Captains Drive-In 2019

Dom and Chris

Thank you Dom, and welcome 2019 Mens Club Captain Chris Hart

A challenging day of weather for the 2019 Captain’s Drive In.

Outgoing Captain Dom was handing things over the Chris for the 2019/2020 golfing year. We had strong winds all day but were lucky to be on the edges of Storm Hannah which was battering the west side of the country. Fortunately the rain mostly held off and we all managed to get round dry.

Format for the day was team scramble, 10pct of handicaps on a shotgun start. Everyone arrived in good time, start holes noted and warm drinks drunk. Chris’ charity this year is the fantastic Marie Curie, support and care for terminal patients. Fund raising started on the day with the traditional guessing on the length of the new captains drive off the first.

Somehow our team of Richie, Winkle Jaggsy and myself wangled the 10th to start. We started with a birdie and rolled out 5 more on our front nine. Steady golf but clearly needed more as we expected a high to mid 50’s score to have any sniff despite the wind. Winkle solo’d a birdie on the 17th… perhaps his second hardly ‘pured’ but ended up close enough for him to convert. We had a couple of lipouts and Jaggsy narrowly missed out on converting a solo eagle on the 5th by just one roll of the ball. We nicked a ‘bonus’ birdie on the 6th but came unstuck with a bogey on the tricky pin on the 7th. A final birdie was little consolation as 9 birdies, one bogey and a team handicap of 3.7 saw us just above middle of the final table with 60.3,

Busy clubhouse waiting for scores to be tallied

Chris’s big day and he was very chuffed to have his family all arrive after the golf to see him drive in. I believe his brother flew in from Portugal this morning for the day, only to head back on an evening flight. Great to see the clubhouse busy, all the Swindles represented wishing the captain well as he starts his captaincy.

Last year’s captain Dom ‘putting out’

Part of the day is the ‘ceremonial’ putting out of the incumbent captain, before the new Captain ‘drives in’. Chris was surely not going to give Dom an extremely soft 12foot putt. That isn’t the way, and some collective encouragement saw the ball moved well back and Dom did a great job of a solid 3putt… despite a leaving a smelly one at the end.

Many thanks Dom!

2019 Captain Chris ‘Driving In’

Over to the first hole and family and friends came down to the first to see the Captain’s drive. With money on the yardage, the pressure was on. Chris put a half decent swing on it, narrowly missing the left tree which would’ve shortened things a bit, but a GPS equipped Sweetman down the fairway measured it at 168yards I believe. A distance Lewis managed to secure for a bottle of wine and some balls.

Welcome from Chris and the prize giving

After a few words of thanks from Dom which included thanks to the Committee, he highlighted all the hard work everyone on his team put into this year’s charity day. A fantastic £16,000 was raised for Prostate Cancer UK – a record breaking amount and I believe the highest the charity has received from other golf days supporting their work. Well done Dom and a big thanks from all the members!

Onto the welcome from Chris and the prize giving on the day. Some great shots securing nearest the pins; but I won’t tell anyone that the bank helped with the tricky 7th Mr Savs.

Second and third scores may well have walked away with it on another day but wouldn’t you know it… the new Captain won his own competition. (Sounds familiar Mr Winkle?)

Mass, Keiran and Dom joined Chris in the lead group and returned a seriously impressive score of 55.6! Weather wasn’t helping but the boys did very well… Chris knows how to pick a team! Congratulations.