Good luck to all the Brocton members running in the Stafford half marathon on Sunday- I'll see you at the top of the steps in the town hall square for a pic at 9:40

 

Sometimes it's hard to believe that anything good can come out of a shockingly bad event, but the hope that something positive may come to bear in the future is a powerful force to spur us all on.

When scratch team member, Carl Tindall, was cruelly taken from us at the hands of others, it was hard to believe that anything at all positive could ensue. Fast forward a couple of short years and the annual Scratch Team v Club match is the happy beneficiary of his legacy. 72 golfers took part in the match which is now played in Carl's name and has quickly become the season starting event on the men's calendar with a fantastic atmosphere of camaraderie, banter, sportsmanship and partying in equal measure. Actually the partying was won by the scratch team as they VIP'd it late into the night at CASA, which was also the result of the match with the scratch team winning by the narrowest of margins 9 1/2 - 8 1/2.

Luke, myself and Mike Dewsbury played for the scratch team as Professionals and luckily we didn't let the side down, all the games were hard fought with three club members playing off the white stones without any shots against one scratch team member in each group. The Captain, Kevin Mellor, presented the bowl to the Scratch Captain, Alan Birch who closed with the best rousing end to a speech ever - "enjoy the season, play hard and party hard!"


 

My Pro Shop team have been busy this week as I decided that we needed to move the new club display across the shop about 4 feet. 

The move took us a day and a half and you'll see a much improved overall display when you next come in, including a time-line of golf clubs from the hickory days of golf equipment. 

Thanks to the team for getting stuck in and I must thank Katie for taking this picture of me as I extricated myself from the inside of the display skeleton.

You'll also see our current promotions on display. £20 trade in of your old golf bag against a new Mizuno or Motocaddy model.

We have also had the new FootJoy spineless SL shoes in, which all their tour players are wearing.

  

Titleist have launched their '4 for 3' offer where you can get a dozen free ProV1 balls including personalisation. Check the advert in this newsletter for details. 

Lastly, I can tell you that starting on April 1st, we have a trade-in promotion on Lithium batteries. I can give you this heads-up notification as it will be featuring the LitePower lithium battery which we have used for 5 years and you'll get £25 discount by trading in your old battery. They charge up in half the time of a lead-acid battery, are a fraction of the weight and have three times the warranty period. At £199 they also come with a charger and that is without your trade-in discount. 



 
There will be a Pros Fiddle on this Saturday in conjunction with the Six Nations Rugby. Four Ball Betterball, 90% handicap, white tees. 

The Tuesday Social will be starting on the 28th March as the course drainage work on the 6th and 16th looks like it will be going ahead next week. 

Once the tees move back to the summer locations, we'll be introducing a new reward for a hole-in-one. Two's entry will increase from £1 up to £1.50 (Juniors have chosen to pay £1.50 for the past few years) and will include a 1's' sweep. 10 pence of the sweep would get fed into a 1's pot held in the pro shop safe and anyone getting an ace will win whatever is in the pot - 50% in cash and 50% in pro shop credit. Two or more people getting an ace in the same competition will share the pot. Once the pot reaches £500 it will be ringfenced and another pot starts to build. Anyone getting an ace on a competition day would win the ringfenced pot (or a share of it if there's more than one) and the following competition day would be playing for the newer pot. 

Qualifying competitions would be any Brocton member-only men's or mixed competitions run through the shop and played from full tees including board comps, mixed greensomes, pros fiddles and bank holiday comps. As always the sweep remains an optional sweep.


 

England can "achieve greatness" by completing a second straight Grand Slam against Ireland at the weekend and breaking New Zealand's record of 18 consecutive wins. England thrashed Scotland 61-21 at Twickenham on Saturday to retain the Six Nations and coach Eddie Jones says his players want more success. 

"How many times in your life do you get to be great? It's exciting," he said, "They're in the dressing room now talking about it. They want to do it." 

The match will be played on the Media Centre in the Lounge at the golf club and promises to be another great atmosphere (let's face it, the bar will be about 6 feet from you!). Justin and the team will be on hand with the full menu available and kick-off is 5pm. There's no need to book for golf or the match, just turn up and join in, although if you need fixing up for golf you can call the shop and we'll help you out.