I hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas and you are getting ready for the upcoming golf season by fine-tuning your swing. Unfortunately, the weather continues to be miserable, making the course the soggiest I have ever seen it. Please be mindful of the guidelines for trolleys and remember to repair your pitch marks and divots to help the course recover.

The inter-club match schedule is now posted on ClubV1. Our first match is away against Stowmarket on March 12th. Please put your name down for the matches you would like to play in. I encourage you to visit our informative website www.stokeseniors.com, which has many useful resources for the senior members.

Wishing you a happy, healthy 2024, filled with great golf and time with loved ones.

Quote for the month:

“To play great golf rests entirely on the ability to find the back of the ball with the clubhead square. – Henry Cotton

John Parkinson – SbN Seniors Captain

Disclaimer: This is a light-hearted review of the previous month’s events. No offence is intended, I hope none is taken!

Full (formal) information can always be found on the senior’s website www.stokeseniors.com

Firstly, the newsletter would like to wish all the seniors and their loved ones a very happy, healthy 2024. Once you start to carry those bags, laden with new clubs and garb across the wet and mucky fairways, I’m sure the excesses of the seasons festivities will be soon walked off. We’ll all be fighting fit, and raring to participate in the first competition of the year on Wednesday, Jan 3rd with a spring in our step!

There is very little to write about from the result’s department. The only competition of note was the Yuletide Scramble on December 13th. The main question on everyone’s lips was, that given we had the opportunity to cherry pick teams, which quartet would be the victorious bandits? It fell to the trio of youngsters, Messrs Cracknell, Roloff and Hele, ably assisted by the club captain Norman, returning a magnificent nett 58. The surprising, outsiders combination of Seymour, Lumsden, Beckinsale and Middleton made good use of their over-generous handicap to creep into second place with a nett 59, whilst the hot favourites of Price, Finlarrson, Kelloggs and senior’s tour pro Clark could only creep into 3rd place with a nett 60. There was serious bleating from the teams of 3 about the rules of the game, with various examples offered up for alternative methodology that could be used. I’m sure these will be seriously considered for 2024. (We’d love to see John Parky being able to hit 18 tee shots and 18 second shots!) The real winner of the day though was the Sudbury Foodbank; once again, the Senior’s section dug deep and raised a staggering figure, in the region of £1600 for this very worthwhile cause. Many thanks to everyone for your contributions, and to Roger Davies for coordinating it.

How we’ve missed the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ WhatsApp group. It was back with a vengeance over Christmas, Michael Miles would have had a field day! The first swindle takes place on Jan 5th, Mick Henry is already preparing his ‘thank you’ acceptance speech. Not content with one swindle, like London buses, there will be another 4 during January. Malcolm and the bookers will be having a very busy month, we are though, all grateful for the work they do throughout the year.

As there’s not much else going on, I thought I would finish with a few awards for experiences over 2023, starting with a couple of genuine ones:

Most improved golfer of the year​​​            –  Kevin Walsh

Fund raiser of the year​​​​​                              –   Malcolm Norton (just edging out Roger)

Lily May Humphreys fan of the year​​​        –   Malcolm Jones

Video contribution​​​​​                                       –  Shikhar Chatrath

Dog handler of the year​​​​​                              –  Mike Clare

Legs of the year​​​​​​                                           –  Brian Roloff

Caterer of the year​​​​​                                       –  Gordon Bryan

Special ‘Paul Raymond’ award for

Photographic contribution​​​​                         –  Lionel Hatch

Quote of the Year​​​​​                                         –  Norman Davidson

(After yet another overnight deluge, Norman informed us that “The Pro shop are raising the level of the tills!”

If anyone has any award categories for 2024, please feel free to offer them up.

Have a fantastic knees up on New Year’s Eve , well, those that are able to!

Finally, Many Happy Returns to all members who have their birthdays in January.

Details of January’s schedule and all fixtures in 2024 can be found on the website.

Club V1 is the place to go to enter your availability for all 2024 Interclub matches, you can also sign up for the team, if you’re not yet a member.

If anyone wishes to share any “amusing” stories with me for the next newsletter, this can be done anonymously, or otherwise, by emailing kevinprice@btinternet.com