First and foremost I think we must say congratulations to David and Andrew Mills who flew the flag for WHGC this week in winning the annual Father and Son tournament in fine style defeating another West Hill member Charlie Norman and his father, Terry, in the final 2&1. It was great to see 13 pairs of West Hill members do battle this week and it's a tradition that looks set to continue with the promising batch of youngsters Cliff has given the golfing bug to.

We were incredibly blessed with the weather all week and it was fabulous seeing the West Hill greens doing their very best Augusta impression and outwitting even the finest of flat stick operators. Well done Ben and his team for working tirelessly to present such a wonderful finished product in readiness for the season following their hard work on all the winter projects.

Another thank you that needs to be said is one to every WHGC member that came out to support the event and provide a service whether it be ball spotting, starting, marshalling or even just some moral support to our competitors.Without you this week wouldn't run so smoothly and West Hill might not have the deserved reputation it carries. Thank you.

Congratulations to Stuart Mackie (68) pieced together a fine back 9 of -1 gross to pip James Finnigan on count back. James perhaps rueing a bogey 5 up 18th but still returning a tremendously impressive gross score of 70 on a day when West Hill once again showed it's teeth on the putting surfaces, particularly the first hole where I hear four putts were rife! Simon Mead also was unlucky not to win after completing a round of 68 (74 gross) to tie James and Stuart at the top of the leader board following a pitching lesson with me the evening before!!!! Jonathan Holden continued his good form in coming 4th one shot back to complete the dominance for the single figure players on a wild Easter Sunday.

Bank Holiday laid stage to the Easter Monday Foursomes. Howard and Hilary Ashton once again proved a formidable duo in taking the title from John and Elaine Watts with Julian and Sian Thomas completing the podium.

On Easter Friday I played with members Keith Ellis, David Haigh and David Begg. We had a great game and even with Keith producing three net birdies on the back nine and me shooting a gross 67 we only scraped through on the 18th when David Haigh's 15 footer to half the match lipped the hole. I am still looking for two more members to join me for the next friendly fourball on Thursday 8 May - click here to join me.

Here is the missing picture from last week of the West Hill tourists in Brittany.

Saturday saw The West Hill ladies take to the links to do battle for the Ladies weekend stableford, on what were perhaps the firmest greens I've seen all year Heather Thwaites used all of her short game prowess to post a fantastic score of 38 points prevailing over another two well made scores of 35 and 34 points by Kay Bowman and Elaine Watts respectively. Great golf from the Ladies!

Remember that New Year's Resolution to play more golf in 2014? There are lots of competitions coming up so sign up online

• Wednesday 30 April Captains Roll Up & Lunch
• Sunday 4 May Club Medal
• Friday 16 May Weekday Stableford
• Saturday 17 May Dinner Trophy Foursomes
• Friday 23 May Mixed Greensomes Golf and Supper
• Monday 26 May Whitsun Cup
• Wednesday 28 May Captain's Roll Up
• Friday 30 May Men's Spring Invitation
• Saturday 31 May Tommy Martin Foursomes Qualifier
• Sunday 8 June Captain's Day
• Friday 27 Jun West Hill Pro/Am
• Sunday 6 July Bank Holiday Mixed Invitation
• Friday 1 August Men's Summer Invitation

Custom Fitting News From Patrick

Brian booked in to see myself on Thursday afternoon to assess his current wedge set up and to fill any gaps that there might be. Brian's pitching wedge and 52 degree gap wedge covered the yardages nicely down to his 56 degree sand wedge which Brian said he wasn't getting on with as well as he would like to. We focused on finding a design of wedge which would suit Brian's pitching method for his 50-75 yard shots. We found that Titleist SM5 wedge with the "K-Grind" sole gave Brian better contact and more confidence due to it's wider camber and increased bounce which stops the club digging in too deeply into the turf, so keep an eye out for Brian playing beautifully lofted pitches over bunkers in the near future!

Sian Thomas was next to see me on Thursday, curious about whether we could add a little bit of distance to her drives with some modern technology and if we could find a fairway wood that was easier to flight than her current model. We collected some data from the Flightscope regarding her current driver and found that while the shot appeared aesthetically correct the ball was spinning at 5500 RPM when the ideal spin is between the range of 1500 and 2500 .This was having an adverse effect on Sian's vertical landing angle and roll thus inhibiting overall distance. We tried a couple of driver head and shaft combinations and found that TaylorMade's super low spinning driver the SLDR was a revelation in controlling Sian's high spin rate and the stock ladies "speeder" shaft gave her the control she previously enjoyed with her current driver. With the fairway wood Sian is currently using a reasonably dated Callway steelhead which has quite a deep face when compared to most modern fairway woods and was therefore proving difficult to consistently hit from the fairway and rough, we tried Adams golf's reincarnated "tight lies" model 5 wood with the Basara shaft in lite flex as the ladies shaft was too soft for Sians' powerful swing. The shallow design of the face on this wood was an instant success as even Sians' mis-hits were flying high towards the target which in turn provided greater consistency. I'm currently acquiring some different lofts in the driver head and in the fairways for Sian to hit on the flightscope as to ensure we are getting the absolute peak performance from the equipment.

Last up on the radar on Thursday was David Mills who wasn't getting on with his current 3 hybrid and wanted to see if there was anything better out there for him. David has a Tour Edge 4 wood with the Light but strong AD40 shaft in which he hits incredibly well so we trialled a 19 degree TaylorMade R11 Hybrid with the lightweight Aldila R.I.P shaft and found that using a similar style of shaft in this hybrid gave David the feeling he was looking for and gave him a club to use on the 4th and 15th holes when the tees are right back on their plates as his current 4 hybrid wasn't enough but his 4 wood was too strong for this yardage

If anyone is interested in filling their yardage gaps or feels that their current equipment isn't doing the job they would like it to then please get in touch with with myself or Guy and please utilise our FREE club checking service, we are more than happy to help you be at one with your equipment!

Click here to book your session.