Welcome to this week's newsletter bringing you all the latest news from around the club, competition results and what we have to offer you in-store too. Enjoy the road.

The Junior Open attracted some good young players and I am delighted with the result. It's great to see a 12 year old girl (Amy) playing so well and enjoying her golf so much. Amy’s handicap had already reduced from 54 to 34 before this huge score, and I believe her new handicap is 26 so Amy has more than halved her handicap this year. The entry was reasonable but I would like to attract more youngsters to come and take part in future as we attempt to grow junior golf.

Many of the juniors who played had never played Reddish Vale before and I enjoyed their positive feedback on the course - particularly about the layout of the course and the speed of the greens; faster than what they were used to. In fact two juniors, one off scratch and the other off 2 couldn't get enough and went out after the comp to play the course again!

Unfortunately entries in Junior Opens are definitely down this year, several have been cancelled and even Moortown Golf Club cancelled their ‘Moortown Junior Masters’ due to lack of entries; a once thriving event that was hard to get into.

I’m glad we are bucking the trend and I would like to thank Ken Hawker for his very generous sponsorship of the first prize in this event.

You may remember Daniel qualified for this event last year and I spent a couple of days on the bag! The courses for finals week are very challenging and I would describe the experience as a very steep learning curve which has benefited Daniel very much indeed.

Daniel really enjoyed the whole experience, I would recommend the week to any keen young golfer and Daniel can't wait to do it all again. Not sure how things will work yet or if I will make it, we will have to see how things pan out.

Daniel was 14 on Wednesday, and he, Harry and Josh went and played Alwoodley, the home club and first course designed by Alister MacKenzie – they really enjoyed the course. Daniel is playing a Cheshire boys match at Ringway today.

What an extravaganza

Saturday/Sunday was our 'mega' three board comps rolled into one extravaganza with combined scores over the two days; The Victory Trophy (best net), The Seniors Championship (Best net over 55's) and The Club Championship (best gross).

The winner of both The Victory Trophy and The Seniors Championship is Andy Hart. Congratulations to Andy who is quite simply the human phenomenon of Reddish Vale! Andy is delighted and won't mind me saying that his gross score of 81 (net 66) in round one is seven shots less than his age! Andy's gross exactly matched his age with 88-15=73 in round 2 to win by two shots. Congratulations also to Dean Martin who wins The Club Championship with a total of 146.

This is quite some achievement! The Victory Trophy was a major introduced after the completion of WW2 - I thought it fitting that the winner this year can remember those events first hand! Andy’s handicap is back down to 13 and knowing Andy he will want it back down to single figures. It will be worth attending tomorrow night’s presentation meeting just to be there to see Andy receive his awards and hear his speech. I encourage you to attend.

Congratulations to Dean Martin whose dedication and hard work has paid off now he is The Club Champion. Dean was a few over in his first round but dug in and fought back well to win by three shots from the defending Champion Ryan Swift.

Next presentation...

Saturday 31st August at 6.00 – that’s tomorrow. The above prizes will be presented at tomorrow’s presentation meeting. Take a look at all the vouchers that are being presented by clicking on the list here. Have a look because you may have won a prize such as a day prize that you didn’t realise. Hope to see you there.

Pro’s Stablefords

I would like you to know that the Pro’s Stableford on the following two dates will be handicap qualifiers - Sunday 1st September and Sunday 29th September. These competitions are open to all club members with a handicap, and these will help you maintain your official handicap.

Wednesday Section – Frank Brown Shield

1st Paul Sloane 70-3=67
2nd Martin Holt 76-8=68
3rd Vinny Kilcullen 72-3=69 (cpo)

Two’s £5.90

Practice Ground work

Frank Frost (and also Greg Mitchell) have been spending time and effort clearing some of the untidy overgrown land to the side of the practice field – it’s the area to the left of the 6th green on the other side of the river.

Clearing this area is quite a major task but you can already see progress. This is a long term plan with multiple benefits to open up this overgrown area and make it something that we could use. There is a surprisingly large amount of land here and in time this could allow us to improve the practice area substantially.

Frank has been removing sections of willow and cutting it into lengths that can be used for willow weaving. The existing willow weaving from previous years is doing a great job and is still there, but took a bit of a hammering with the recent floods. There is a plan to use this willow to repair and reinforce the river bank. If you look at the photo you can see lengths of willow piled on the grass.

Lots of the wood removed will be put in the swamp area to the left of the 7th fairway where it will rot rather than being burnt. The river deposited a lot of plastic waste when it came over a few weeks ago, and you can see Frank has a container on the grass for collecting such waste and removing it.

Every little counts - if anyone else wishes to get involved there is lots you could be doing!