Ladies and Gentlemen

Spring Meeting of The Rossallian Golf Society, held recently at Delamere forest Golf Club 

After our recent Spring meeting at Delamere, I received much undeserved praise for organising the day, and I thank you all for that, but really the Meeting was such a resounding success because of all your loyal support, and the magnificence of Delamere Forest Golf Club, who went the extra mile to make us very welcome, and look after us wonderfully well throughout the day. I’m so glad we persevered with the fixture, despite having to postpone the Meeting twice, due to Covid, because the course was a revelation to all of those who’d never played it before, and even those, like me, who hadn’t played there for ages, marvelled at just how good it was. Surely on a glorious day like that (and we certainly deserved the weather after enduring the deluge at Ganton last Autumn), there can’t be any more lovely places to play. And despite the generally low scoring, mostly by the younger generation, it was a tough test of golf – too tough for your elderly correspondent, who found the undulating fairways a severe test for his aching knees. There were no such problems for the eight boys and girls from the school’s Golf Academy. Everyone lucky enough to play with one of them said what charming company they were, and how well they had all played. Their scoring was remarkable, mostly gross par or better, and in one case six under par gross, including driving through the green on one of the par 4s! The star performer though, once again, was 13 year old Gonzalo Odriozola, who off 8 handicap had the best score on the day with 41 points, though of course was not eligible to win the main OR prize for the Newsome Trophy, which was won by the ever-green ex cricketer Bob Cooke with 39 points. The last time we had seen Gonzalo, he resembled a drowned rat, but with the widest of grins on his face, as he came into the bar at Ganton last year, after fighting his way through the deluge, and we wondered whether his mother, had she seen him, might have withdrawn him from Rossall forthwith. We can only conclude that her son kept schtum about the incident, for he is still with us, and determined to return next year, when no doubt his handicap will be scratch or better!

For me, as your Hon Sec, the most pleasing aspect of the day, was to see 45 ORs playing, including for the first time, Jack Cropper, the school’s Director of Sport, Doug Campbell from the South of England, Tim Wolfe and Peter Heyworth, from Switzerland and California respectively, and Tiffany Fielden, partner of Bob Cooke and daughter of Anthony, another fine Rossallian cricketer of yesteryear. And once again we had a very strong showing from London and further South, and we greatly appreciate their wonderful support. Throughout the day there was an infectious sense of Rossallian camaraderie, which can be seen on the faces of all those in our group photograph (see attachment) taken on the terrace before dinner, by Lucien Butler, and I’m most grateful to him for taking it. I’m also grateful to our excellent Chairman of Governors, Chris Holt, who not only drove up from London to play with us, but was then, at a couple of minutes notice, asked to sing for his supper by giving us a very encouraging synopsis of all the good things going on at our old school.

So yes, it was a marvellously enjoyable day, and we shall certainly return to Delamere for one of our meetings in the near future, but more immediately we have our Autumn Meeting at Silloth on Solway Golf Club on Tuesday 27th September, and I urge as many of you as possible to make the (admittedly testing) journey to Cumbria to join us. Silloth is another magnificent course, and well worth the trouble in getting there. I would be most grateful if you would send your entries to me as soon as possible, to give me an idea of likely numbers, please.

And finally: by next Spring, God willing, I shall reach 80 – a sobering thought, and I would feel enormously happy to hand over the Hon Sec role to a much younger person, or at least to someone who is far more computer literate than me. I will give as much or as little help as required, so if anyone out there is interested – please let me know. It isn’t the most onerous job imaginable, but does take a few hours a week to rally the troops!

The winners at Delamere were:

1st Prize for the Newsome Trophy:   Bob Cooke (39pts)

2nd Prize                                                 Richard Marriott (38pts)

3rd Prize                                                 Doug Campbell (38pts)

4th Prize                                                 Grant Wilson (38pts)

1st  Ladies Prize                                    Penny Prest.(35pts)

2nd Ladies Prize                                    Anne James.(35pts)

N.B. the Ties in the Mens 2nd, 3rd and 4th  and the Ladies 1st and 2nd scores was decided by the best 2nd 9 scores – this being the convention in Cheshire.

Best wishes to you all, and I look forward to seeing most of you at Silloth.

Arthur Stephenson. (Hon Sec Rossallian Golf Society)