More than a hundred juniors and parents attended this year’s Farrington Park Junior Presentation to celebrate all the prize winners from the 2016 season.

Junior Organisers, Pete Hansford and Mark Wickham, expertly organised the event, with help from the three PGA Golf Professionals at Farrington Park, Jonathan Lawrence, Terry Williams and Alex Todd.

The fifteen juniors who participated in the Junior League Team in 2016 were given medals to celebrate their third position after their first year in the Bristol and District Junior League.

Individual prizes were awarded to the many 18 hole and 9 hole medal winners. 18 hole winners were: Junior Club Champion – Alex Bendall, Junior Nett Champion – Abby Gray, Order of Merit Champion – Alex Bendall, Matchplay Knockout Champion – Jackson Carey, Easter Challenge Champion – Abby Gray, Most Improved Golfer – Alex Marshall (13 shot reduction). Nine hole winners were: Most Dedicated – Alex Marshall, Under 11 Golfer of the Year – Libbie Dezis, ET Trophy – Oliver Barlass, Mummy / Daddy Caddy of the Year – John Brown, Most Improved Girl – Emma Brown and Most Improved Boy – Theo Spicer.

Finally, 2016 Junior Captain, Alex Bendall, transferred the captaincy to the 2017 Junior Captain, Isabelle Hansford. Congratulations to Izzy as she is the first girl Junior Captain at Farrington Park.

Thanks were given to 18 hole Junior Organiser Pete Hansford and 9 hole Junior Organiser Mark Wickham for all their hard work over the past year. With over 100 juniors now at Farrington Park, the junior section’s future looks very rosy!

Seniors

On a day predicted to be extremely cold and very windy, fortunately both elements were missing, so providing Farrington Park seniors with an enjoyable round of golf on a course in excellent condition. Keith Shepherd and Bob Baker took the honours with a score of 45 points in the 4BBB competition.

Results: Keith Shepherd/Bob Baker 45pts, Paul Cains/Jim Farmer 44pts, Phil Thompson/Derek McCaig 43pts, Terry Thatcher/Bill Waddington 42pts, Barry Hall/Steve Park 42pts, Steve Symonds/Steve Banfield 41pts.

Nearest the Pins on 4th, Graham Price, 8th, Terry Thatcher, 14th, George Tyrrell and 15th, Mike Woodward.

Mixed

The first mixed competition for 2017 took place on Sunday. 24 players arrived to enjoy the format of ‘three game challenge’, which involved six holes of Greensomes, six holes of Foursomes and the final six holes of Texas Scramble. The teams were drawn at random so some interesting pairings developed.

Handicaps were half of the combined scores from the two players, the ladies receiving two extra shots, being the difference of the Ladies’ and Men’s Par and Stroke Index, the men playing from Yellow tees which were very close to the ladies’ tees, the course being shortened to save the whole course because of the winter weather.

Fortunately, the weather stayed fine and some very good Gross scores were achieved. There were three Nett prizes and the best Gross score. In third place on countback, with a nett 61, were Linda Rogers and Mark Wintersgill. In second, Nett place with 58, were Margaret Seery and Pierce O’Shea. The first Nett prize, with 57, went to Corrina Bates and Dave Forshaw. The best Gross prize, of 74, went to Terri O’Shea and Gary Padfield.

Men

The Saturday Stableford was played on 7th January.

With a shortened course but some very interesting new tee positions, some good scoring was achieved with in Division One Andy Bayley with an excellent 45 points taking top spot, with Ian Allwood in second with a good score of 44 points and vice captain Shane Phelps in third on 42 points. Two good scores at the top in Division Two with Paul Matthews winning on count back from Neil Morgan, both on 44 points and a very close third with 43 points was achieved by John Woodland.

The Sunday Stableford was played on 8th January.

At the top of Division One were two golfers in form, with Tony Guthrie winning on count back from Matt Lefeurve, both scoring 40 points, with Mark Chandler taking third place on 35 points.In Division Two it was also tight at the top with 40 points with Chris Grew taking first place on count back from Simon Kidd and in form Neil Morgan third on 39 points.