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Open day Success!
One hundred and eleven visitors experience our great course
Despite not having the best weather of the week, the Open Day on Thursday 22nd saw one hundred and eleven visitors, two new members and a lot of interested people thinking over a great membership offer.
Open all day at only £5 per head the day proved very popular and a great success.
The income more than covered the costs involved and the story of how great a course we have at Stocksfield is spread a little wider.
The draw for a free membership was made at the Main Committee Meeting on Thursday night with the winner being drawn by the Captain. So we are please to welcome our new member...
Mr B Wearmouth
Darlington
County Durham
Norma will be also following up all of the rest of the visitors over the next week or so to see if she can persuade a few more to take up the offer.
The club's thanks go to Norma and to Geoff for looking after the visitors and flying the flag for Stocksfield.
The Forum - have your say!
Underused feature of the Stocksfield site
Unless you've had a good poke around the site, you may have missed the fact that there is a fully featured FORUM under the Members menu tab!
Following the link will open a new window with the home page of the forum.
You'll need to register to use the forum. (Yes, another registration, I'm afraid!) I suggest you use the identical username and password as you use to access the website - then you'll have no problem remembering them.
At the forum home page, click on the 'Register' icon in the collection of icons at the top right of the page. Then follow the instructions from there on.
Once you've joined the forum you can start up a new topic in the appropriate section or comment on or answer any other topics that have been raised.
So, no excuse for muttering to your mates as you go around the course or over a pint! Air those grievances... pass on your congratulations to someone who has done a good job... ask a question about golf, your swing, the rules, whatever!
Draw & Results for Mixed competitions now on the website
Use the side menu on the mixed pages or click HERE for the Draw from the Friday night before the competition. Use the side menu on the mixed pages or click HERE for Results on the Sunday night, once the competition has finished
See the draws for the Matchplay Knockouts!
Mixed, Juniors and Gents
The draws have been published for the matchplays. And now, you can see them online too!
Just follow the 'Matchplay Competitions' link in the Members Menu to check out the competitions that interest you.
And why not enter your profile information and a picture, too, so that your opponents will know how you prefer to be contacted and will recognise you on the first tee? Just follow the 'Your Profile' link in the People Menu or click HERE
County Foursomes Victory!
Words: Tim Taylor, The Journal - 22nd April 2010
Pictures: ©Richard Hannam (www.rhannam.weebly.com)
Simon Martin, a Category Two club golfer who has a handicap of six and is, as far as anybody can recall, the most unexpected finalist in the history of county golf, represented Stocksfield, partnered by the county champion Chris Paisley, who last year became the first Northumberland golfer in 22 years to play in the Walker Cup. Chris’s handicap is plus four, which meant a ten-shot difference in the pairing. Playing for Brancepeth were Michael Curry, plus one and twice the Durham County Champion, and Gareth Cooper, scratch, and a former Northern Boys champion.
How Martin, a 41-year-old former Stocksfield club champion, who lives in Hexham, came to be giving away shots to leading county players in a scratch tournament stemmed from the facts that there was no great stampede at the Stocksfield club to play in it and that some better handicap players were unavailable.
The event involves Northumberland and Durham each determining their own foursomes champions and then it becomes Inter County for the final. The early Northumberland rounds were played at Newbiggin and Tynedale, Paisley and Martin eliminating pairs from Ponteland, Wallsend, Bamburgh Castle and Morpeth.
Both tournament semi-finals were staged on the morning of the final, Stocksfield beating Newbiggin 4&3 and Brancepeth accounting for Heworth, 5&4. The semi-finals are also the respective county finals, so, whatever was to happen in the tournament final, there was already a six-handicap golfer who can always say he was one of the pair which won the 2010 Northumberland Foursomes Championship. Stuart McDonnell, the Stocksfield club captain at the time of Martin’s selection for the event, said: “Simon turned out to be a very good listener to everything Chris told him out on the courses all the way through.
“Not once was he involved in a match which involved another golfer with anything worse than a scratch handicap and to beat Morpeth, who picked the brothers Craig and Mark Penny, both top county players, was a fantastic achievement . Everyone at Stocksfield is proud of our players.”
Martin, a former Prudhoe High School pupil and a director of a Stocksfield company, Helping Hands Community Care, said: “The whole experience was absolutely fantastic.
“Once we got on a run in the early stages, adrenalin took over and then nerves, for me, when we got to the final. Chris was absolutely fantastic.”
After nine holes of the final, a fairy tale ending was on the cards. Paisley and Martin won the last three holes going out and had surged from one down to two up. Then, after two halved holes, Brancepeth won three in a row to stand one up on the 15th tee.
On the 14th green, Martin had been an inch short of draining a 12-foot putt. Would that get to the least battle-hardened man competing? No, he sunk a 15-footer at 15 to level the final. It was still all square after 16, where the plus handicap men, Paisley and Curry, both missed from within five feet.
Martin’s incredible journey was guaranteed now to extend to the 18th hole of his sixth and last contest of the tournament , but by now the magic dust had all but been blown away by the ferocious and eye-watering wind that, late on, got up to 50mph on a United course in excellent condition for such an early stage of the season.
Martin leaked his approach shot wide right at the 17th, Paisley then playing an iffy pitch. Brancepeth took the hole and needed only a half at the last to win the tournament. Again Martin leaked right, this time from the tee, and Paisley put his attempted recovery out of bounds, conceding a two up victory to Brancepeth once Cooper had chipped on to the green.
Martin, who started playing golf as a ten-year-old junior at Stocksfield, has since been a member there for all but two years, when he lived briefly in Slaley and played there instead. He said:
“I have learned so much from playing six rounds with Chris Paisley that I feel like a completely different golfer.
“Chris was saying to me ‘just keep the ball on the fairway, play par golf, take it easy, keep everything calm’.”
Captains' Drive-In
Starting the 2010 season!
The 2010 season got off to a great start with the four Captains all making superb drives on Saturday 17th April 2010. The President, Kate Stephenson, ran proceedings beautifully - introducing each of the Captains in turn.
Club Captain, Les Palmer, hit what he claims was his best-ever drive straight down the first sliding past the marker post, hitting the road and bouncing high on down the bank toward the stream. If not for the bevy of lads trying to catch the Captains' drives it would have finished up wet!
The Lady Captain, Muriel Forster, hit a lovely straight drive well down the fairway - despite complaining that she'd never hit one from so far back (all the drives were taken off the white tees, this year).
Stuart McDonnell, Senior Captain, hit his customary slash straight down the line (though he must have aged since last year - when he drove in as Club Captain) as he was nothing like as long this year!
Stuart is becoming a 'fixture' at the drive-in! Having played as Vice Captain, Club Captain and now Senior Captain - all in the space of 3 years!
Zach Walker sent his usual draw straight down the fairway with the casual nonchalance of youth. Long as Zach drives the ball, he still didn't get as far as the Captain did, though. Which is just as it should be!
A Trophy Cabinet for Stocksfield?
At the recent AGM, the subject of a Trophy Cabinet was brought up by the Chairman
Don Moon's family have left a small bequest to the club and the idea has been mooted that this should be used toward the provision of a permanent trophy cabinet where all of the Club's trophies could be on display to members and visitors.
Various suggestions have already been made as to where it might be sited. Possibilites are: in the void above the bar; against, or replacing, the half wall opposite the bar, between bar and dining room; on the side wall where the bandit is currently situated; or in the hall in the bay where the payphone is at present.
The Chairman also noted that members must realise that this would mark a change in the practice of handing trophies out to the winners for hem to keep at home for the year. Instead, all trophies would have to have a memento - an ongoing additional cost, in itself.
The Chairman mentioned that members views would be welcomed along with any other suggestions or offers of help with the project. You can talk to John Brinkhurst or Norma Ferguson or send in your suggestion using the 'Suggestions' item in the Contact menu on this website.
CAFE GOLF
Fabulous success with this scheme
The Ladies Section introduced this Scheme for the first time in 2009 and successfully recruited 13 full new members.
We are going to re-run the Scheme and already have over 12 interested ladies.
Hopefully our men will be equally successful with their Starter for Ten package.
Add yourself to the Member's Directory
Upload a picture, add some information and you're in!
The website now has a directory of members open to all registered members of the club.
You can access the directory under the PEOPLE menu as 'Members Directory' Here you will see thumbnail picture, name, handicap and basic contact method for those members who have added themselves to the directory. Click on the picture for even more information!
To add your information, click on the 'Your Profile' item in the PEOPLE menu and you will be taken to a page where you can edit/add info and picture. The click SUBMIT.
Click on the picture to upload your photo (or change an existing one).
Please note, your profile is NOT active by default. You must remember to switch it on at the bottom of the page and then hit SUBMIT.