Ladies Presentation Morning

The presentation morning for Wiltshire ladies was held at Marlborough Golf Club on Saturday 9th November.  This was attended by over 60 ladies and the trophies for various competitions held during the year were presented.

Below are the 2 reports from Carol Main, our Wiltshire Golf President and from Lynn Thornton, the Competitions Director.

Report from Carol Main – President of Wiltshire Golf

First of all, good morning and welcome ladies to Marlborough Golf Club, for this year’s presentation morning. It’s really lovely to see so many of you here.

It’s been an interesting first year as President.

All is continuing to go well with the unification, and we’ve had some really good board meetings where we’ve discussed all sorts of things golf related!

Hopefully you’ve heard that in March this year we went up against Lancashire in the battle to be named County of the Year at the England Golf Awards ceremony.  Little old Wiltshire, which has 26 affiliated golf clubs, held off the strong challenge of Lancashire, a previous winner of the title and a county which represents 157 clubs.  We impressed the judges with the merger of our men and women’ organisations to create Wiltshire Golf, with the way we involve our clubs in our planning and the golfing opportunities we offer to players of all abilities, including a junior development tour.

I hope you’ll agree that this is a brilliant achievement to receive such recognition for the way we’re trying to change people’s attitudes to golf and to modernise the game.

One of the topics often discussed at our Board meetings, arising from comments from all of you, is communication, and I hope that you’ve seen improvements in this area this year, with ongoing improvements to the website, and also the introduction of a regular newsletter.

It’s been great to be at many of the Golf events this year, seeing all of you having great fun out there and winning prizes! I also had the pleasure of attending the inter county’s match week at Woodbury Park in Devon with Anne Ferguson and her team. I saw some amazing golf being played and, whilst we didn’t win, I have to say that I was very impressed with the quality of play and attitude from our youngsters in particular so hopefully the future is bright for us. The standard of golf at this event seems to get higher every year.  The winners this year were Gloucestershire (again) and they went on to win the national finals in September with a day to spare, so well done to them. Great to have the South West so well represented by them.

Report from Lynn Thornton – Director of Competitions

Thank you all for coming along today in the cold and damp of early winter.

I would also like to thank the Competitions Committee - Irene Tomkinson, Sue Lyons, Scott Talbert, Jan Scott, Maz Clifton, Nick Chapman and Jerry Gegg - for their support, help and time over the past year.

Thanks go to all the clubs who hosted the competitions this year we have been well looked after and the meals/teas were super.

Irene will be standing down from the County Board at the AGM and I am sure you all join me in thanking her for all she has done for us over the past 5 years as the WLCGA Secretary.

There were some changes to County competitions for 2019 to make them more inclusive. We will continue to review all competitions for all sectors next year.

Spring Meeting – historically the most popular event in the ladies’ calendar and 2019 did not disappoint with 87 ladies playing. Played at Salisbury and South Wilts.

Ladies Foursomes – as a trial this year we invited the County Squad to enter some teams for this - 10 ladies + Juniors played.  It was played on the same day as the men’s foursomes at Cumberwell Park and proved to be a success.  In 2020 this will be open to all ladies.

County Championship held at Marlborough was a single day 36 hole competition for the County Champion and potentials for the County Squad there were 2 other divisions which were well supported and in total we had 79 ladies playing on the day – almost 3 times better than in any of the previous 6+ years.

This format will therefore continue with an 18-hole option for all others to enter the divisional championships.

Congratulations to Sarah Gee who is the 2019 County Ladies Champion.

Junior Championship – only 7 girls entered this year, but a great competition and it was especially good to see the friendships and support of the girls to the boys and vice versa – will continue in this format.  Congratulations to Katie Walls as the Junior Girls Champion.

Senior Ladies Championship held at High Post was again very well supported, this year including ladies of 50 and over.  There were 64 ladies on the day, with more ladies supporting this each year. The Senior Ladies Champion is Carol Main.

Bowmaker – again a popular event for all to enjoy. 76 ladies entered.  Upavon is a popular venue and all loved the course

Coronation Medal Final – 144 ladies entered at club level and although we should have had 34 ladies at the final only 25 were able to make the day. Nevertheless, it was super day and all those who came along enjoyed playing at Ogbourne Downs and the afternoon tea

4BBB - As a one off we introduced a 4BBB this year. We had 44 entrants at West Wilts.  This will not be held next year.

Lumley Foursomes – only 7 clubs participated this year with 56 pairs.  The numbers entering this have been in decline since the introduction in the year 2000.   This competition will unfortunately not be run in future and the hopefully the Lumley Plates will be used for a new competition if agreed by Phoebe Lumley. A replacement competition will be introduced in the autumn of 2020, on the same lines as the Spring Meeting, as that is so popular.

In-Club Competitions – will in future be played in 3 divisions to include everyone  - please refer to the Information Book for 2020.  Please do encourage your Ladies to enter these as the proceeds do help Junior Golf in terms of kit and intercounty match week.  Irene will continue to collate all these results

South West Events – you may all be aware we host an event each year for the South West – this year it was the Foursomes held at Chippenham. Only 17 pairs from Wiltshire entered – confirming the lack of interest in previous years to the County Foursomes.

Leagues – following the trial this year of 4BBB in Division 1 of the Scratch league, a meeting in September of League Captains decided that the format would be singles match play in all leagues.

Please note:  The dates of all league matches will be on the website only – not in the Information Book.

Please note that the League and KO results should continue to be sent to Maz Clifton. Please send them as soon as possible after your match.  Results will go on the website in due course after your matches.

Terms of Competition (formerly Conditions of Entry) have been rewritten to take account of the many changes; there is be a single set for use by all members of the County. They will not be printed in the Information Book but on the website only so they can be updated more easily and accessible to all. Please refer to these before playing your matches.

Information Book – this is printed early in the year and is therefore not always up to date. Could you please notify Irene Tomkinson, who is continuing to collate and update this, of any changes to contact names, email addresses and telephone numbers .  The Information Book is updated monthly on the website.

The Scratch and the Handicap Knockout draws together with a  Venue Sheet for some of the competitions to be held in 2020 are available on the Wiltshire Golf website under the heading “About” on the home page.

Details of the venues for some of the ladies competitions to be held in 2020 can be found on the Wiltshire Golf Website under the "Golf Events" heading on the home page.

Photos of the winners being presented with their trophy/voucher by Carol Main are below.  If anyone would like a copy of their photo please contact Sue Lyons on suelyons31@sky.com.

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