WW16/17 - DESCO Wearside Finals Day, Sunday 9/10/16

Well here we are once again at our home course Wearside for our annual Finals Day bash. In this report I will deal with the results of round 17 only, I will cover the result of the main Championship and the individual category winners in the season review. As I said in my last report the previous three courses we played were all very similar in style (Beamish, Washington and Tyneside), well add another one to that list, Wearside. Like Tyneside before it Wearside is one of the oldest courses in the North East and as such is a tough test of anyone's game. As has happened regularly this season the weather played a part, but thankfully not too much, being mostly calm and sunny with a couple of heavy showers. The course itself was in excellent condition with beautiful fairways and fast greens once the morning dew burnt off, all in all it was an excellent finale to our golf season.

At this point I need to announce a bereavement in my golf club family, my trusty £5 bargain bin chipper has finally bit the dust. That club has got me out of many a tight squeeze and will be sorely missed, at least it died doing what it did best, being hit left handed from under a tree! RIP old friend.

Now for the results of round 17, the Course Scratch Score (CSS) for this round was calculated as 26.

Total Score	Players	Average score	CSS
561	22	25.50	26

 

Following the usual post match card scrutiny the top three were confirmed as-

In third place (on countback) was former Champion Paul Baker with 30 points.

In second place came another former Champion Jim Rooks with 32 points.

And the winner of the seventeenth and final round of the 2016 Championship, taking his first round win this year was yet another former Champion Dave Sanders with a score of 33 points.

To see how the result affects your individual handicap visit your personal stats page HERE.

The Longest Drive category on the day went to Andy Trewick. Paul Baker won the Nearest the Pin Category with a distance of 2.4m. There were no Two's carded at Wearside.

Following Round 17 the final Championship top three are -

1 - Andy Trewick - 312 points

2 - Ian Gunn - 308 points

3 - Dave Coates - 301 points

The full results are available on the Match Results and Tables section on the Competition Results page, just follow the link HERE or on the left.

Well that's the 2016 Society season over, our next meeting will be our usual Late, Late Xmas Dinner and pre-season meeting at a date and location to be arranged. I will contact you all once this is confirmed. Finally I on behalf of the Committee would like to thank you all for making 2016 a year to remember and I would like to wish you all a safe and happy "closed season" and I hope to see you all ready and rearing to go in 2017.

Ian Gunn, WWGS Competition Secretary.

WW2016 - Season Report

Over the last seven months we have played a wide variety of courses all over the North East and beyond. This season, in an attempt to find courses new to the Society we have expanded our range beyond the 20 miles / 30 minutes from Sunderland "border" and judging from the player numbers this decision went down well with the membership. We started the season way back in March at a Society regular, South Shields. As usual the weather played a part in the proceedings with high winds and squally heavy showers, this was to set the pattern for the early part of our season. The second round was to have been at Saltburn but that was also affected by the weather so we hastily rearranged the match to Cleveland Links just down the road. Unfortunately one of our members didn't get the message and turned up at Saltburn like Billy Nomates wondering where everyone was, sorry Mr Watts!

The first of this season's Society "Majors" our annual homage to the Ryder Cup the Team Challenge Day took place at our second home, Houghton in June. This season we added a twist to the usual "Captain vs Chairman" team format by making it a "Juniors vs Seniors" match (over 50's vs under 50's, with a little leeway to balance the team numbers). After a very tight battle the winners on the day were the Seniors team led by John Ford with a score of 8-7.

Team Challenge Day was closely followed by our second Major, the Weekend Away trip to fight for the Borders Championship and the honour of looking after The Claw for the year. Once again the weather caused us problems. This year we decided to journey over to Lancashire and South Cumbria for our trip, playing at Kirby Lonsdale and Grange-over-Sands but the day before the trip we got news that Grange was flooded and only 9 holes were open. Following a few phone calls we managed to get booked into Bentham Golf Club, a decision that turned out to be a good one! The winner of the Borders Championship was Andy Trewick, the start of what would turn into a trend this season.

As we approached the climax of the season we were due to play Beamish on the August Bank Holiday Sunday but once again the weather intervened with heavy overnight rain making the course unplayable. Luckily the following day was Bank Holiday Monday and we managed to rearrange the match for then. This change played into the hands of a couple of Members including Dave Watts who originally couldn't make the Sunday game. Thankfully for him this time he got the message and after telling his wife he was "just popping out to get some milk and a paper" managed to play the match.

This season we tweaked the rules of our third Major the Tim Aberdeen Shield knockout competition by encouraging matches to be played at designated rounds of the Championship. This change appears to have gone down well as the majority of matches were played and we had very few byes this year. The final of this seasons Aberdeen Shield was between Jim Rooks and Dave Coates and was played at Tyneside with Dave coming out the winner to become the third recipient of the Aberdeen Shield.

The rules of the Two's Pot competition were also tweaked slightly this season. Instead of the whole prize fund going to one winner we now divide it equally between all those who managed to score a two. Sadly this rule change didn't improve our accuracy as we still only managed a measly 14 two's between us for the whole season! The Two's Pot itself had already been won by Rico Liverani, with three Two's (two at the same course), just as well really as true to form there were none carded at Wearside.

As usual the Longest Drive & Nearest the Pin categories were very tight run affairs as both competitions went down to the wire, only being decided on Finals Day. The Longest Drive category needed a play off hole to break the stalemate with Andy Trewick and Paul Baker tied on 3 wins each, Andy outdrove Paul on the tie break 17th hole at Finals day to take the category Championship win. Paul got his revenge by winning the final Nearest the Pin of the season, taking the Category Championship from Andy by a distance of 44cm (they both tied with 2 wins each but Paul had the closer distance of 2.4m to Andy's 2.88m).

As for the main event, the Society Championship, came down to a three way battle between Dave Coates, Ian Gunn and long time leader Andy Trewick. After 17 rounds across the North East & Cumbria nine points covered the top three players going into Finals Day at Wearside. Ian was the first of the three into the clubhouse and though he improved his total by four points it wasn't enough so it was all down to the final two, Dave and Andy. As the final group came in it was clear that the long time Championship leader Andy Trewick had won the Championship by four points on 312, with Ian in second on 308 and Dave in third with 301.

On behalf of the whole Society I would like to congratulate our new Champion Andy and all our other category winners. I would also take this opportunity to thank our Corporate Sponsors Fred Stoddart Ltd, DCS Payroll and DESCO for their support throughout the season, without their financial assistance we would not have been able to deliver the programwe did at the same cost to you all. For further information on our Corporate Sponsors click HERE.

Finally I know there have been many changes this year (handicap system, rule and competition changes) so thanks to all our members who have supported the Society this year and made the 2016 season great. Let's hope for more of the same in 2017.