Your Tournament Review

Let’s meet Stuart Martin

One of Stuart's key focuses is delivering enhanced events and competitions. Here he looks back at the highlights of the season so far and congratulates all our winners… while highlighting all of the upcoming key events you can still enjoy!

Ladies Club Champion – Louise Martin

Ladies Plate Champion – Fiona Whittock

Ladies B Champion – Patricia Phillips

Men’s Club Champion – Chris Wood

Men’s Plate Champion – Michael Livingston

Men’s B Champion – Ivor McArdle

Men’s Seniors Champion – Graham Clark

The season got underway at the beginning of March with the first big event of the year, the Burns Shield. This All Clubs Mixed Stableford attracted a field of more than 120 players and was won by our very own Fiona Macintyre with 41 points.

Our next big competition was the Captains’ Cup for gentlemen of all three clubs, won by Michael Hagan of Tantallon. Will it return to North Berwick next year?

In early April the Ladies Coronation Foursomes took place, won by Alison Di Rollo & Joan Lunn. Well done to them!

In the All Clubs Strokeplay on April 9, Duncan Searle, of Tantallon, shot a spectacular gross 63 around the West Links, equalling the course record that had been set by Trevor Immelmann. That really is quite an achievement!

The West Links Trophy, an all-clubs mixed stableford was won by another Tantallon Member, Graeme Marshall, with an impressive 40 points, especially considering the taxing poor weather conditions.

Our Mens Spring Meeting, regarded as the first ‘major’ of the season, was held on April 22 in equally tricky conditions. This year’s scratch winner was Chris Wilson with a gross 76, which won him the Moncrieff Medal. Our handicap winner and winner of The Cree Medal was Gordon Surfleet with a fantastic nett 65, playing off a 17 handicap, which included a gross level par front nine. Great scoring!

Our North Berwick Senior Men, meanwhile, were very much to the fore in the Uganda Drum contest held in mid-May. Better weather brought even better scoring as this event was won with a healthy 46 points by Tim Johnston.

The Ladies Spring meeting was held in May and the scratch prize, The Couper Cup, was won by Louise Martin, one of our West Links Juniors, with an excellent 84. Abby Glennie won the handicap prize, The Hunnewell Challenge Cup, with a nett 79, while Alison Di Rollo won both the Spring Meeting Quaich and Blair Jubilee Trophy, and Valerie Crombie the Blake Spoon.

The June Medal for the prestigious Centenary Medal for ladies was also played early in the month. Elaine McInroy was the winner with a nett 65. The Silver Spoon scratch prize was won by Dawn Young with a gross 81. Congratulations to both!

Interspersed between these events we also had various All Clubs, Ladies and Mens competitions, including our championship qualifiers. These culminated in our finals weekend on June 10 and 11 – many congratulations to everyone who made it to finals weekend. It was great to see the weekend so well supported by many Members and their guests lining the fairways, helping to provide a wonderful atmosphere during the matches and afterwards at the Championship BBQ.

Teams from both our Ladies and Mens sections have been competing in various leagues from the start of the year.

Our ladies have had players in the Dewar Trophy and the Carol’s Trophy. Both teams have competed well but, alas, the results haven’t always gone their way. There are still matches to come, however, so hopefully a good run in both competitions will see them lift up the leagues.

Our Men’s Winter League team found the going tough after promotion to the top league last year and will be playing in Division Two again this coming winter. There were some good results but, ultimately, they were not enough for safety.

We are now into the height of the competition season. The ‘warmer’ temperatures have seen the course really begin to flourish and, as we head into the second half of the year, we look forward to even better conditions, some excellent golf… and, of course, plenty of socialising in the clubhouse!