Monday 4th December, the date for Stags to show their mettle, battle against the elements, ignore rain, cold and wet ground to battle out for the prestigious title of Stags Christmas Champions. This year chaos reigned, too may options were given to Stags on the day. The course had been closed over the weekend and the weather forecast was dire, however the Par three course was declared open on the morning and instead of insisting that all Stags who entered should turn up the weak, lily livered Competition Secretary gave them an out, and 23 wimpish Stags accepted this way out and only turned up in time for lunch. This left 23 Stags to be reorganised into teams of three and play the competition. Unfortunately in the chaos all rules of fairness went out the window and groups were picked in a more random, less disciplined way leaving some unbalanced groups in terms of handicap.
However it did not rain and everyone who played enjoyed it.

The results on the day were:

After the competition the wimps turned up and we had an enjoyable Christmas Lunch, enjoyed reading the Captain's Christmas Greeting to all Stags, doing a bit of a quiz and generally baiting the wimps. The presentation of Summer Trophies then took place after a presentation by the Captain to our esteemed Club Secretary. The trophy winners presented on the day were as follows

Ces Dowson Trophy Brodie Aziz
Ken Dunlop Cup Rohit Shah
Seniors over 55 Trophy Roy Walker
Bill Jones Trophy Nick Kirby and Barry Gill
Beere & O'Neill Shield Paul Abbott
Stone Trophy Chris Seeley
Dermot Hurley Trophy England
John Reay Trophy Chris Seeley and Paul Steward
Bill Collier Cup Steve Cranage
3rd Place Order of merit Chris Seeley
2nd Place order of Merit Dave Lole

The Captain then made a presentation to the retiring Competition Secretary who on the basis of this mornings chaos should have been fired a long time ago.

The Stags Four Nations took place on Monday 4th September on the hottest day of the year and summer made a brief appearance. Chaos loomed at the start as two itinerant Welshmen turned up expecting to play having been told the Welsh team was one short in the week by another member of the team. Also our revered Captain arrived saying he was injured and couldn't play for Ireland (somebody said, I thought rather unkindly, that he could not bear to put in another incorrect card) Eventually it was sorted with the two itinerants playing for Wales and a kindly Welsh player agreeing to replace David Templeton in the Irish Team, forgetting that he had to walk to the 14th tee to start. In spite of pleas from the Competition Secretary to keep up with the group in front, a significant gap arose on the back nine and two tees were filled on hole one before they arrived there. One by three Stags (why weren't they in the comp!!) and the other by a two ball. In the end the slow pace set by the Captains enabled all teams to finish within 20 minutes so all was not lost.
In spite of the heat and a bad choice by the Competition Secretary, not expecting such a hot day, enjoyed by all, I think. In the absence of the Captain and Vice Captain the prizes were presented by the aforesaid Comp Sec. Paul Turner (Ireland), Mick Brown (Wales) and David Gibbs (Scotland) won the individual best scores for their country. Julian Westwood (England) won the best overall score and England won the Dermot Hurley Trophy with a best seven score of 267 points.

Team results were as follows

A good turnout for the Ces Dowson Trophy on Monday 19th June with 16 teams competing for the trophy. A collection taken after the event raised some money to buy a new car battery for Phil Glendinning whose car would not start and left David Gibbs, Paul Steward and Jim Jobson as a very slow three ball!

The pace of play was not good with gaps developing between groups , the first three groups were all in in under 4 hours, but there was a considerable wait until all groups were in and scores put on machine. 

The course had had a lot of rain over Sunday but was in great condition and good scores were expected. However there were not as good as last year. In third place with 128 points were Alan Heatley, Malcolm Lunn, Terry Devlin and Ron McNally, in second place with Nick Kirby, who had £5 prised out of him before the start as he had forgotten? to pay his Stags fee, Julian Westwood, Bandit Bill and Trevor Sidaway. However the winners by just one shot were Steve Arthurton, Roger Pearson, Rick Fennell and Brodie Aziz. Congratulations to the winners

I am off to listen to Boris getting his just desserts, lying ........

Scores on the day were

The Stags Championship took place over two rounds in early June. It was not a great turnout, only 39 stags played in the first round and 32 in the second round. In fact I was wondering if anyone would turn up for the second round as 7 Stags had to drop out on Sunday. Now medal play off the white tees is a true test of golf, but prone to some high scores when played by Stags. although the ground was hard and the ball rolling well, normally a help for Stags, the greens were fast and not holding Stags low running shots into the green. However over the two rounds there were two outstanding rounds, a nett 65 from Roy Walker in round one and a nett 66 in round two from Chris Seeley.

The winner of the Gross competition and Stags Champion golfer was Rohit Shah with Chris McHale runner up. Roy Walker kept his nerve and won the nett trophy comfortably with Bill Griffin as runner up and Derek Grover in third place.

The Captain David Templeton presented the trophies to the winning Stags

Congratulations to all the winners.

Full results of the two rounds are as follows

" On a warm but windy May day the major charity event of the Stags year took place with 16 teams competing in a four ball competition plus a yellow ball competition. The Stags were as generous as normal and had sponsored holes, provided terrific raffle prizes, donated prizes for 29 individual hole competitions and provided the winning team's prizes. This meant that all the money raised went to the charity. Hamilton Bland of past swimming fame was there for the prizegiving and gave a short run through of the main aims of the Charity. In addition two items were auctioned and raised £135 plus another £100 was raised with a roll up initiated by Dave Lawrence. In total £2285.21 (don't ask why 21p) was raised for the Coventry and Warwickshire Children's fund. The winners of the yellow ball challenge were Alan Batchelder, Robin Cathcart, Derek Grover and Colin Yapp. Runners up in the main competition were Trevor Sidaway, Alan Heatley, Robin Whitehouse and David Spillane and the winners were the team of Steve Arthurton, Roy Pickering, Nick Kirby and Barry Gill. My thanks to all the Stags who contributed seed money, prizes, who bought raffle tickets and who played in the competition and kept up the tradition of generosity raising over £2000 again for the years Charity.

Results of the competition, hole prize winners and raffle prize winners are all detailed below.