2012 Annual General Meeting

Address by the 2011President of the Cheshire Union of Golf Clubs

Past Presidents of the English Golf Union

Deputy President, Past Presidents and

Members of the Executive of the Cheshire Union of Golf Clubs,

Gentlemen

This assessment covers the past 53 weeks of golfing activity in Cheshire, most of it will be known to you by now and the fine detail is on the web site – so this is my attempt to summarise a year that for me has been extremely enjoyable.

Chris Peterson Chairman of Selectors and David Peel our County Captain; put together a squad that enjoyed a very successful season. Of the 11 matches played they Won: 10 and Lost only 1 and that was the last match.

I am extremely proud to say that the team won the Daily Telegraph Northern league. Thanks to Chris and Dave for their hard work and to Creamline Dairies who kindly sponsored some of our kit.

The Boys team again started the year in excellent form retaining the 4 Counties Trophy at Crewe against Lancashire, Nottinghamshire and Shropshire and Herefordshire. Subsequently it won nearly as many matches as it lost.

Boys’ kit sponsors are Pinnacle Motors and I would like to thank Paul Turner for his generosity.

Also thanks to Hugh Brown for again funding a Cheshire team into his under 16 open Junior Tournament in Menorca and I am pleased to report that the Cheshire team triumphed by winning the Matthew Brown Cup for the 3rd consecutive year against a strong Balearics Team. Our appreciation goes to the Society of Liverpool and the Society of Manchester Golf Club Captains who again have both made generous donations to the cost of running Junior Golf in the County.

Thanks to Ray Simm who has chaired our junior committee and Deputy President Mike Jones who again has been Boys Team manager.

Dave Heaton has run the ‘day to day’ operation of our Seniors team under the Chairmanship of Ron Harrison whose name you will come up as Agenda item 7– best wishes to Ron for his new responsibilities and to Dave for his hard work.

In the inaugural Northern Counties Seniors league we finished 2nd behind a dominant Lancashire team. In the Senior big 6 we again finished 2nd behind Lancashire.

As a result of their overall performances on courses at home and abroad, I want to recognise our International players.

Oliver Carr (Heswall) played in the Boys’ Home Internationals and James Newton and Cameron Massey (Chorlton cum Hardy) have represented England Boys too. Oliver and James together with William Pennington (also from Heswall) played in the Daily Telegraph Junior Tournament in Abu Dhabi.

And three perennial seniors played again in the Senior Home Internationals: Roy Smethurst (Crewe) and Phil Slater (Sandiway) for England against Phil Jones (Bromborough) who Captained and played for Wales.

The Major County Championships were again very well supported.

At Ringway Mark Geddes (Prenton) won the Matchplay

Alsager were Junior Club Champions at Stockport

Champion Senior at Lymm was Roy Smethurst (Crewe), his 10th win in 14 years of playing in this tournament

Handicap Championship and EGU Gold Medal Qualifier at Chorlton cum Hardy was won by David Court from Tytherington

Fraser MacLeod (Hazel Grove) became a worthy County Champion at Caldy, where Heswall became the Men’s Champion Club

We play our Boy’s Championship at Delamere Forest where James Newton (Prestbury) won by scoring 6 under par in each of 2 rounds. Amazingly, his wasn’t the best score: A Course Record equalling score of 65 was returned by Rob Potter (Disley).

Our junior event was played at Helsby where Cameron Massey became under 16 Champion and Jack Duncalf (Sandiway) triumphed at under 14 level.

Finally, we played our Foursomes Championship at Romiley where James Newton & Dan Young (Prestbury) retained their title.

Gordon Edwards (Bromborough) won on President’s day at Ringway. Than you Gordon for all the work you do with club affiliation and Standard Scratch.

This was a truly busy schedule that yielded winners from many Clubs. It was set up and run like a well planned military operation by Colin Shadbolt. Thanks Colin.

Ably assisted by Peter Whitehead, Bob Harvey has run our 7 Members Meetings and has provided something like 12 hundred rounds of competitive golf over 8 competition days for our life members. Thank you both.

In the workings of the County Golf Partnership, Ted Leather continues to increase awareness and attract newcomers to golf in Cheshire, its first-rate performance has been recognised by Cheshire and Warrington Sports Partnership. Thank you Ted.

 Sean Ritchie has survived his first year as our County Treasurer by bringing an enthusiasm to the job that is strengthened by his respect for the traditions of both the game and the County. Thank you Sean.

Thanks to the members of the Executive who have turned out in all weathers to help in County Tournaments, Team Matches, and Membership meetings.

There are three members of The Executive retiring this year. Les Jowsey and Duncan Macphee as elected members and Robbie Phillips as the Vice-President retiring in rotation. All 3 have enthusiastically supported our activities and I thank them for that, but offer a special ‘thank you’ to Robbie whose personal style, natural wit and balanced reflections on our decision-making have contributed handsomely to debate over 15 years.

Cheshire has again been very well represented within the EGU with Nigel Evans of Sandiway working hard as Chairman. Steven Buckley of Ringway GC is about to retire Chairman of the SSS and Handicap committee. Referees on the Tournament panel are Chris Petersen, Colin Shadbolt, and John Kidd.

Another retiree is Peter Dutton. Peter served as Club Captain at Prenton in 1962 – elected 50 years ago next month; President of CUGC in 1971; President of EGU in 1989 (having been involved in Committee work over several years) but it is as one of 4 Trustees of the County Union that he is retiring today. Peter has taken on his responsibilities with enormous enthusiasm and commitment over a very long time and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude – thank you Peter. Our best wishes and thanks go to Steven Buckley who is the replacement Trustee.

The County is again down in membership which won't surprise anybody, but all but one of the clubs in the Union paid their affiliation fees, and that one is now up and running again. Most clubs seems to have their own initiatives to keep going and that is very pleasing.

Gentlemen my time as your President is nearly over. The year for me has been a special one. The only frustration resulted from what I considered to be unreasonable aggression put on me by the EGU to deliver unconditional support for the proposed merger of the EGU and EWGA. It was suggested that I would be considered a dinosaur if the document didn’t attract support from Cheshire. As you know it didn’t, and I still back the majority opinion we reached - that the conditions in the proposal document did not merit unconditional support. This proved to be a minority view amongst the other English Counties and so the proposal was carried. However I lend my commitment (so will CUGC) to making the new union work in the best interests of Amateur Golf in England.

We are grateful to all those clubs who have made their courses available to us during the season and to our two centenary Clubs I say a big ‘thank you’ for including the County Union in their splendid celebrations. Thanks to all the other Clubs for giving me such a warm welcome whenever I have visited. We couldn’t function as a County Union without you.

As always Steve Foster has kept the President on the straight and narrow – thank you Steve - and my good wishes go to Mike Jones my successor who I know will do a great job.

Before I go I would like to thank everyone for the courtesy, consideration and support I have been given over the past 12 months. I really have enjoyed the job and have many wonderful memories to take away with me. So I sign off as your own pet dinosaur, but the good news is, this dinosaur now weighs 10lbs less than at the start of his term – what self discipline!!!