Presentation Evening and Monthly Medal

Freshwater Bay Golf Club Captain Gary Holmes presented a cheque for £6,128 to the local Stroke Association at the Clubs Presentation Evening on Saturday on behalf of the members who had raised the money through out his year. He chose the charity after his son Danny suffered a stroke following an accident during a football match. Thanks to the efforts of the medical profession he has made a full recovery and is now studying golf at the Duchy College, Danny made a moving speech in which he highlighted the support of The Stroke Association and especially the Neurological Team at Southampton General Hospital in his recovery.

The evening was attended by well over a hundred members and guests who were treated to a review of the 66 trophies competed for during the year followed by a hot buffet and dancing to Doug Stevens. Chris Winn, regional fund raising Manager accepted the cheque on behalf of the Stroke Association, paid tribute to the members who had raised the money, emphasising that Strokes did not just affect old people as demonstrated by Danny’s story and urged every one to have their blood pressure checked regularly.

The Millennium Trophy awarded by the Captain in acknowledgement of outstanding achievement, this year deservedly went to Graham Wells and Chris Tansley who played seven rounds in a day raising over £1200 for the Charity. Special mention was made of Jon Lavers and a team of area managers from Barclays Bank who using their pound for pound scheme raised £2600, club member Steve Orchard ran the London Marathon while Pete Bryan, Richard Couse and Adam Keen walked to every course on the Island over two days.

The final trophy to be presented was Junior Champion contested for the first time this year, donated by Steve Sargeant of LCM Systems and played in conjunction with the Club Championship was fittingly won by Brandon Thompson rounding off a fine year for him. Which has included wins on the Hampshire Junior Circuit against players three years his senior, the Island Junior Championship in September played at Shanklin and Sandown, being selected to play for Hampshire and accepted into their School of excellence program.

Back to golf results the midweek stableford Division One was resoundingly won by John Veal 43 points (five points clear of any one else in the field), in second place Barry Hunter with 38 points beating Bill Hinchen into third on the back nine.

38 points was good enough for first place in Div 2 for John Whitehouse with Pete Bryan in third losing out on count back to Brian Whelan in second both scoring 36 points.

Saturday saw thirty three entries into the Monthly Medal John Sexton came in third spot with a nett 67, Derek Wright carded an excellent 69 gross only to loose first place on the back nine to Mike Hailes; both players returning 66s.

A light hearted two ball scramble was played on the Sunday with first place going to Kevin Garrett & John Sexton with a nett 60, second place was taken by father and son pairing of John and James Veal with a 65.2, not a bad first outing for James having just started as the new Club Professional at Freshwater. Third place went to Stuart Morris & Simon Fisher with a nett 66