Friday 29 August Patrick is running a club testing evening from 4pm to 8pm on the first tee. You can come along and compare any of the latest equipment against your own on our Flightscope radar ball tracking technology - and the numbers don't lie - it will be absolutely clear if there are clubs available which make the game much easier for you. Patrick is calling it GAME CHANGING FRIDAY so click here to book a free appointment and challenge him to change yours!!
Read below about how it changed John Wright's ball flight and how new clubs helped Heather Thwaites to a fantastic win.
Last Friday I played the Stoneham Pro/Am with Mike Graves and Fergus Gilmore as well as a friend of Mike's, Dave Willis. I was defending the title after shooting 5 under last year with John McKimmie, Doug Roach and Brian Raven. However, when we arrived European Tour Pro Richard Bland was already in the clubhouse with 10 under!!!!! However, we tried our best and had a great day. I shot 4 under par 68 and the team were very respectable at 11 under. Click here if you haven't played with me before and would like to make up a friendly fourball at West Hill this autumn/winter.
Following the meeting of the Past Captains on Sunday a puff of white smoke was seen above the clubhouse as Andrew Smith was invited to be the Club Captain for next year. Andrew has been a member of West Hill for 46 years. I'm sure all members join me in wishing Andrew a very enjoyable year in the Captaincy. Andrew has always be very supportive of me and I can remember that even when I was away from West Hill as the club professional at Basingstoke GC, he offered to caddy for me at Open Championship Final Qualifying at Luffness New for the 2002 Muirfield Open, when he was enjoying a week at North Berwick with Alan Wood. Congratulations on your election Andrew.
Congratulations to Anthony Wysome who won the Willie Murray Cup with a net 68. Second in Division 1 was Greg Craigen with net 70 with Ramin Showghi third on countback, In division 2 Martin Waller took the spoils with a 70 and was chased home by Rod Curry on 71 with John Pittard finishing the podium with 72. Keep an eye out for Dr. Pittard over the next few weeks as he is about to gain 15 yards with every iron when his new set of TaylorMade's arrive, you heard it here first!
Ilsa Bellion and Heather Thwaites had a fantastic result at Tandridge last week. Playing in the Surrey Ladies Past Captains' Captain's Day they won the trophy playing fourball with 45 points. They scored 25 points on the back nine and Ilsa said Heather scored 23 points with her own ball.
Which helped most I ask - Heather's Game Improvement Programme or her new set of TaylorMade Speedblade irons which she loves?
Ladies
The 23rd of July saw the ladies do battle in the Centenary tray, which going on the name sounds like it might have started in 2009, just an educated guess of course.... In the 6th playing of this tournament the canny pair of Sian Thomas and Liz Hooper blew away the competition with a ridiculous 44 points, Julie Wilding and Val Owen played very solidly for 38 points which won the battle for second marginally over Barbara Pike and Viv Field who compiled a very respectable 37 points.
The Ladies were back out for the medal on saturday 25th which from what I hear at registration in is their favourite format! (Don't worry Ladies, the men hate it just as much!) Julie Wilding embraced the pressure and manouvred her ball expertly around the course for a fantastic 69 to secure a 4 shot victory in division 1 over Barbara Brooks. In division 2 Veronica Putley stole the show taking the medal from Gloria Foxhall by 2 shots, on meeting Veronica that morning I asked her how she was to get the reply "I'll let you know in 4 hours", I guess you were OK then Veronica!
Custom Fitting News
A couple of weeks ago John Wright asked me if there was anything we could do about his iron shots flying too high, after making an ill advised quip about buying a new golf swing I did suggest he come along for an assesment on the flightscope. John had a fairly new set (now for sale, contact John for details!) of TaylorMade irons with a lightweight regular steel shaft, as a general rule the heavier the shaft the lower the ball flight so already alarm bells were ringing with John clearly not needing the added help to get the ball in the air! Initial data from the Flightscope suggested John was between regular and stiff with quite a high spin rate on the ball so we tried a few heavier shafts out to try and lower the spin rate and the trajectory.
We settled on the Dynamic Gold S300 shaft in the TaylorMade CB heads, this is one of the heaviest iron shafts on the market at 130 grams and all of 24 grams heavier than his current model, I've soft stepped the shafts to make them play slightly softer which suits John's in-between swing speed and when coupled with being made slightly stronger in the lofts should see John hitting it lower and further than his current set and winning tournaments in no time!
Remember that New Year's Resolution to play more golf in 2014? There are lots of competitions coming up so sign up online now.
Friday 1 August Men's Summer Invitation
Saturday 2 August Veterans Cup and Over Sixties Putter
Monday 4 August Weekday Medal
Saturday 9th August Centenary Trophy Foursomes
11th to 15th August Course Maintenance Week
Wednesday 27 August Captain's Roll Up & Lunch - ladies and gents
Friday 29 August 14 hole Mixed Greensomes and Supper
Sunday 31 August Club Stableford
Saturday 6 September Centenary Captain's Trophy
Friday 12 September Weekday Medal
Friday 12 September Presidents Cup Dinner
Enjoy the rest of the newsletter and have a great weekend.