RNGS AUTUMN MEETING – RESULTS 2023

It is not difficult to find three top class links courses in the S Lancs and Wirral area, there are so many of them. For day one, we swapped Royal Liverpool, host of this year’s Open at Hoylake, for Southport and Ainsdale (S&A), near Southport. Only minutes way from Royal Birkdale, Hillside and Formby, each with their own claims to fame, e.g. The Open, the British Seniors Open and Amateur Championships. In addition to hosting this year’s Amateur Championship (with Hillside), S&A has staged two Ryder Cups (1934 & ’37). In Ryder Cup year, it seemed like a good idea. On days two and three, we returned to Wallasey and Caldy, across the Mersey on the Wirral peninsular. It is pleasing to report that nine members made the trip. Four were repeat tourists, five were first timers.

Wallasey is the home of the Stableford scoring system, devised by club member Dr Frank Stableford, a former surgeon in the RAMC. The first Stableford competition was played on 16^th May 1932. Later, in 1967, it staged its second World Seniors Championship Final, won 3&2 by Scotsman John Panton versus the iconic American, Sam Snead, complete with his thru-the-legs putting technique! Only twenty minutes way, on the Dee estuary lies Caldy. Like Wallasey, an Open qualifying venue, with stunning views to the Welsh hills.

S&A is beautifully laid out, more like a park than a golf links and superbly presented. After overnight rain, we played 18 holes individual Stableford in glorious sunshine and little wind. On completion, we repositioned to Hoylake in readiness for Wallasey. Its location on the shores of Liverpool Bay presents a challenge in any kind of moderate breeze. After rain overnight, the sun came out and the course was soon dry. Wallasey is a course that should be on everyone’s playlist. Beautifully presented, immaculately manicured, grass pathways from greens to tees, with views to die for, it is a joy to play.

Our final day at Caldy didn’t let us down, dry and very warm. Our hosts were unable to raise a team of ex-Captains, they said they were all played out! So, we spiced it up and played threeball team golf, for a small wager naturally. It is therefore especially pleasing to report that the winners were David Brocklebank, James Dempsey and Kieran Markham. 

In conclusion, another memorable tour, the standouts being the quality of the three courses and the generous welcome given to us at each venue, especially at Wallasey. The team blended well, in good humour and a good dollop of competitive spirit. Onward to 2024.

We struggled to field a full side and I am grateful to Paul Mansell for bringing Richard Gourlay along to play on Friday. I also recruited my friend and old boss, Danny Milligan, who lives locally to play for us on the Saturday. This is really an outstanding fixture and such ‘sticking plaster’ measures should not be necessary. I strongly appeal to members to actively consider playing next year. Peter Eberle, Match Manager

Tour was made special by some wonderful sunny weather and except for the day at Renaissance, with mild winds. A total of 17 RNGS players participated in the various events and were joined over the first three days by 6 players from the RN Northern Region Golf Club. Muirfield were unable to host the match on the Sunday, so the fixture was moved to the Monday. On Sunday,  8 players led by Bob White were able to play a match against the members of Lundin Links in Fife. 

Thursday 25 May 2023: Match Vs RNNRGC (Gullane Golf Club #2 Course)  - Result: RNGS Win 5-2
Seven groups of 14 players aside playing 4BBB were hosted by RNGS Member Gill Morrison and Joanne Watt. Two extra RNNRGC members played for the RNGS.

Friday 26 May 2023 (Luffness Golf Club)  - Winning Team: Ian Rankin / Kieran Markham / Charlie Smith / Ray Sheills.
Arranged by RNGS Member Ian Rankin and Dennis Kerr, four Teams (one Luffness Member plus 3 RNGS players) competed in a Stableford format. Two RRNRGC members played for the RNGS.

Saturday 27 May 2023 (Renaissance Golf Club) - Result: RNGS Lost 2-4
A windier day at this venue for the Scottish Open made play much tougher. Six weeks before the event the rough was already difficult. Match arranged by RNGS member Malcolm Duck leading a team of members  - Ducks RM Marauders. Six groups 4BBB. 
An extra group played a low handicap 4BBB from the white tees. Made up of RNGS (Bob White & Tom Suddes) Vs RNNRGC (Alexander Lewis & Steven Aries) Alexander plays off +1 and went round in even par, having never played the course before. Result: RNGS Lost this match

Sunday 28 May 2023 (Lundin Links Golf Club) - Result: RNGS Won 2.5 - 1.5
As mentioned above, four groups 4BBB

Monday 29 May 2023 (Muirfield) - Result : Halved 8 – 8  RNGS retain the Sir Garth Morrison Memorial Trophy
Perfect sunshine and little wind to end the tour. Match was two rounds of foursomes against an Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers team led by Paul Du Vivier and Gill Morrison. Six groups am & pm included 15 RNGS players. A 2-4 losing position at halfway was reversed in the afternoon.

Social Events:
26 May: Informal Dinner at Mian Course Italian in Gullane
27 May: Tour Dinner at Ducks Inn Aberlady.
28 May: Barbecue at Renaissance GC 

2023 Portugal Tour - Photos click here

In late February and under the aegis of the RNGS, twenty two golfers descended on Cascais just outside Lisbon for an enjoyable week playing four local courses namely Oitavos Dunes, fantastic Penha Longa, Estoril, and Quinta da Marinha. The weather was kind but cool with only an hour or so of rain throughout the week.

Four of us had at some stage served in CinCiberlant and Ralph Wykes-Sneyd had been Naval Attache so we certainly remembered with great fondness drowning balls at Estoril and the Quinta. In midweek we headed just over an hour north to play the mighty West Cliffs - voted regularly as the second best course in Portugal and within the best twenty five of Europe- just Google it. This came with a fearsome reputation from our home club pros who had played it but needless to say we didn't go off the whites! In short it was absolutely fantastic and perfectly playable even by the many rabbits amongst us.

As my bar bill will testify, the week was far more than just golf. We tended to gather in the early evening to weep over missed two foot putts and gird up our loins for the following day's golf before toddling off ashore for some local grub and probably too much local vinho. The apres golf highlight of the week was being kindly honoured to be allowed to have our traditional tour dinner in the Portuguese Naval Officers beautiful Messe da Marinha on the waterfront at Cascais.

Above all though, and in the best traditions of golf wherever we play, the week allowed us to renew old friendships and more importantly make new ones - whilst searching for our balls in the rough.

Johnny Talbot

Captain's Autumn Washup

Dear Colleagues.

Whilst the memories of our golfing year still remain relatively fresh and following on from my message in May, I thought you might appreciate an end of season wash-up. I will, of course, give the Society a full account when I had over to Stuart Barrand at the AGM in April next year, but I think it would be helpful to provide you with a progress report before the nights close in. 

First of all, many thanks to all of you who have taken the trouble to provide the Committee and I with extremely helpful feedback. None of it has been ignored and much of it has been “taken into core” and will be seen in the changes we are making.

Results this year have been good.  We have won six matches, halved one and lost seven. In addition to our ever-popular and long-standing tour to East Lothian, we also added tours to the west of Scotland, Fife and Perthshire, and to The Wirral. These new tours proved very popular with those able to join them, and we plan to run both again next year; we will, however, shorten the second Scottish tour and focus on Fife and Perthshire.

All three Society Meetings went very well, superbly organised by our Hon Sec, Taf Pugh. Even the mixed weather conditions at our Autumn Meeting at Newquay and Trevose failed to dampen spirits. Numbers at all three meetings were a little down on previous years, but we put that down to Covid legacy and the need for many of our more regular attendees to catch up with family visits and holidays that were lost or postponed as a result of the pandemic.  We are hoping it will be back to “business as usual” next year.

Recruiting has also been good, with twelve new members joining this year so far.  What is particularly encouraging is that of these 12, 10 are Junior and Senior Ratings/Royal Marines, and 3 are still serving. Six have single figure handicaps. Although this bodes extremely well for the future of the Society, we still need to keep up our efforts, so I would encourage all members to continue to act as recruiting sergeants and to advertise the benefits of membership to both serving and retired members of the Naval Service. 

What has not been so good is our ability to find sufficient players for some of our long-standing society and club matches, particularly those that are played as foursomes. It is with considerable regret that we have had to remove the matches against the Army Officers Golf Society and Piltdown GC. We have given a stay of execution to a number of others, but if we continue to struggle to muster teams in 2023 for these fixtures, we will probably have to remove them too.

On the other hand we are adding at least two new matches and another tour in 2023. Following conversations with the RNGA (which is the organisation that manages golf for those still serving) we have arranged a match against RNGA (West) at St Mellion in April and against RNGA (East) at Southwick Park in May. We already have a match against RNGA (North) (called the Royal Navy Northern Region Golf Club (RNNRGC)) as part of our East Lothian tour, and we play the RMGA at Corhampton (possibly moving to Tidworth) each August. So it only now remains to try and fix something with the Fleet Air Arm to complete the picture.  Watch this space.

Although not yet developed, one of our members has also kindly offered to try and organise a tour to Northumberland in September 2023. A match against Northumberland Golf Club has already been sorted, and we hope to announce details of a tour that would be centred on that match, before the end of November.

There have also been a number of management and organisational changes this year.  We have successfully launched our new website and have started to use it to manage our matches.  There is still work to do, but I would encourage all members to log in, explore the site and use it to apply for fixtures and order RNGS clothing.  We will still continue to use the e-mail fixture list and application process in parallel with the website for 2023, but hope to be able to phase this out once members become more familiar with the on-line process. 

After twelve years as our Hon Match Sec, Richard Sanderson is standing down and handing over the reins to Iain Macdonald, our immediate past captain and current website manager. On behalf of the whole Society I would like to thank Richard most sincerely for his outstanding and selfless efforts over the years, without which we would not have remained so successful. BZ! We also thank Iain for stepping into this role at a particularly busy time.

Finally, may I make a plea? We have a number of willing volunteers to take on our new matches and tours, but it would be really helpful if we could share the match management task of our established matches a little more widely. We would very much like to find a new Match Manager for the fixture against the RAF GS in June, and the Royal Engineers GS in July. If anyone is able to take one or other of these on for the benefit of all those in the Society, please let Iain Macdonald know – it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Wishing you all the very best for the winter months, I look forward to seeing you again when the 2023 season tees off in April.

As ever

Anthony

Autumn Meeting

Summer Meeting - Tidworth GC

Another Hole in One! 

Yet another Hole in One! This time is was Jim Hunter at West Sussex in the match against the RAF GS, No photos, but well done Jim!!

Iain's Scotland Tour

Just back from Iain's tour of Scotland - 9 courses in 8 days - Shiskine, Machrihanish, Carradale, Machrihanish Dunes, Dunaverty, Royal Burgess, Blairgowrie, Jubilee (St Andrews) and Castle (St Andrews). Quite a trek, but well worth it with some fabulous courses, great opponent and almost no rain! 

One of the highlights was playing the Jubilee course, St Andrews is now in full swing to get set up for the 150^thopen – quite a buzz. We also had great matches against the Edinburgh High Constables at Royal Burgess and Perth High Constables at Blairgowrie. Lovely people and something we would like to continue. 

Names to me please if you would like to play next year!

Hole in One! 

Last year Taf Pugh had a Hole in One at the 12th at Liphook, this year he was followed by Iain Macdonald at the same hole!

Spring Meeting

After a 2-year Covid-inflicted gap the RNGS Spring Meeting took place in ideal conditions on Wed 20 and Thursday 21 April at Liphook Golf Club. This being Liphook's centenary year, the RNGS was able to mark its lengthy association with the club with the presentation of a beautiful lobby table, handmade by one of our members, Tim Barton. The table was presented by our outgoing Captain, Iain Macdonald, an appropriate way to end his extended term in office in which he has been busier than he might have expected in preparing the RNGS for the future during 'interesting times'.

About 40 members took part in the 2-day meeting, which included overlapping matchplay, stableford, scratch and handicap competitions. The Society's AGM was held after the first day's play and saw the election of new Captain and Vice-Captain for 2022/3, Commodore Anthony King and Commander Stuart Barrand respectively.

Results Details are below:

Wednesday 

Thursday