The church in Sandon was packed for Carl Tindall's funeral on Monday this week, followed by the Wake back at the golf club. Carl played for the Scratch team at Brocton and had made a lasting impression at the club in a short space of time. Richard Gee made the best speech I've ever heard, especially considering the circumstances, as he paid a moving tribute to his best mate and painted a brilliantly colourful picture of him - absolutely spot on Rich.



 

Many of the scratch team were playing in the Nations Cup on Saturday at Brocton in the annual match played between teams representing different countries or regions. Amongst others we had 'Hednesford Ex-Servicemen, Cool Runnings Jamaican team, The Social Bandits and many more. The team 'Staffs Finest' won and here's a picture of the second placed team representing 'LDV Kent' - look familiar?

The Scottish team were very generous and provided a haggis which was dished up for starters after a ceremonial 'stabbing and cutting up' - delicious!

The winning pair receive the Eric and Ernie Trophy and this was won with a stunning score of a gross 59 from Mike Dewsbury and Neil Johnson who had 12 birdies between them! The course wasn't playing particularly easy with only the 8th and 13th holes playing downwind but Mike shot 62 on his own! Great knock guys.

Thanks to my partner Ned Edwards as we got 40 points and thanks to the rest of my team as we represented the 'Tuesday Night Social Spike Bar plus occasionally the mixed lounge and what used to be called the Men's bar if there's a lot playing in the comp such as when the weather's good Region' - Rich Nicholls, John Nicholls, Martin Hunt, Ned Edwards, Neil Flowers, Peter Horsley and Stuart Beaman.

Then on Sunday we had the Family Competition which was won by Neil Flowers and Ron Flowers. The format has changed this year to allow sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters to play and it proved more popular than ever. I played with my 12 year old Simon and we had 5 birdies in a row.




It's such a pleasure to play golf at Brocton at the moment - the greens are phenomenal, they were really quick on Sunday morning and everyone is saying they're the best we've ever seen them at this time of year - in fact they're as good as in the summer. I played four times last week and never saw a single putt either move offline or take a jump at all. This all bodes well as we enter the winter months considering we remain on the greens in all conditions except the heaviest snow.

Congratulations to Andy and the team including Kevin and the greens committee for an exceptional job throughout the year. They spend lots of time at the moment collecting up all the leaves, I personally only tend to notice the benefit of this when I play elsewhere and see how many get left on the courses, but then I REALLY appreciate the difference at Brocton.

What was also noticeable on the course was the lack of pitchmarks on the greens so well done to everyone for paying attention to this important aspect. As we receive more rain and as the tees move slightly forwards bringing the greens more into range, please keep up the good work - it makes a huge difference. Remember - if everyone repairs AT LEAST their pitch mark plus any around it, there shouldn't be any marks at all on the surfaces.


 

This Saturday we will be having a Pro's Fiddle. It will be a Better-Ball Bogey competition, played off next year's format of 90% handicap allowance, White Tees, £8 per pair including 2's. The shop will open at 8am as it's too dark to tee off before then. We put the Pro's fiddles on when there isn't a competition on at the weekends and we try to vary the format although it's a little restricted as we need to have a quick 4-ball format whenever possible.


 

As the new James Bond premieres next week, here's a picture depicting some of the work I can do to 'pimp up' golf clubs.

I've stamped the heads and paint filled them in white and these are going out to a fan of the James Bond genre.


 

I'm off on our 'summer' holiday to Egypt on Saturday - whilst I'm away Luke and Isobel still have my diary and can book you in for fittings or lessons. Lots of you are making use of your loyalty points and booking the half hour winter lesson slots which you can redeem your Loyalty Points against. These points get zero'd on your account at the end of March so don't leave it too long to book - My diary gets pretty full in the winter as it's an ideal time to check out your clubs or work on your game PLUS my new ball tracking launch monitor will be here by Mid November so we'll be able to conduct even more accurate ball-fitting and yardage gapping tests.






When I return from holiday I'll be putting some new golf balls into use for coaching.

I've invested in 500 bright yellow two-piece golf balls which will be for coaching purposes only. I've given up drawing coloured lines on our white golf balls as I keep finding them in people's practice bags! From November onwards, please do not practice with any of the yellow golf balls. Very often I'll leave them at one end of the range and when I return to pick them up, I find they've been hit all over the place. You may even think you're helping by knocking them all onto the green for me but often someone else will come along and instead of using their own balls they'll seize the opportunity to hit the nice collection of balls on the green! So please, if you want to practice. Please do so but use your own golf balls or come into the shop and we'll lend you some.