Hi everyone,
I hope you have all been wrapping up warm against the chill we have had here recently! Let's start with Golf Club happenings!
Competitions
This week saw our Ladies' Captain Sarah Cheetham hold her coffee morning and 9 hole competition in aid of her chosen charity, The West of England MS Therapy Centre. The cakes certainly looked good and the prizes fabulous - well done Sarah!
The winner of the Division one 9 hole competition was Alison Leatt with 19 points and the winner of Division 2 was Angela Holland with 18 points. Well done Ladies!
There were no Saturday competitions this week so no scores on the doors for this week, but don't forget to sign up for the February Stableford on 4th February as places are filling extremely fast!
Bristol and Clifton Honey!
On Thursday I was in the shop chatting to Chrissie when we had a visit from our resident beekeeper at the club. This guy is so friendly and so knowledgeable that it is always a pleasure to have time talking to him. It appears that our bee hive is thriving, all of the little chaps and Queen bee are doing well and B&C has its first supply of honey! I was so excited to see it that our beekeeper brought up a tray of it and Chrissie and I were able to sample the newly acquired sweet and sticky stuff. It is remarkable how the honeycomb is made by the bees and I am so excited to see this stuff bottled up and ready for sale in the not too distant future!
What's coming next at B&C?
*Valentine's Day Dinner 12th February - booking via the Catering Team
*Ladies' Scotch Foursomes 14th February - booking online
*Pro Shop Stableford 18th February
Moving on to our Academy News!
AASE Squad
This week saw the return of Paul's England Golf AASE squad after their Christmas and New Year Break. Over to Paul for a rundown of the weekend's activities:
Despite the cold weather this past weekend, I had an excellent couple of days coaching the up and coming stars of the England South West Under 18 Squad.
The frozen practice chipping green proved to be a great way of allowing the players to consider the amount of bounce and roll on chips played into a green. Of course conditions can affect scoring but there is always a way of working out how to get the ball close to the hole. As you can imagine, the stereotypical low handicapped junior golfer will tend to play just a lob wedge around the green and us older folk can show them a thing or two with a chip and run seven iron. I always like to encourage players to be versatile and play lower chips whenever possible as the smaller the swing, the less to go wrong with the technique.
I can see a number of improvements in the players since the start of the Autumn and in particular there short games, which is so gratifying. One of the girls even managed to shoot two under par gross for nine holes on the firm greens. I will look forward to watching their progress this Spring and Summer in the regional and national events.
Ryder Cup Experience
I was asked by Ladies Captain, Sarah Cheetham, to talk to the Ladies Section about my experience at the Ryder Cup last year and next Tuesday is the big day. Hopefully it will keep everyone interested and I am looking forward to reliving such an amazing experience.
New Shop Arrival
Rory McIlroy has just switched to the new Callaway EPIC driver and I'm pleased to say that it has now arrived. Well nearly! The demonstration woods arrived on Thursday but unfortunately the couriers had demolished the cardboard box that the drivers arrived in and the clubs were no use to man nor beast! Replacements should be here on Monday.
Junior Golf
Andy spent a whole morning last week with Ravenswood School, working with three classes of varying abilities and needs - and again it went down very well, with them asking us to provide extra sessions at New Siblands School in Thornbury. Well done Andy.
I have been in liaison with both Parson Street Primary and Hotwells Primary to do some more regular junior coaching for them as requested - how exciting! This won't be until after Easter as we are already heavily committed to various projects, but it's nicer when it's warmer!
Finally I have finalised the date and time for our Millenium Park get into Golf excursion - it will be July 29th 10-2 so please come along if you can!
I have also organised three tri golf festivals here for 2017, with help from my lovely friend Cherry at Ashton Park School Sports Partnership - 4th May, 15th June and 14th July, two of which will be aimed at Inclusion and one for years ¾ , a level one school games event to plug into the final at Bath University.
I am so honoured to do this and this has grown from one a year to three a year now, allowing more juniors to try golf in a safe and supportive environment, but also to experience a real golf club.
Andy's new county academy squad has two children in it who took part in our festival last year, so it goes to show that holding these events brings more children to the sport and to the club. Proud!
Next Week
Next week sees Nick head off to the Belfry for a week for his PGA residential, Andy goes to Fosseway School to coach for a morning and Paul has his GGU squad day - I will be bothering people about free junior coaching and generally doing my best to persuade more into the game! Following on from this, next week's newsletter sees Andy and Nick, my lovely lads, do a joint instructional for your delectation. We hope you will enjoy.
On that note, have a great week,
Caren, Paul, Nick and Andy.
