Past Captain Alan Irwin Reviews His Year in Office

It was a great honour to have Captained McBrides Golf Society. I have been a member for many years and this year has been the most special. From the first drive I hit at Scrabo to the last hit at my Captains weekend in Wales I have enjoyed the whole experience.

The first Major of the Year went to Shane Andrews. Shane won The Presidents Day Trophy at Headfort Golf Club. A course designed by the great Christy O’Connor Junior, with 15 holes featuring water this surely had to be the most difficult course of the season. Seventeen year old Shane shot an excellent 36 points of a 5 handicap. In the absence of Socity President George Anderson, Shane was presented with his trophy by Vice President Trevor Geddis.

Sunday 10th June at Carnalea Golf Club brought a close to the McBrides third Major trophy of the year the most sought after… Golfer of the Year. New comer to the Society, Steven Richer maintained the leadership that he held at the start of the outing, winning with a score of 214. Colin McCaughey held on to 2nd with a score nine points behind Steven on 205. In 3rd place, by the very narrowest of margins was the early pace setter Peter Kelly with a score of 204.

The highest placed senior and winner

of the Senior Golfer of the Year for the

3rd year in a row was Brian Anderson 

who also finished in 4th spot overall

with a score of 199.

  The newest of the Society’s trophy’s

  the Order of Merit Challenge Cup was

  contested by the sixteen highest

  placed golfers in the Golfer of the Year

  table and took place at Knock

  Golf Club on July 1st. The winner of

  was Marty Moreland playing of a

  1 handicap.

Sunday 10th June at Carnalea Golf Club saw four more of the Society’s Trophies find a new home. Both the Matchplay Championship and the Matchplay Plate were contested.

The second Major, the Matchplay Championship was won by Robin Mitchell, beating David Topping in a match that saw both players hold the lead for a spell. In the end it was the experience of Mitchell that shone through to take the Trophy.

The Match Playplate competition was also contested at Carnalea Golf Club and was battled out by Colin McCaughey and Nicky Frazer. A close match on paper but McCaughey led from start to finish and took the match by a convincing score.

For my Captains weekend we travelled to South Wales. Captains Day was played on the Montgomery Course at Celtic Manor and the Fourball Better Ball was held at Cotterall Park Golf Club. The non playing activities took place in the Welsh Capital Cardiff. Unfortunately due to Society rules I can not go into any of the details, suffice to say many of the Capitals bars and clubs were sampled and found to be in perfect working order.

Star of the weekend was Ian Carser, Ian scored 36 points at Celtic Manor to take the Captains day prize and with partner Ronnie Geddis took the Fourball Better Ball Trophy as well. It was not surprising then that Caser also took the Best Accumulated Score of the weekend (78) to take a clean sweep of the major prises.

Non golfing related starts of the weekend were Michael Hall and

Peter Kelly for keeping the boys entertained in the early hours at

the hotel with their late night singing. They easily took the vote for

Personalities of the weekend. However, it is just as well that the

vote had taken place before the prises were handed out at

Cotterall Park as the best entertainment of the weekend was

provided by Stephen Eachus. After being presented with the

Booby Prize for his lack of golfing ability at Celtic Manor,

Stephen proceeded to pull on the little Pink Number and paraded

 it around the function room…. Priceless.