Drury Challenge & Wood Cup
The Easter weekend officially signalled the start of the season here at Rochester & Cobham Park with The Drury Challenge kicking things off with 138 entrants. There was a real buzz around the ProShop amongst the members as they were signing in with excitement for what was about to unfold on the course. With the white tees being moved back from their forward winter positions the expectation on the scoring wasn't very high, clearly nobody told David Ford that, he was unfazed by the extra length on the course and returned a resounding 41 points. Not content with simply winning David proceeded to book a short game lesson with Rob . Another member looking to build upon his success!
Following on from The Drury Challenge was The Wood Cup on Saturday and the elements had changed from the previous day, and not for the better! What with the added yardage, the temperature had dropped considerably meaning the dense air was making the ball fly even shorter. However, once again the members stayed resilient and battled through the conditions. This time we managed an extraordinary 140 entrants. Much like the day before, the scoring was not expected to be very high with the weather conditions changing but the winning score came from two of our newest members, George Crow (1 hcp) and Sam Weston (9 hcp). They braved arctic conditions to return an amazing total of 43 points, pipping the Drury Challenge champ and his partner Tommy Joyce by one point.
The top 16 pairs from The Wood Cup have now qualified for The Mitchener Shield which is a Fourball Betterball Knockout. This will run throughout the summer, although with George and Sam racking up 43 points, the rest of the draw will be hoping to avoid them for as long as possible!
Over the course of the holiday weekend, we saw over 1,300 people walk through the ProShop door and we made it our goal to ensure each and every person received the same high quality of service as the one previous. Hats off to the team, from Thursday morning Junior Open through to the close of business Saturday, Jerry and Rob clocked up more 39 hours shop hours and amazingly, still with a smile on their face. Only 149 competitions to go!
Ladies Kent Championship 2015 Monday 13th April - Wednesday 15th April
Our very own Mollie Lawrence will be playing in The Ladies Kent Championship next week. It is a 36 hole Medal Qualifying round where the best 16 Gross Scores qualify for the second day of the Championship. Mollie is teeing off at 8.00am for the morning round and then 12.45pm for the afternoon round on the Monday and we wish Mollie the best of luck in qualifying for the next two days. Come on Mollie!
Jo Beslee will also be representing Rochester & Cobham Park in the Senior Ladies Kent Championship.
In the seniors category the best 8 gross scores from Monday will progress to a matchplay knockout round where the final will take place on Wednesday 15th April. Jo will be teeing off at 9:20am on Monday 13th April. Good luck Jo!
If you are at a loose end on Monday, then why not come down and support them?
TaylorMade Club Fitting Day
Some of you may remember that the first club fitting day hit a minor snag when the rep called on the morning and informed us he wouldn't be coming, but due to the vast range of options in our fitting cart, the day was still a success and everybody went home happy. We have now managed to re-book our rep for Friday 1st May, if you are looking to update your current armoury we have appointments available between 2pm and 6pm. Appointments can be made via the Pro Shop.
Junior Open
Thursday brought around our Junior Open which was widely contested between not only our own juniors but also visiting juniors from Kent. The scratch was won with 75 by Joseph McDonagh-Brown and the nett was won by Jamie Wood with 71, both boys are from West Malling GC. With 6 of our own juniors competing, Elliott Phillips was unfortunate enough to not only miss out on the scratch 1st prize by 1 shot he also lost out on the 1st nett prize on countback. A massive thank you and congratulations must go to Henry Phillips and his team for making this day a fabulous success. Below are the Captain, Peter Goodsell and Junior Captain, George Cockayne, peresenting the prize winners with their trophies. Congratulations!
Rob's Coaching Clinics
On Sunday, I completed the first of my short game clinics which was on bunker play with Chris Hassell and Fred Self. Both Chris and Fred were looking for the same thing...to get the ball out at the first attempt. They were struggling with a consistent strike and so after a couple of tweaks to their basic fundamentals they were both hitting better shots. Now that they have a new technique along with some practice I'm sure their fortunes will improve from the sand. There are still spaces available in the last 2 clinics. The next clinic will be on putting which has now been changed to Saturday 11th April at 11:00am and the final clinic will be on Saturday 18th April at 10:30am which will focus on chipping.
ProShop Masters Sweepstake Picks
The ProShop staff also like to get involved in The Master Sweepstake, at the risk of putting our fountain of golfing knowledge in question, we have decided to let everybody know our picks for this year.
Jezza has gone for Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose & Miguel Angel Jimenez.
Rob has opted for Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Jonas Blixt & Jamie Donaldson.
I have got 3 teams representing me this year; the first consists of Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Bill Haas & Ryan Moore. The second is Adam Scott, Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood & Louis Oosthuizen. My final team is Henrik Stenson, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson & Patrick Reed.
With the total entries currently standing at 206 it will be a greatly contested sweepstake with a fantastic prize fund. All teams and prize fund will be posted on the club website before start of play on Thursday, good luck everybody!
