Captains Newsletter October 2019

Clays Golf Club

Captain’s Newsletter : October 2019

Dear Member of Clays Golf Club

Firstly, I would like to bring everyone up to date regarding our recent Charity Day. 116 players took part in the competition and enjoyed an excellent carvery meal from Hayley afterwards. Apart from the people who played on the day, a number of members who weren’t able to take part made a donation towards the funds and some of our members sponsored either holes or the individual prizes. I and Malcolm Williams, member at Clays and Chair of the Wrexham Prostate Cancer Support Group, are delighted to report that a total of £3759 has been raised, with more donations promised. Malcolm and I would like to thank sincerely everyone for their fantastic generosity; we very much appreciate the support that we have received from members, families and friends leading up to the day. I will give details of the prizewinners later in the newsletter.

I mentioned in my previous newsletter that we will be holding Presentation Day on Saturday, 9^th November. This will be a shotgun start team competition in the morning and all members are invited to take part but, particularly, our Honours Board Finalists. Following completion of the round we will announce the results for the morning’s competition and immediately go on to present the Honours Board trophies. Our Club President, Gareth Roberts, is currently organising the updating of the new Honours Boards ready for the big day. I very much hope that you’ll take part in the golf and stay to congratulate this season’s champions. The sign-up sheet for taking part is in Reception.

It has been a very difficult time recently for our greenkeeping staff with such heavy rainfall over the past few weeks and this has put back some of the course maintenance and development work that they had planned. Please give the staff priority whilst they carry out this essential work over the coming weeks and months. With current ground conditions, it is inevitable that large divots will be taken when playing a shot, deep pitch marks will be made as the ball hits the green and the sand in bunkers will become compacted. Please give some thought to supporting the greenkeeping staff and taking your fellow players into account by filling any divots as best you can, repairing any pitch marks on the greens and raking bunkers.

Some R&A posters will be appearing on various noticeboards soon with suggestions regarding Ready Golf and the pace of play. Please have a look at these and consider if there are any ways in which you can adopt any of the suggested points.

Finally, having held a very successful charity day, we would now like to turn our attention to raising funds for the club. The Club Council have discussed a number of ways in which we would like the club to develop and further enhance members’ enjoyment of their golf on the course. These include contributing towards the purchase of an air compressor, hopefully for installation sometime in the new year, and the possibility of a halfway house in the future. We have some social events in the next couple of months and we would aim to raise some funds for the club during those two evenings. There are a number of posters around the club with details of these and it would be great if we could sell sufficient tickets for them to go ahead after the disappointment of having to cancel the Cheese and Wine evening.

Thanks again for your ongoing support.

Have a good month’s golf.

Nigel Davies                                                                                       nigeldavies78@gmail.com

Club Captain                                                                                      

Club News :

I am delighted to pass on the news from Josh, our General Manager, that we now have 302 full members. Clays’ next goal is to push on now and reach 350 by the end of the membership renewal period in 2020.

Congratulations to the Clays Ping Mixed Team for coming 3^rd in the Ping Wales Knockout Competition at Cotterill Park, Cardiff.

Congratulations to the Clays Ladies Team who won the Border Cup Challenge, a competition between Mile End GC, Henlle GC and Clays.

Congratulations to Chris Jones, our Immediate Past Captain, and to Russ Adamson for being outright winners of the recent Seniors Open held at Oswestry GC with a fantastic betterball score of 45 points in difficult conditions.

The Seniors played their last match against Mold GC away winning 5½  to 4½ . The Seniors have had a successful year in their Inter-Club matches, playing 11 matches, winning 7 and losing 4.

On Saturday, 23^rd November there will be a Curry and Quiz Night costing £8pp. Tickets can be obtained from Hayley.

The club weekend Winter Turkey Trot competitions have begun and will continue on either a Saturday or a Sunday through the next couple of months, with a turkey, whisky and wine available to win each time!

These will culminate in the final Turkey Trot and Presentation to be held on Saturday, 21^st December. Further details can be found in Reception. Please support as many of these fun competitions as you can.

The 'Clays Golf Christmas Draw' is now underway in Reception at £2 a square or 3 for £5. First prize is a 7 day Clays Golf membership and other prizes include a large turkey, a bottle of scotch, wine and chocolates.

There will be a Clays Christmas Open taking place on Saturday, 28^th December. This will be a Texas Scramble competition for teams of 3 or 4 players and teams can be mixed with Men, Ladies or Juniors off Yellow/Red Tees. Entry fee is just £6 for Members and £10 for Visitors. Prizes include meals out, rounds of golf at other courses and golf products from Ben at Fairway Golf. This is another event in which we are hoping to raise funds for the new air compressor that I mentioned earlier and your support would be very much appreciated.

Some members have mentioned to me that the bell by the 18th tee doesn't seem to be used very much these days, perhaps because of its location, and we have suggested having it moved to between the 18th green and 1st tee, in other words pretty much along the path that most people use to walk off the course. Josh has confirmed that this work is to be included in the greenkeeping team’s winter projects.

Just a reminder that we now have new scorecards and the stroke indices on some of the holes have changed which could well affect the number of shots available on these holes.

Club Results :

Congratulations to those members listed below on their recent golfing success.

Seniors October Medal :

Division 1 :

1^st           Tony Harcombe                   2^nd       Dave Palferman                  

Division 2 :

1^st            Steve Monk                         2^nd       Ken Tieszen  

Thursday 5^th September : Seniors 9 Hole Competition:

1^st            Irwin Elkin                          2^nd       Roy Jordan      

Club October Medal :

Division  1 :

1^st        Iwan Bonds                 2^nd       Richard Collier           

Division 2 :

1^st        Gareth Roberts            2^nd      Paul Stevenson

Past Captains & Officers Honours Board competition 2019 :

1^st        Dave Palferman          2^nd       Bob Brown

  

Charity Day :

Team Prizes :

1^st        Phil Jones        Ant McAllister            Matthew Nicholas       Kevin Todd                     79pts

2^nd       Paul Stevenson           Dave Riley      Graham Davidson-Clarke       Shaun Powell      78pts

3^rd        Tony Jackson              Graham Bryne            Dave Reece     J. Atherton                      72pts

Individual Prizes :

            Nearest the Pin                        Maureen Elkin

            Straightest Drive                     Robin Holden

            Longest Drive                         Shaun Powell

            Nearest the Pin in 2                 David Boove

  

Dates for Your Diary :

2^nd November                    Club Monthly Medal

7^th November                    Seniors Stableford Medal

9^th November               Presentation Day

12^th November                  Seniors Ken Lawrence Memorial

                                                Club Council meeting

16^th November                  Turkey Trot : South African Pairs

19^th November                  Seniors Winter League 1

23^rd November                  Turkey Trot : Pairs Greensomes

                                                Curry & Quiz

24^th November                  Christmas Mixed competition

26^th November                  Seniors Winter League 2

30^th November                  Turkey Trot : Individual Stableford

1^st December                      Ladies 9-Hole comp & Christmas Party

3^rd December                     Seniors AGM

5^th December                     Seniors Stableford Medal

6^th December               Clays Christmas Party!  

7^th December                     Quarterly & Monthly Medalsholly

10^th December                   Club Council Meeting

14^th December                   Turkey Trot : 2 Ball Texas Scramble

17^th December                   Seniors 9-Hole comp & Christmas Party

21^st December                   Turkey Trot Finale :  Six  Six  Six