CAPTAIN BILL DRIVES IN WITH ENOUGH BOTTLE TO TAKE STABLEFORD AS WELL

Sunday 20^th January saw Freshwaters 2008 Captain Bill Hinchen treat 80 members to mulled wine and a lamb curry following a well contested 10 hole stableford competition at his Drive In. All this after taking the Midweek Stableford Competition himself with a massive 43 points, cutting his handicap back down to 5.

Prize winners of the Drive In competition were: nearest the pin on the 14^th last player out Graham Wells winning a bottle of wine whilst the Ladies prize went to^t Anne Smith with 19 points beating Val Kimber on the better back three, first man was Hugh Morrison carding 21 points picking up a dozen ProV1.

With the out going Captains, Gary Holmes and Tina Raymond, driving the balls up the 18^th fairway all the new Captains had to do was hit the green. Members placed named pegs in the ground predicting were they thought the balls would finish. Ladies Captain Rita Smith played first in a difficult left to right wind (and all the members lined up on the right hand side of the green and approach next to the out of bounds just to make matters worse!) over compensated and missed the green on the left hand side, nearest to her ball was Graham Wells winning himself another bottle of wine. Then up strode the incoming Club Captain Bill Hinchen (5 handicap) who from 140 yards out mightily smote his eight iron a full twenty yards through the back of the green where Junior David Hartley was waiting to claim his prize of half a dozen Srixon golf balls.

Whilst members were availing themselves of the Captains hospitality Champagne Charlies 5p bottle was weighed emptied and its contents carefully counted. The Jeroboam of Champagne was won by the then Vice Captains table at the annual Dinner Dance in February 2007 and after its liquid contents had been swiftly dispatched was placed on the Club bar for members to fill with 5p pieces. Three competitions were held to guess the weight, value of its contents and length of time needed to empty the bottle. Organiser Charlie Clark presided over the proceedings whilst Steve Sargeant duly weighed, counted and ascertained the winners. The prize for guessing the value of the contents of the bottle was won by Toni Sexton with £214.05 being closest to the actual value of £232. The combined weight of the bottle and contents was correctly predicted by Chris Boulter as 18 kg whilst his wife Sallie took the final prize being within 5 seconds off the actual time taken to empty the bottle a surprising 10 minutes 35 seconds. The £500 raised by the bottle antics will go to help refurbish the bar seating area whilst the £216 raised by the proceedings on the day will go to the Captains Charity – Freshwater Lifeboat.

The Mid Week Stableford was played on Wednesday 16^th January, the day before Bill took office at the Annual General Meeting and almost as if in his final act of freedom he trounced the 26 other participants to take first place in Division 1 with an excellent 43 points. Second place went to Miles Oldershaw (10) with 40 points whilst third spot was taken by Dick Leppard (17) on 38 points. In Division 2 the top three players all tied with 36 points, John Hill came out the winner on count back from Ray Cooke in second and John Whitehouse in third.