Greetings golfers, 

Welcome to another edition of your pro shop newsletter. In this week's issue we discuss how fortunate we're to be able to play golf over the winter, look at how you can play the best world's best courses this winter, and look at the future of golf at Reddish Vale. 

Enjoy this week's read.

Play Birkdale

The swing studio is always warm and dry. Birkdale is one of sixteen courses you can play in there, or you can just play a few of the holes and switch over to Carnoustie, Celtic Manor or any from the list that take your fancy.

We're so fortunate

The number of people that ring The Pro Shop and the first thing they say (apart from Hello) is ‘is the course open?’ yes. ‘Do you have a trolley ban?’ no. ‘Do we have to use mats?’ no. Some people are so surprised that they often ask again as though they couldn’t believe their ears the first time of asking.

It depends what you are used to I suppose and we are so fortunate here that we have a playable golf course 12 months of the year.

The amount of people who are playing golf on soaking wet clay based flat golf courses - if they are open at all - is quite astonishing. And these are very local courses to ours, they just can’t get rid of the water. With a climate that is getting wetter, and clubs ever smaller budgets to spend on drainage this is a big problem that will only increase for many.

Remember - quagmire golf is no fun.

Practice bunker taking shape!

Last week I featured the new bunker on the 9th, and this week I have a picture of the greens staff busy renovating the bunker on the practice ground. The practice bunker is expected to receive something of a hammering so as you can see has been fitted with a new type of rubber lining designed to be robust and provide an ideal solid base beneath the covering of sand.

Growing the game

2018 promises to be an important year for Junior golf at Reddish Vale. We now have 12 juniors with handicaps, and the prospect of a new series of junior competitions designed to encourage these juniors and others who will no doubt want to get involved.

Despite the weather this winter has thrown at us, for the first time the junior coaching has successfully continued (outside of course!) throughout the winter months. In fact, the group is so big that Abbie is running two groups from Sunday 4th February. Abbie is doing a great job with the kids and I am very confident we are going the right way here.

If you know of children (or people of any age for that matter) who want to get into golf, or who just show an interest, please contact us or pass on our details as we will get them golfing.

Contact us here.

Upcoming Dates for Junior Coaching:

• Sunday 21st January
  • 1pm-2pm (Putting Green)
• Sunday 28th January
  • 1pm start (Top 5)
• Sunday 4th February
  • Practice Ground (we will be moving back to the two groups (Intermediate 1pm -2pm & Beginners 2pm-3pm)
    

Saturday’s 2 From 3 Stableford

1st – Andy Moss, Stewart Flint & Paddy Weadick – 84 pts
2nd – David Hollington, Chris Byrne & Vinny Costello – 82 pts
3rd – Pete Watson, Lewis Cooper & Ross Birch – 81 pts
4th – Duncan Hayes, Tony Lyons & Tom Walker – 80 pts (CPO)

Twos = £3.24 each.

Sunday’s Pro’s Stableford

1st – Anthony Phillips – 44 pts
2nd – Paul Bruckshaw – 39 pts
3rd – Adie Ord – 38 pts (CPO)
4th – Mike Warburton – 38 pts (CPO)

Twoss = £12.50 each.

Click here to see the full results.

Wednesday’s Pro’s Stableford

1st – Frank Frost – 36 pts
2nd – Alan Finney – 35 pts

Twos = £2.25 each.

Click here to see the full results.