BGC – Captain’s Message – 24th July 2023

Good afternoon,



Congratulations to our new Open Champion Brian Harman – an incredible performance managing to hold off the best in the world to win by 6 shots at Royal Liverpool. Commiserations to our own Ewen Ferguson who just missed the cut but I’m sure it was a great experience nonetheless. Ewen’s next challenge will be to defend his ISPS Handa title in Ireland beginning 17th August!



Our McIntyre League(Veterans) enjoyed a fabulous away win at Hilton Park during the week which puts them in 3rd place in the League(out of 17 Teams). A great season so far for the guys, so keep up the good play and best of luck for the remaining 5 games!



More Club competitions were played through last week and results are as follows:-



Wed 19th July – Gents 9 hole Stableford

Ryan McNulty – 21

Michael McMillan – 21

Thomas McGonigle – 19



Thursday 20th July – Ladies 9 hole Stableford

Clare Stuart – 20

Lucille Wright – 19

Edi Stewart – 17



Thursday – 20th July – Ladies July Medal

Div1 – Carol Arthur – 67

Carole Young – 67

Gill Hamblen – 68



Div 2 – Jean Kent – 66

Marie Winter – 67

Frances Reid – 69



Saturday 22nd July – Donnelly/Duff Trophy

Paul McMillan – 44

Alan Bain – 42

Stuart Neilly – 40



Well done to all the winners!



COURSE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE



The drier weather in the last week has seen good progress with the course construction work.



The core path required under our planning consent and which runs parallel to the new third fairway was completed on Friday. This allows the existing core path to be re-routed and the remaining shaping work can start next week on the new fourth and seventh greens.



Elsewhere, drainage and irrigation work has progressed satisfactorily. Some seeding-out work should start within the next week but there will be an over-run for other parts of the new course area. The extent of the over-run depends on the weather in the next few weeks so let’s hope for a period of reasonably dry weather.



Finally, the Johnstone Cup which is the Gents Club Championship qualifier is being played this coming Saturday and Sunday. There are 70 entries in so far which is great, so just a final reminder to anyone who has not entered but wishes to do so, please enter via the Club V1 App and good luck to all who play at the weekend!



We are also moving towards our Finals Day on Sat 5th August, with the various matchplay competitions nearing their conclusion so good luck to all those who still have their semi-finals to play.



Hope to see you on the course or in the clubhouse soon.



Regards



Jon Maclean

Captain