a big weekeknd of golf. Gusting winds and tricky pin positions meant that the best gross socre on Saturday was 79. Adam Laitt dug in though on Sunday to shoot a fine 72 to win the Galloway Scratch Challenge Cup by seven shots from Dave Smith and Tony Bray.

All the other winners are listed below. As you can see, the best 36 hole nett, the Walker Trophy, was won by Gus Murray-Brown with 134. Unlucky Roger Sheen recorded the same score but was beaten into second following ca card play off.

Below are the photos of the various winners including a snap taken by Mike Thompson of Mike Kirchin having a little tree trouble following his first drive of the day – I’m guessing it wasn’t quite the start that he had in mind!

And finally, well done and a big thank you to Brian Greenbank, Guy Levers and Bob Siddle for planning and running the weekend’s golf so successfully.

Golf Lessons

Is your golf not quite where you want it to be as we approach the mid way point of the golf season? Please click here to book a golf lesson with Richard or of course call the shop on 0161 249 8427 or just pop in.

Ladies Exchange Day with Ellesmere GC

I’ll let the lady captain Jan Ravenscroft explain…..

Last Thursday (the 29th) 30 ladies from Hale exchanged courses with 40 ladies from Ellesmere GC. The course and hospitality from Ellesmere was superb (although a rather annoying brook kept making an appearance on many of the holes!)

The winners of the day were Sally Budd, Caroline Massey and Vicki Wells while in second place were Louise Gerald, Caroline Perkin and Jackie Murphy.

There were two nearest the pin holes won by both Gill Kay and Tracey Thompson. The whole event was very slickly organised by Joanna Bates and Helen Davies… we even managed a group photo of the gathering.

The ladies from Ellesmere were so impressed with Hale – not only the course ( especially the new 4th) but especially the meeters and greeters and the whole clubhouse experience.  They’ll be back!

Seniors Texas Scramble

36 players in teams of three stayed dry last Wednesday morning to enjoy a fun nine hole Texas Scramble.

Coming out on top with a very creditable 25 points were Roger Fielding, Andrew Fishwick and Richard Dyson. In second with 24 (following a card play off over the back six) were John Kennedy, Tarik Rashid and Peter Wolfenden. Lee Bramley, John Moss and Mike Massey finsihed third.

Bell Cup

Unfortunately the ladies excellent Bell Cup run came to an end on Saturday evening. Again over to LC Jan for the details:

While a hundred or so members were enjoying Peter and Ben’s BBQ on the terrace, the Hale team were battling the Prestbury ladies away in the early evening gusty wind.

Unfortunately Prestbury’s home advantage won out and we lost in the 3rd round. However a great journey having already beaten Wilmslow and Ringway.

Special mention and thanks to Rosie Gerrard, Bell Cup Team Captain,  for all her organisation coordinating the Bell Cup Ladies over the last two years.

Well we have the men’s Summer Meeting to look forward to this weekend and then it’s the Pro Am the following Saturday. Competitons and results are coming thick and fast at this time of the season…

Open Sweepstake

Believe it or not, the final men’s major of the season, the Open, takes place at Royal Liverpool in just over three weeks time. As usual we are running a sweepstake for this.

It’s £5 for one space or £10 for three spaces. Please just reply to this message or drop into the Pro Shop to take part. Prizes are available for 1st, 2nd & 3rd overall plus the best and worst score each day.

Medal 5

Congrats to Charlie Hindle for shooting an excellent nett 66… with a double bogey on the last! Tony Bray shot a gross 75 which included a one under par back nine to secure the lowest gross of the competition and second place overall with a nett 68. Derek Marshall also recorded a nett 68 but was beaten by Tony on countback.

Nine & Dine

Friday saw the club host a back nine step aside texas scramble. The winning team with 28 points were Andrew & Gill Kay, Rosie Gerrard and Dave Smith. Rob Manley, Kathleen McNairney, Keith Thompson and Diana Hogben also scored 28 points but were beaten into second place following count back. Third spot went to Gail & Tony Sampson and Barbara & Robert Spark with 27 points.

Lady Captain’s Day

The day before was lovely weather for the lady captain Jan Ravenscroft’s big day. Everyone had a lovely time.

The scoring in the 18 hole comp was very good. Noelle Morris won with 41 points and then there were four players with 40 points. Following the card play offs, Diana Hogben finished as runner up and Tracey Thompson was third.

Caroline Smith won the nine hole event with a whopping 24 points. Ann Coulson was second with 20 points whilst Barbara Grant finished third with 19 points.

MCJL at HGC

On Sunday, we hosted the Mid Cheshire Junior League here at Hale GC as twenty seven juniors from six local clubs took to the fairways. Sadly it wasn’t for long as the storm that was forecast rolled in. We had to sound the klaxon and stop play for 45 minutes or so. We then made the decision to complete the competition over nine holes rather that the 18 that was originally planned.

There was some very good scoring with three players scoring 22 points and two players scoring 21 points. The Hale juniors playing were junior captain Matthew Hodder, Olly Mills and Alex Keeling and they scored a very creditable 16, 16 and 15 points respectively.

Spare a thought for one of the boys from another club who made a gross eagle at the first for five stableford points and then proceeded to only pick up three more points over the following eight holes for a total of just eight points. He took it superbly well and was very philosophical about it afterwards. I’m delighted to tell you that all of the juniors were an absolute credit to themselves, their golf clubs and the game of golf.

Huge thanks to the volunteers on the day who were Bill Harvey, Phil Hickson, Noelle Morris and Peter Hardern. Special mention to Edwina Greenwood from Warrington who also just couldn’t do enough to help…. even using her umbrella to escort Michael Oliver to his car as the rain was falling at it’s heaviest!

Eagle

Thanks to Mike Thompson for sending in this snap taken by Roger Sheen after Mike had holed his approach shot from 144 yards for an eagle twoI Paul Hilton then proceeded to hole his shot out of the left-hand bunker for a birdie three!

MIke reported that sadly their rounds didn’t continue at that stellar level adding that “in fact, second time around I got an eight at the 12th, so normal service was resumed!”

We are hosting the MCJL event at Hale GC on Sunday with tee times from 1400. Ourselves and five other clubs will be fielding juniors in this competition. If you could spare a couple of hours to help with ball spotting or helping the juniors find their way round the course that would be hugely appreciated. Please contact me if you can.

Upcoming

The Pro Am takes place on Saturday 8th July and we still have three team spaces left. If you’d like to play (remember it’s very much open to men and ladies), please contact me.

Also the Ping fitting day on the Monday afterwards (10th July) still has some spaces so again let me know if you’d like to try the fantastic new G430 range of golf clubs.

Archie Preston

On Sunday, the 14 player mixed Hale side beat Turton GC away 4:3 and now march on to the last 16 of the competition. Congratulations to all the players! Apparently it was a very humid afternoon which ended in torrential rain, thunder and lightning so it was a relief to get the game completed.

Junior Stableford

There was no men’s competition on Saturday but that didn’t stop the juniors playing a nine hole stableford. Ollie Grieves and Jack Hickson both scored an excellent 22 points but Ollie finished in top spot following the card play off. Oliver Mills finished in third place.

Seniors Stableford 3 F9

Last Wednesday’s front nine Seniors’ Stableford was won by Derek Marshall with a fine score of 22 points. Peter Wolfenden finished seond with 20 points and John Kennedy lost on a card play off having also scored 20 points to finish third.

Mixed TNC Dinner on 15th June

The first mixed TNC dinner was hosted last Thursday and proved to be very popular and a great success. Thank you to Irene Kirk for all these wonderful photos…. you can probably create your own captions!

Be Careful

One of the members reported having to put out a cigarette butt during last week’s very dry spell with bottles of drinking water. It might have been a walker coming past but all the same please be careful and vigilant.

Just a few results to go through this week.

Plus a reminder that there are still two team spaces available in the Pro Am which takes place on Saturday 8th July. Two days after that on Monday 10th July, we are hosting a Ping demo day here at HGC. If you would like to get involved in either (or both!), then please contact me.

Medal 4

The course showed it’s teeth for Medal 4 as the winning score was a nett 70. John Kennedy came out on top. Mike Thompson was beaten into second place following a card play off. Peter Hindle finished third with a nett 71.

The lowest score of the competition was actually a 68 nett which was recorded by Richard Bailey on Friday. Unfortunately because of the Men’s Strokeplay General Terms of Competition (which you can read by clicking here) he was not eligible to either win the event or a prize. 

The same thing happened the previous week in Medal 3 when Richard Robinson recorded an excellent nett 63. In my haste to write my newsletter last week, I neglected to mention it so my apologies Richard.

Ladies Summer Meeting

Last Thursday the ladies played their Summer Meeting. It was a shotgun start and it was two lots of foursomes scores to make up a team of four overall score.

The winners were Kairen Seaton, Sue Fallows, Gwynneth Bramwell & Lynette Lodge with 73 points. Gill Kay, Amanda Greaves, Helen Davies & Pauline Keeling finished second with 71 points following a card play off. Third place went to Sally Blackburn, Pat Jefferies, Sally Budd & Noelle Morris.

Help!

If anyone happens to be knowledgeable about Mailchimp, I’d be very grateful if you could share a few minutes with me as I’m perplexed as to why sometimes my newsletter sends and why sometimes it doesn’t! Thank you.

In this week’s missive, we look at news from the world of professional golf, a great win for the HGC ladies, other competition results and photos from Ollie Grieves frrom Selby GC.

Men’s Professional Golf

Well in the world of men’s professional golf the merger of LIV golf, the PGA Tour and the DP world tour came as a huge shock on Tuesday. It will be very interesting to see how all this plays out in the media over the coming weeks and months.

A much more heart warming story from the professional game that was trending on Twitter earlier in the week was about Viktor Hovland. He won the Memorial on Sunday and then the following day, he was spotted caddying for his friend and former team mate at Oklahoma State, Zach Bauchou, who was attempting to make it through to the final stage of US Open qualifying in Columbus, Ohio. Very classy Viktor…

Bell Cup

Well done to our ladies team that deafeated Ringway at home on Sunday to progress to the fourth round of the Bell Cup. The score was 4:2 when the final match was called off the course. We will play Prestbury in the next round but as I write this, it has not yet been confirmed whether this match will be at home or away.

The team below are left to right: Sally Wright, Louise Gerald, Tiff Fielden, Anne Webster, Rosie Gerrard (team manager & co-ordinator), Helen Davies, Gillian Brogdon and Irene Kirk.

Medal 3

Congratulations to Mark Savill for winning Medal 3 on Saturday with a nett 68. Andrew Cowan was second with a nett 69 and John Kennedy finished in third place.

Interestingly, there’s still a dearth of twos with only four being recorded over the two days of competition.

Ladies Competitions

In last week’s 18 hole Max Medal competition, there was a tie at the top with three players on nett 70. Emma Daynes won on countback, Tiff Fielden was second and Vicki Wells was pushed down to third.

The same thing happened in the nine hole max medal with three players tied at the top. The winning score was nett 34. It was Mary Cockbain who finished on top in this event following the card play off. Sue Bromley was second and Fredda Hunt was third.

Mid Cheshire Junior League at Crewe GC

Olly Mills and Will Grant represented Hale in this fourth fixture of the six event series on Sunday. Will did great in his first MCJL event and Olly had his best performance to date recording 33 stableford points on a course that he had never even seen before. Olly also played in his first men’s comp the day before so very well done sir!

The next event is here at Hale on Sunday 25th June with tee times booked from 2pm onwards.

Ollie on Tour

We mentioned Ollie Grieves’ golfing travels in last week’s newsletter and he’s been away again last weekend, this time playing at Selby GC in his third Northern Junior Golf Tour event. This was his best performance to date as he finished joint second with a nett +1.

Thanks to Ollie’s grandfather and HGC member John Book for sending over the wonderful photos below (I hope the newsletter does them justice as I have to make the image size considerably smaller) and we’ll finish with a lovely quote from John:

“Ollie seems to relish the new courses challenge which he hasn’t seen any of these before the day he turns up to play, but also great that friendships with boys from golf clubs all over the North are being made, all in all a great experience in progressing with this wonderful game, and cannot wait until Barrow in July.”