Many thanks firstly to the President, Members of the Council and all former Captains that came to the Drive In this month. Thanks too to last year’s Captain Steve Moran for all his personal encouragement. Many thanks must also go to Jonny Gaffney, my Vice Captain for his support. I would love to support his first ace but of course his hole in one much discussed on social media, Reddit and even Golf Digest was in a foursomes match and was a good no great par for a half and nothing more. Sorry Jonny! I must also thank the wider membership of the club, friends and family that attended too. It made for a great day. Both myself and the Lady Captain, Barbara Ingram, enjoyed your company and support throughout allowing us to begin our respective captaincies filled with excitement and positivity. We were both highly motivated to give our all for this great club but given the warmth and support we received on Sunday I for one must say that I will be redoubling my efforts to make this a brilliant year at the West.

With an eye to the future and a nod to the past I hope our events bring the club success whether hitting hickories to the return of the Bank Holiday events and to a great away day. To that end we have already published events for the year as you will no doubt have seen in the recent newsletters, although other opportunities may well present themselves.  I would like to encourage all to support both our charitable causes for the year. I will be raising money for the Stroke Association and Barbara for Dementia UK. To this end the first opportunity to support the charities was the Drive In and through the Tote we have raised already £140. Many thanks.

The next opportunity to make a difference for a great cause will be at the Lady Captain’s Charity Nearly New Sale and Tombola in aid of Dementia UK on Tuesday 7th February. Fuller details will of course follow and be in the newsletter. I think you may be able to win a brilliant Trek kids bike in the raffle, so future generations can ride as ponderously as I.

Further many thanks to Katie and her team for the organisation on the day with Steve and his team doing a marvelous job throughout. Also many thanks to Chris Baron and the Pro Shop team for the drive in and the very personal bike race to the range.

Finally I look forward to Captain and Pro Challenge matches against many of you and in the meantime enjoy your golf and let’s hope for an improving weather forecast so that Paul and his team can present our course in the great condition we are all proud of. The historians amongst you may know but has a Captain and Pro ever gone unbeaten in the year?

Gary