Early days

September is a busy month for both the course and the new captain.

For the course, it’s one of the top two months for visitor income and there are also (including the last week of August) a number of important events: every year, Captain’s Day, the pro-am, two Open competitions, and a couple of friendly matches; this year we also co-hosted the Swedish Golf Secretaries annual match against the English golf club managers’ association and we host the County Salver at the end of the month. And we saw the important final match of the Ladies’ Northumberland County Shield league against Ponteland where our 7.5/0.5 win guaranteed we won the shield. All this is explains why we do not to do the aeration and treatment of the greens at the best time of the year to do it (mid August/September): there’s just too much going on which benefits the club.But as part of further improving the quality of the course we are going to think about doing this some of this work in August at least for some of the greens.

The men’s captain has to hit the ground running; in addition to the points above he also has to deal with the Lady Mayoresses’ competition. Trevor hit the ground a great deal better than Keith or I in terms of weather; most of the days since he took over have been the best of the year so far with in particular a dry and calm Captain’s Day and a successful pro-am and friendly against Ponteland (the latter successful only in the sense that people enjoyed it). Fiona, the ladies' captain, oversaw the culmination of Alison’s season with the aforementioned win against Ponteland meaning all three ladies teams won their respective leagues. This is a fantastic achievement for the club. I’m not sure how I can take credit for it but I’m sure I’ll try.

The pro-am had a bit of a frisson this year, with the added celebration of Keith Whitfield's 70th (hard to believe) birthday with the clubhouse decorated to show him in a new light. He did eventually get his cake cut.