Hello Everyone

I do hope that you are all well.

Whilst we have endured some atrociously wet weather recently, I know that many of you will have enjoyed sunnier climes during the winter months. However we have managed the winter, now we can all look forward to a new golf season.

I am delighted to report on the current activities of the Society and hope that this will whet your appetites for the coming months as well as encouraging as many of you as possible to sign up for our events and encourage others you know to join us.

Committee

The committee works behind the scenes on behalf of the members.

The current committee comprises Linda Hill, who is our President, Robin Moser, who is our Treasurer, and committee members: Pat Bennett, Pete Carpenter, Alison Evans, Heather Williams and Ian Wright.

We meet at least three times a year but communicate with each other regularly to maintain contact on current issues, particularly regarding arrangements for tours.

Committee members will be at our two day meetings during the year so please do discuss with them any issues which you think might assist us in delivering a Society which provides the best possible experience for its members.

The main work of the Society is dealt with by our Secretary, Brian Ward.

It is important to recognise the enormous effort which Brian puts in on behalf of us all. He is already working out the details for next season’s meetings, and, from our discussions, I am learning how complex a task that is as well as the benefit we gain from Brian’s personal connections and deep knowledge of golf courses which will provide excellent venues for us all to enjoy.

Tours

A great benefit of membership of the Society is access to the tours which we run. These are arranged by the committee to selected and sought after locations and they are usually organised and run by a member of the committee.

In November the Society visited Mauritius on a trip which was enjoyed by everyone thanks to the detailed arrangements made by Pat Bennett who ran the tour.

In April we undertake a tour in Scotland where we will be based in Dundee. Ronnie Steedman has worked really hard to put together a very strong itinerary and we can look forward to playing some very well renowned courses in the area.

Costa Navarino in Greece carries a very strong reputation and is the venue for our tour in October. The proposition was so attractive that we have been able to run two trips, the first of which I am running and the second of which is being run by Ian Wright. This means that over sixty members will enjoy this tour on one or other of the two weeks we have been able to offer. Three spaces have come available on the first trip (4-11 October 2026) so if anyone is interested in taking up these spaces, please contact me.

Another very popular venue is South Africa and is the destination for our tour in January 2027 which is being manged by Robert Hill. The itinerary is extremely attractive and, again, this has proved to be a very popular destination.

I do wish to record my thanks to all those who take the time to run these tours for the benefit of us all.

We will continue to work hard to offer tours for members to enjoy. All we ask in return is for members to have a good time and want to come back – as well as being strong encouragement to enter as many home meetings as possible as those are our lifeblood and allow us to be able to offer the tours.

Meetings

Our website is managed by a small group of members and provides an efficient and very useful tool for publicising the Society to the outside world. It attracts new members to the Society, provides reports on the Society’s activities and is now the way in which we can apply to join the meetings which are available each season.

There, if you have not already done so, you will find the application form for our meetings for this year.

Those meetings are the main activities of the Society and provide members with the opportunity to visit high quality courses whilst enjoying good company with other members and at competitive prices for the packages on offer to members (green fees, food and prizes) when compared with the fees which those clubs would ordinarily charge just for green fees.

Our programme of meetings this year is as strong as ever.

We do need your support for these meetings in order to ensure that they are viable and we can maintain the quality of meetings which is so attractive to members.

Whilst some meetings have proved to be extremely popular, places remain on others so please do double check your plans for the season and try to attend as many meetings as you can.

The first meeting this year, in May, is to the Society’s spiritual home, Prince’s in Kent.

The history of the Society dates back to 1955 when it was established by Sir Aynsley Bridgland, then the owner of Prince’s. The Society’s history is interesting to read, and details are available on the website. The following link will take you to a document which, whilst now a little dated, explains how the Society was established and how it has evolved: https://golfsocietygb.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GSGB-History-022026.pdf

Prince’s is also the venue selected to host the 2030 Walker Cup so we will all be able to enjoy the course that those players can look forward to playing.

The second course for that meeting is Chart Hills, which is also well regarded, so those two days will be a great start for the Society’s programme of meetings this year.

The other meetings during the season are, as usual, spread around the country to allow accessibility for as many members as possible.

In June we visit Sandiway and Delamere Forest in Cheshire, in July we have the meeting which includes our AGM, at Trentham and Brocton Hall in Staffordshire, in August we go to Huddersfield and Woodsome Hall in Yorkshire, and we finish off in September at Aldeburgh and Woodbridge in Suffolk.

More details of each venue can be found on the website.

If you have not already signed up for meetings, please do so as soon as possible.

The June and August meetings are a little low on numbers so if more members can see if they can support us at those meetings, it would be appreciated.

A vibrant Society with strong numbers at every meeting will ensure we can deliver the tours and continue to offer high quality domestic meetings.

May I also just ask that, when attending meetings, we all try to assist Brian by ensuring that:
• Full Stableford scores are recorded on the scorecards rather than just writing the gross scores and leaving Brian to work out the points.
• You point out to Brian if you have scored a ‘two’.
• You arrive in good time for your tee time, as other circumstances might mean that some tee times require last minute changes.
• Any requests for early or late tee times are made no later than a week before a meeting so that such requests do not affect the printing of playing lists and scorecards.

Thank you for your understanding on these points.

Trophies

As you know, we have some magnificent trophies for which we compete during the year.
Please can last year’s winners ensure that they return the trophies in time for the next meeting at which they will be presented to the new winners. Where trophies have winners’ names engraved on them, please ensure that they are engraved (as a perk of winning this is at the expense of the winners!) and clean when you return them.

New Participating Club

As a sign of the standing of our Society, we receive requests from clubs to be added to our list of Participating Clubs.

Many such applications are declined as we are keen to ensure that our list is not so unwieldy that we cannot visit clubs within a reasonable cycle, and to maintain the high quality of Participating Clubs which we visit and which is so highly appreciated by our members.
I am, therefore, very pleased and excited to let you know that, from this season, we have added a further club to our list of Participating Clubs.

That club is Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club in East Sussex.

There are two courses at Royal Ashdown Forest, the Old Course and the West Course. The Old Course is currently ranked number 48 in the Top 100 golf courses in England.

The club was founded in 1888 and, whilst I understand that, unusually, neither course has any bunkers, the website does say that “One of the things that golf lovers most appreciate about playing here is that so little has changed over the club’s 130 year history. Heather, humps, hollows, pools and streams remain nature’s defence against shooting a low score”!

This adds a third club to our list of Participating Clubs which has the ‘Royal’ prefix to its name.

We can look forward to visiting Royal Ashdown Forest on one of our future meetings and to take advantage of preferable rates as members of the Society if we wish to visit separately.

Writing this note, and reflecting on the activities of the Society, has reminded me what a wonderful Society it is with so much to offer. It continues to provide us with new friends and the opportunity to go to places we probably would not otherwise visit, whilst playing the great game of golf. Does it get any better?

Please do recommend membership to anyone you know who you think will enjoy all of what we have to offer.

I look forward to meeting up with as many of you as possible during the season. Please do come and say ‘hello’!

Best wishes

Richard

Richard Wadkin
Chairman

Tel: 07770 938411
Email: