Phillipping Marvellous!!
Major 1 goes to Phil Nugent at Chesfield Downs GC……..
The ACGA was blessed with beautiful blue skies and warm weather for the season opening major at Chesfield Downs Golf Club, and this was matched by the warm welcome we all received from both staff and members on our arrival. The ACGA haven’t been to Chesfield for over ten years and in that time the club has further matured into a very pleasant but challenging course. The day was also jointly hosted by this year’s Chesfield Downs Lady Vice Captain, our very own long-time member Jacqui Harbor. Congratulations Jacqui and we look forward to coming back next year during your captaincy.
On the day, the ACGA members were joined by several guests from the club….. We believe they thoroughly enjoyed the day and made the most of their local course knowledge….more on that later..
The guests were:
Pat Ward - Lady Treasurer
Lin Goody - Lady’s Competition Secretary
Alayne Blackburn - Lady’s Events Co-ordinator
Les Ward - Men’s Captain
Following the usual pre-competition introduction from this year’s Captain Mark Henry, it was time to take to the course fresh in the knowledge that all bets have been renewed, all WHS handicaps confirmed and all post-round excuses and should have, would have, could have declarations established.
Chesfield Downs is an interesting mix of challenging par 3’s, short drivable par 4’s and several dog-leg or blind tee shot holes. Adding to that was the prevailing wind, which made for than a few errors in club selection on the day. Judging by the final scores, the standard of golf in the ACGA is on the up and looks like we’ll be ready for any course and the challenges it tries to present us with.
Once all the scores were in, made easier by the use of Golf Genius live scoring (although one or two of the group scorers had a little stressful moment during the round), the winner with a very healthy 39 points was our own Social Secretary and former captain Phil “Philly” Nugent. In 2nd place was Mark Quamina who beat Tunde Adeshokan (3rd) and Denise Regis (4th) on countback with 36 points. Congratulations Phillo. Looking forward to that handicap adjustment…
Amongst the guests, as mentioned previously, local knowledge proved extremely valuable. A very creditable 40 points was scored by Alayne Blackburn. However, that was only good enough for a distant 2nd place. Lin “El Chappo” Goodey took the guest prize with an astonishing 49 points!!! That’s the highest score ever made at an ACGA event, and hopefully it’s a record that will stand for a very long time. According to Jacqui, Lin hasn’t been playing well recently. Maybe we all need to be playing badly leading up to a major!!!
Prior to the presentations, the Blobmeister Steve Garner stepped up to collect the £1 per blob charity donations from the field. In recognition of the madness from the other side of the Atlantic, Mr Garner introduced a new tariff for the amount payable by each member. This led to a new record being set for monies collected at an event. As usual, this will be shared between our two charities (WellBeing of Women and Prostate Cancer UK).
Onwards and upwards to Shirley Park GC on the 9th May