Seniors Section Officers 2020

Seniors Captain 2020 Bill Walker

Vice Captain 2020 Algy Grimes

Immediate Past Captain 2020 Dave Gauge

Honorary Treasurer Les Bolland

Honorary Secretary Richard Westergreen-Thorne 

Competition Secretary Jonathan Lean

Golf returns to John O’Gaunt, May 13th 2020

All smiles: Seniors Captain Bill Walker captures the moment golfers returned to John O’Gaunt following the Coronavirus lockdown

Here Algy Grimes, Seniors Section Vice Captain, reports on the first day back

Well here we are back on the course after about eight weeks away in Lockdown, what a lovely sunny day to start. On arrival at the car park I was surprised to see quite a few cars, but the main area in front of the clubhouse was quite empty.

After getting my clubs and trolley together and changing my shoes I walked towards the Pro-shop to register for the John O’Gaunt course, before I got there I was greeted by the course marshal, none other than our Senior Section Captain Bill Walker. He had obviously been riding around the course a lot because he was getting more fuel in his buggy to enable him to carry on his duties.

In the Pro-shop there was a nice welcome from Lee and Sue, who were both very happy to be back. Sue was busy arranging a lot of new stock for sale.  If anyone needs a new shirt because they have changed size during the lockdown, then I am sure you will find something to suit.

Then it was off to the first tee, in front of the new conservatory, but no audience in it to put you off. It was slightly daunting, after this time, to see the ball on the tee peg and thinking I hope I can still hit it. I thought it was a good first shot, only to find it very close to one of the trees on the left of the fairway, a chip out to the fairway and then the third shot found the bunker to the left of the green, playing match play I lost that hole.

It was great to see the course in such lovely condition, a testament to all the work by Nigel and his team. It took me a couple of greens to get used to the pace, but unusually for me I was pleased my putting wasn’t too bad, each hole has a foam sleeve in it to make it easy to retrieve your ball.

The ten minute gap between tee times meant it was really like millionaires golf, no hold-ups in front and nobody in sight behind, it was a very enjoyable round, how nice it would have been to finish in the bar as we used to. Let’s hope those days return later in the year. Most importantly everyone was kept safe and social distancing was never an issue. Stay safe.

Algy Grimes

Vice Captain Senior Section

Seniors Section Committee Meeting Tuesday 5th May 2020

Seniors Committee Meeting

Tuesday 5th May 2020

Outline of discussion

Attendees:

Captain​​​​Bill Walker (Chair)​​​(BW)

Vice Captain​​​​Algy Grimes​​​​(AG)

Immediate Past Captain​​Dave Gauge​​​​(DG)

Hon Sec/Match Sec​​Richard Westergreen – Thorne​(RWT)

Competitions Sec​​Jonathan Lean​​​​(JL)

Hon Treasurer​​Les Bolland​​​​(LB)

Club Vice Captain​​Paul Fletcher (for item 1)​​(PF)

Apologies – None

Club Vice Captain Paul Fletcher (PF)

PF was welcomed to the meeting and outlined some of the work and planning that is taking place to enable the club to reopen safely when the government allows us to do so. It is clear from government and Golf England pronouncements that access to the courses, for the foreseeable future, will be for singletons and pairs by booked tee times with 10 mins gaps.

PF confirmed that the tee booking system will remain in place only as long as necessary. 

The current plan is to have Marshals on the courses when they reopen to ensure that overcrowding does not take place and members of the committee offered to act as Course Marshals if required.

The matter of a two tee start was raised and discussed. 

The Committee thanked Paul for his attendance and noted that the committee expressed its appreciation that club were engaging and consulting with the Senior Section about the return to playing golf and other matters in general.

Captains Report

BW covered the following areas within his report:

Seniors Section profile within the Club including the fact that he was a member of the new Golf and Social Committee of the club and that he saw this as a very welcome development.

Golf & Social Committee meeting 28 April 2020

The main thrust of the Committee meeting was to decide how the reintroduction of golf could be managed in order to allow play while keeping members safe. 

A general statement to the members (as details may change dependent on Government advice nearer the time) has been given to members via the weekly newsletter.  

Proposal for 2 Tee starts for home Interclub matches - see above

The report was discussed and its recommendations agreed.

Vice Captains Report

AG explained how he had used email to pass on our sympathies following two recent deaths and it was agreed that he should continue to use email in the current circumstances.

AG has compiled a members list with phone numbers from the website. It was agreed that, at this point, we would not seek to contact members individually to ascertain their welfare but would continue to use the newsletter to encourage members to contact each other.

Action: AG to organise Senior Captains Day on 25th August in conjunction with BW - if it goes ahead.

 Treasurers Report

The Treasurer reported that the bank account was showing a healthy balance given that members subscriptions had been received but there had been no major expenditure to date. However, this was qualified by the fact that despite the period of Club closure, this would normally be the case at this stage of the season, as those events which normally result in significant expenditure do not occur until later in the season

A discussion took place regarding various options for the money taken this year from joining fees and knockout entries. It was agreed to hold this matter over to the next meeting in August.

Hon Sec Report

Peter as Captain and Gordon as Manager have been very receptive to increasing our profile within the club and a new Senior Section link has been added in the news part of the club website. They have suggested that we populate it with full details of the Senior Section including photographs of officers, etc. It was agreed that RWT to circulate a draft page for the club website for committee members to comment and, once agreed, to be added to the club website.

The newsletter seems to be well received by members judging by the feedback received to date. 

RWT has started the process of setting dates for matches for 2021. 

The provisional swop date with Northampton is on the 2021 draft club calendar and on the calendar RWT is developing for 2021 for matches and competitions.

Competition Secretaries Report

There is of course nothing to report regarding ongoing competitions.  However, JL has been giving some thought to how we could proceed once we are allowed to continue playing and these were discussed. 

They included:

• The type of competitions we can play 

• The type of competitions that the Seniors members would like to participate in could affect the ones that we seek to complete in the time available to us before the end of the year.  It is obvious that the vast majority of members will be extremely rusty and therefore this would seem to suggest that Medal competitions would be less likely to be popular with Stablefordcompetitions more attractive.  I would suggest also that the GOTY be suspended for this year.

• Assuming we are only allowed 2-ball format, the following competitions could be considered to be re-scheduled:-

• All except

• Foursomes knockout

• Four ball better ball

• Ken Robinson Scramble

• Members and Guest Day (unless this could be held as a 2-ball with member playing with their guest)

• Gordon Percival Team Trophy

• 2 Clubs and Putter (although this could be played as a 2-ball but it is one of the least popular competitions)

• Seniors vs Juniors

• Match with the Ladies

• Remaining competitions to be prioritised according to popularity of Stableford vs Medal.

The report was discussed and it was agreed that we will need to ‘wait and see’ regarding next steps for the introduction of competitive golf.

Captain 2020 – 2022

After discussion it was agreed that if, as is very likely, little, if any, competitive golf takes place this year that the Committee will propose to members that BW continues in office for 2021 and AG remains as Vice-Captain until taking over as Captain in 2022. 

It was agreed that it was not likely to require a change in the constitution to roll over the captaincy but would need to be put to the membership as part of the AGM process. 

If BW continues in office for another year then LB agreed to be nominated as Treasurer for a further year.

Dates of future meetings:

4 August 2020

3 November 2020

9 December 2020

19 January 2021