The Vale Golf Resort, Wales – 17th-20th May

Thanks are due once again to Steve for organising this year’s trip which saw us visit a new venue. Weather was as expected given the geography and time of year, but we’ve experienced much worse conditions in previous years in Cornwall. Pictured below are the “Class of 2026”.

Day 1 saw us re-visiting an old favourite (?) format with teams assigned a “Bonus” ball which scored double points for the lucky custodian on each golf hole. Two teams managed to retain their bonus ball for the entire round – no mean feat given the number of water hazards on the aptly named Lakes Course. The result was as follows:

1^st Steve Christie/Paul Needle/Phil Ray/ Reg Brown  –  108 points

2^nd  Rob Austen /  Paul Mead/ Catrina Brown/ Dave Wain – 102 points

3^rd Dave Scott/ Pete Cosford/ Jane Wain  – 78 points

4^th Fay Austen / Nigel Wain/ Martin Sykes – 73 points

5^th Sue Scott / Steve Mulford/ Bruce Mercer – 67 points

Special mention should be made of Steve Christie who decided to use this year’s trip to comprehensively road test his new mode of golfing transport – including, unfortunately, a crash test on the first hole of the day.

The championship was held on the second day, with the competitors facing very wet conditions. Undeterred by such things, Bruce Mercer returned to the winners circle once more with a very respectable 34 points including 23 on the front 9 alone. Runners up were Dave Scott with 31 points and Pete Cosford with 28 points. Bruce is pictured below receiving the trophy from last year’s champion, Nigel.

Tuesday fortunately provided a lull in the damp conditions, with competitors able to enjoy a post round beverage on the clubhouse terrace.

July 6th – 9th, St Mellion Golf Resort, Cornwall

Our champion golfer for 2025 is Nigel Wain who tackled the Nicklaus Championship course in fine style and recorded 33 points. Runner up was David Wain with 26 points followed by Sue Scott with 24 points. The margin of victory shows how well Nigel played in challenging (strong winds and squally showers) conditions. Nigel is pictured below receiving the trophy from last year’s champion, Sue Scott.

St Mellion Golf & Spa Resort, 6th – 9th July, 2025.

Steve has once again kindly organised our tour this year which will see us returning to St Mellion and also returning to a course we haven’t played for a while on the Sunday.

Details are as follows:

Sunday 6th July – Boringdon Park Golf Club, Plympton, PL7 4QG

Meet from 11:00am with first tee at 1:00pm.

Monday 7th July – St Mellion – Kernow and Nicklaus Courses

First tee on Kernow is at 10:35am, the Nicklaus course tee time is 10:30am.

Tuesday 8th July – St Mellion – Nicklaus Course Championship

First tee time is 10:30am.

Wednesday 10th July – St Mellion – Kernow and Nicklaus Courses

First tee on the Kernow is 10:26am, first tee on the Nicklaus is 10:30am.

Team Details and groupings for Sunday at Boringdon.

We have 16 attendees this year, although not everyone is either present or playing each day. Therefore, the format for the first days play will be “2 Best Stableford Scores to Count per Hole” with two teams of 4 and one team of 3.

Proposed running order is as follows:

Group 1 – Rob Austen / Steve Christie / Derek Craston

Group 2 – Laura Craston / Bruce Mercer / Sue Scott / Martin Sykes

Group 3 – Steve Mulford / Paul Needle / Phil Reay / Dave Scott

St Mellion Golf & Spa resort, 7th – 10th July

Day 1 – Elfordleigh Golf Club – Team Competition

A mixed format for the team competition enabled our group to play as 3 and 4 balls.

The Stableford games played out as follows:

Group 1 – Steve C – 38 pts, Pete C – 34 pts, David W – 33 pts

Group 2 – Laura C – 28 pts, Paul N – 28 pts, Martin S – 21 pts

Group 3 – Reg B – 28 pts, Phil R – 27 pts, Nigel W – 32 pts

The matchplay games played out as follows:

Derek C / Chris W won 3&2 versus Rob A / Sue S

Trina B / Dave S won 6&5 versus Steve M / Helen C

James A / Phil W halved with Richard E / Matt O

The end of day score for the teams was 3.5 pts for the Christie Team and 2.5 pts for the Craston Team.

Day 2 – St Mellion – Team Competition

Group 1 – Dave S / Rob A won 4&2 versus James A / Pete C

Group 2 – Chris W / Helen C won 3&1 versus Jane W / Richard E

Group 3 – Laura C / Sue P won 3&2 versus Phil R

Group 4 – Steve C / Nigel W halved with Steve M / Paul N

Group 5 – Phil W / Martin S won 3&2 versus David W / Sue S

Group 6 – JP halved with Derek

The end of day score for the teams was 2 points for the Christie Team and 4 points for the Craston Team.

The Craston Team proved victorious once more in 2024 by 6.5 pts to 5.5.

Day 3 – St Mellion – The Championship

Challenging course conditions and classic Cornish weather was reflected in the scoring for this year’s championship. Only 7 of the field managed to score in the 20s, and the result was very close in the end. On 27 points was our 2022 champion, Chris Wain. With 28 points, but losing out on count back over the second 9 holes, was JP.

However, our champion for 2024 – also with 28 points – is Sue Scott pictured below receiving the trophy from Pete Cosford.

St Mellion Golf & Spa Resort, 7th – 10th July, 2024.

Steve has once again kindly organised our tour this year which will see us returning to St Mellion and also playing a new course for the tour on the Sunday.

Details are as follows:

Sunday 7th July – Elfordleigh Hotel, Colebrook, Plympton, Plymouth, PL7 5EB

Meet from 11:00am with first tee at 1:00pm.

Monday 8th July – St Mellion – Kernow and Nicklaus Courses

First tee on Kernow is at 10:17am, the Nicklaus course tee time is 10:20am.

Tuesday 9th July – St Mellion – Nicklaus Course Championship

First tee time is 11:00am.

Wednesday 10th July – St Mellion – Kernow and Nicklaus Courses

First tee on the Kernow is 10:26am, first tee on the Nicklaus is 10:20am.

Team Details and groupings for Sunday at Elfordleigh.

We have 24 attendees this year, although not everyone will be present on every day. Once again, the team competition will see Team Craston (current champions) taking on Team Christie.

The teams (before the usual Sunday evening horse trading) look like this:

Team Craston

James Austen (Sunday and Monday)

Pete Cosford

Derek Craston

Helen Craston

Laura Craston

Steve Mulford

Sue Pritchard (Monday – Wednesday)

Phil Reay

Chris Wain

Nigel Wain

Phil Williams

Gangy (Tuesday & Wednesday)

Team Christie

Rob Austen (Sunday & Monday)

Reg Brown

Catrina Brown

Steve Christie

Richard Edmonds

Paul Needle

John Pritchard

Dave Scott

Sue Scott

Martin Sykes

David Wain

Jane Wain

Groupings for Elfordleigh – first tee 1:00pm

We have 21 players for Sunday, so we’re proposing to tee off as 3x 4-ball groups and 3x 3-ball groups.

We’ve also tried to factor in buggy use and sharing thereof.

For team competition purposes, we propose that the four balls will play better-ball matchplay as normal. The 3 ball groups will play Stableford and team points will be allocated for the top 3 recorded scores. That way, we have a total of 6 points to play for on the first day. Of course, points allocation can be finally negotiated after the result in the bar on Sunday evening.

The running order is as follows:

• Steve Christie, Pete Cosford, David Wain

• Laura Craston, Paul Needle, Martin Sykes

• Reg Brown, Phil Reay, Nigel Wain

• Derek Craston & Chris Wain vs Rob Austen & Sue Scott

• Helen Craston & Steve Mulford vs Trina Brown & Dave Scott

• James Austen & Phil Williams vs Richard Edmonds & Jane Wain

A long wait, but finally a second major victory…

He may have been wondering whether he would ever slip the Champion’s blazer on once more – it being a long 16 years since first winning the championship at China Fleet. However, the long wait is finally over as Pete Cosford scored a very creditable 34 points around the Nicklaus Championship course to win by 3 points with Chris Wain finishing in second place. Chris, of course, was our 2022 champion and as such presented Pete with the Champion’s Blazer and the Harris Hat of Glory.

Records for the rest of the 2023 tour are sketchy, but we do believe that Pete also secured the longest drive award on the 18th, whilst Fay secured both Nearest the Pin (on the signature 11th hole) and Nearest the Pin in 2 (on the 5th hole). We also believe that the Team trophy was retained by Team Craston – probably by virtue of an overall draw, although possibly because they forgot to bring the trophy with them.