Golf round-up: The latest news from Harrogate & district's courses

Knaresborough GC

It could justly be called an ‘OOM Boom’ - a new winter Order of Merit series that tested players with a variety of innovative competition formats.

The six-match series, which has just concluded, wrung the changes on familiar game types to offer a break from the orthodox weekly Stableford.

Over the winter months, 180 entrants competed in two singles variants, two pairs and two team events. In each event, individual players accumulated a personal points tally.

The series final allowed players to take two Mulligans - the penalty-free extra shot - one from the tee, one on a green.

Ian Butterfield got the most out of the format. Maybe his new driver and putter played a key part, as well as the bonus Mulligans, for he rounded off a solid morning with a hefty 47 points.

Hitting every fairway and, after some hesitancy, nailing a great run of putts was the story behind one of his best rounds thus far for Paul Weston, who closed on 46 points to finish second in the OOM finale.

His first points-saving Mulligan was at the ninth green, while his second was off the tees at the 12th.

Third, in this close match, was James Keane, who shot 13 pars with a birdie at 17 to post 43 points.

At the series end it was Graeme Sharp who bagged the highest aggregate of points - 400 over a tournament in which he had two second places and two thirds.

Henry Webster on 380 was second over the series, with Callum Halliday third on 340.

Sharp described the series as a “fantastic addition to the competition calendar”. The use of little-used formats were “immense fun and got everyone thinking differently about their game.”

It should be added that the Pro Stableford competitions remained a regular part of the calendar.

In which, Anthony McBride in Division Three posted the outstanding score of the day when he shot comfortably below his WHI of 28.5 with 47 Stableford points over the winter course.

Neil Kilvington was second on the overall leaderboard with 42, while Steve Watson was third on 39 points.

The ladies, anticipating a return to summer golf, enjoyed a Pre-season Hop, in which Louise Peirson led a day of good scoring with 70 points.

Sue Meekest, on 73 points, and Sue Thompson, on 74, finished second and third.

Joan Hewitt with 26, Pat Johnstone, 21, and Eileen Peters, 19, led the nine-hole accumulator.

Harrogate GC

In a warm-up for the new Summer season, Harrogate GC's competitions team played the March Medal over the blue tees on the Winter course.

The recent mostly dry and mild weather presented the players with a course providing 'run' and favourable scoring opportunities, with some fine scores posted across all three divisions.

However, the weather decided to play a cruel hand, and when a cloud-burst occurred late in the afternoon, the heavy rainfall rendered the course unplayable, leaving behind flooded greens and a lot of standing water.

This resulted in 19 of the later starters abandoning their round.

Earlier, there were fine performances across all of the divisions, but the outstanding score of the day came from George Davies, who signed for a two-under gross in the top flight.

Unfortunately for Davies, his +2 playing handicap pushed him into third place, but he could hardly begrudge Simon Chadwick or Keith Harrison after they played some great golf to take Division One's top two positions.

Tim Fox tied with Davies and took fourth due to Davies having the better run-in.

Chadwick had the best nett score of the day in any divisiom, having produced nett 64.

Sam Goodfellow’s nett 66 gave him a comfortable win in Division Two, with the other places being closely contested.

Next Year’s Men’s Captain-elect, Peter Cronin, took second place on nett 68, just one shot better than the two players battling for third.

With a solid back-nine, it was Neil Ormondroyd who took that place from Robbie Whellans.

A one-shot margin saw Joe Slater take the honours in Division Three, coming home with a fine nett 66.

This left four players depending on their back-nine performance to determine the final placings at the top of the division.

The countback saw Alex Briggs take second place ahead of Paul Lewis, John Waddicor and Jonny Noble.

Neil Fegan routinely takes a winter break from golf, but this competition saw him come back with a bang as he hit a hole-in-one on the par-three, 14th.

Results: Division One - 1st S. Chadwick, 72-8=64; 2nd K. Harrison, 76-8=68; 3rd G. Davies 67+2=69 (bb9);. 4th T. Fox, 73-4=69.

Division Two - 1st S. Goodfellow, 76-10=66; 2nd P. Cronin 79-11=68; 3rd N. Ormondroyd, 82-13=69 (bb9); 4th R. Whellans, 82-13=69.

Division Three - 1st J. Slater, 82-16=66; 2nd A. Briggs, 89-22=67 (bb9); 3rd P. Lewis, 89-22=67 (bb9); 4th J. Waddicor, 84-17=67 (bb9).

On Tuesday, 10 teams of three ladies played a team-of-three Stableford, where two scores counted. The weather was kind throughout this event, and competitors enjoyed some warm sunshine.

It was another successful day for Ladies Vice Captain Tina Meadows following last week’s team win. On this occasion, she was supported by Elaine Shepherd and Celia Fowler. Results: 1st Elaine Shepherd, Celia Fowler & Tina Meadows, 70 pts; 2nd Fiona Gillies, Viv Allison & Liz Haw, 67 pts; 3rd Nikki Butters, Sue Almond & (Ann Lancaster ghost player), 66 pts.

In similarly good conditions, the following day, the Midweek Stableford was won by Len Walters (PH 15).

It is some time since Walters has been in contention, so to win with a score of 36 points and finish two points better than his two closest rivals, who are two of the club's most consistent players, must have been very satisfying.

Mark Davies (2), had the better back-nine to pick up second place from Luke Donnelly (3) after they were tied on 34 points.

Results: 1st L. Walters (P.H. 15), 36 pts; 2nd M. Davies (2), 34 pts. (bb9); 3rd L. Donnelly (3), 34 pts.

Harrogate & District Union

Thirty-two four-player teams competed in the Union's Alliance at Pannal GC on Wednesday March 26.

Stableford scoring was the order of the day, with the number of scores to count varied across the card.

The card was divided into three groups of six holes. Two scores were counted in the first group, three scores were counted in the middle group and all four were counted in the third group. Hole three was out of play because of maintenance.

Union president Phil Kitching with his team of Wharldall, Rice and Rice (Rudding Park) were the first to tee-off and returned a score of 114 points.

By game six, Dunn, Chadwick Wright and Fowler from Harrogate GC went second on 112 points, with and Sharp, Tomkinson, Saul and Castlelow (Knaresborough) on 111 points occupying third spot.

By game 18, Fraser, Kellett and Fothergill (Thirsk) led on 121pts, with Beadling, Mc Philips, Ridley and Toner (Romanby) second on 119 and Doig, Chiu, Allinson and Chiu (Ripon) third on 119.

Game 27 saw Burns, Howard, Lewis and Heron (Otley) take over at the top on 123 points before the last team out - Hartley, Pethybridge, Barrett and Pethybridge (Skipton) snatched second with their effort of 121 pts.

This meant that the team from Thirsk were knocked into third position, and the quartet from Romanby had to settle for fourth.