Boultons win the PING Plate

Nottinghamshire mother and daughter Helen and Rachel Boulton scored a historic win when the Plate final of the PING women's fourball betterball championship was dramatically decided by a play-off.
Three pairs had tied with 45 points and had to return to the 18th hole of the Thonock Park course at PING's Gainsborough Golf Club for a sudden-death play-off. But Helen – a 20-handicapper - settled matters in style when she chipped in for a net birdie, appropriately using a Ping wedge.

"It's unbelievable," said Helen, from Springwater Golf Club. "It's crazy!" added Rachel, who was the 2015 Nottinghamshire county champion and helped her team to win last year's English County Finals.
Second and third places were decided on countback, with Jing and her partner, Heather Stiles, finishing as runners-up, ahead of Carole Morris and Jill Sparkes from Romsey Golf Club in Hampshire.

The Boultons have an excellent record in this championship, reaching the Plate final once before and coming fifth in last year's Grand Final. As the play-off was announced Rachel was counting the cost of a three-putt during regulation play. "I had a putt for an eagle on the sixth and I left it about 1ft away. I went to tap it in and missed! I thought 'oh my gosh' but I said to mum let's just keep going." They stuck to the task and when Helen had her big chance she had just one aim. "I just thought 'get it close.' That's what Rachel has been saying to me all day long." Her chip from the fringe started on target and stayed there, popping into the hole to applause.

Photo courtesy of Leaderboard Photography

Second Team reach Regional Finals

The final match for our Second Team took place on a blistering hot day at Stanton, on Monday 18th July, against a strong Lincolnshire team. The girls lathered up with sun cream and used their umbrellas as parasols for an unusually hot day in the sun. Nottinghamshire plays home and away against Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, while Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire play home and away matches over the same time. The winners of each half of the region qualify to play each other in the Regional Final. This was a very important match for us as a win or a half would take us through to the Final.

Read more: 2nd Team reach Regional Finals

2nd Team Regional Finals 2016

Having won our matches against Lincolnshire and Leicestershire throughout the season, our Second Team qualified for the Regional Final against Staffordshire who had beaten Derbyshire and Shropshire in their own qualifying matches.

The final was arranged at Stanton on the Wolds Golf Club for 15th August and took place on a blistering hot day with the course in wonderful condition.

The morning foursomes were very competitive with some great golf being played by all and a real battle took place between Notts and Staffs with all the matches going to the 18th green. The end result was two halved matches and one loss, so we went into the afternoon singles 2-1 down.

Once again, most of the afternoon matches were extremely close, and we saw some very good golf. Cathy Burnside and Kristina Lazarevic both lost 1 down on the final hole in very tight matches, with Kristina recording three birdies in her round. Vicki Forecast showed great determination to claw her way back from three down to all square and finally lost 2 down on the last hole. Sadly, the final result of the afternoon singles was 6 losses for our Notts girls but the result does not reflect the great golf that was played by the Notts girls– the individual matches were very close indeed.

Read more: 2nd Team Regional Finals 2016

2nd Team Home Match v Leicestershire 2016

Our first home match against Leicestershire took place on 13th July at Chilwell. After a very rainy start to the week we were very pleased to have a relatively dry (if blustery) day for our match.
The day started well with two wins in the morning foursomes. Carol Houghton and Jacey Peacock won 2&1, followed by a convincing win for Rosemary Lockwood and Emma Anderson 4&3. Glenys Priestley and Vicki Forecast faced stiff opposition in their match, losing 4&3, so the morning ended 2 points to Notts and 1 to Leics.

Some excellent golf was played in the afternoon singles with very determined play by the Notts team. Vicki Forecast won her match 4&3 and Glenys Priestley put in a great performance to recover from a slow start to win 3&2 against a very experienced opponent. Our youngest player, Jacey Peacock, in only her second match for the team, played some wonderful golf to win her match 6&5. The other three matches were very close, finishing on the seventeenth and eighteenth holes and the end result was 3 points to Notts and 3 to Leics for the singles.

The final score was a very well deserved win for Nottinghamshire, winning the day 5 - 4.

Congratulations to all the team for a very solid performance. We now approach our final match at Stanton on Monday 18th July against Lincolnshire, hoping for a result to take us through to the Finals in August.

Helen Maber
Vice Captain

County Captain's Day Am-Am 2016

On Monday 25th July my County Captain's Day AM-AM was held at Notts Golf Club. It was a lovely day, any grey clouds were blown away and a field of 160 played on a beautiful course. A huge thank you to Notts and their members for giving us the courtesy of the course which has enabled us, along with your support, to really boost our County funds.

We had a total of 40 teams with 16 clubs represented. The rough was testing but despite it there was some excellent golf including two holes in one achieved by Louise Wilding on the 9th and Carol Wild on the 13th.
Many congratulations to them both and also to the winners, Anne Whitchurch, Captain of Notts Ladies and her team, Heather Blunt also Notts Ladies and Barbara Upton and Jean Bingham both from Mickleover, who came in with a terrific 83 points. In second place was the team of Pauline Tillcock, Sharon Coyne, Jo Hopkins and Carol Wild, all Notts Ladies, with 80 points. They were closely followed by three teams on 79, so on count back the Notts Ladies team of Jane Fowler, Colette Newton, Fran Tunnicliffe and Ann Harris came in third, followed by the Coxmoor team of Louise Wilding, Lynn Harris, Judy Hill and Lou Beaumont in fourth place. Closest to the pin on the 5th was Emma Anderson.

Thank you for your kind donations and incredible support of the raffle. I'm delighted to say that we raised over £500 on the raffle alone. A special thank you to all my willing band of helpers, both on and off the course and for the generous sponsorship of our President, Mrs Joan Underwood, Colin Maber and Sandy Loch, of all the par three holes. Thank you to all who played and helped to make this big day so successful.

Pam Loch
NCLGA County Captain 2016

Summer & Veterans Meeting 2016

The County Summer Meeting and Veteran's Medal were held at Stanton Golf Club on Monday 11th July. Thank you to over 60 competitors who played on what we could hardly call a "Summer's" day, play being hampered by frequent heavy showers. The course played long but was in excellent condition with fast, challenging greens and consequently the CSS score for the day increased by 3 to 76.
There were some excellent scores and congratulations to all the winners who are listed below.

A raffle was held on the day and £160 was raised for Pancreatic Cancer Research. Thank you for your generous contributions and donations.

A special note of thanks must be recorded to Stanton Golf Club for the use of their course and for their kindness and hospitality on what turned out to be a testing day all round. I'm sure Stanton would join with me in apologising for the lack of water on the day due to a burst water main nearby.

Pam Loch
County Captain 2016

Read more: Summer & Vets Meeting 2016

MNR Queen of Clubs 2016

Many congratulations to Lauren Spray, of Notts Ladies, who won the Midland North Region Queen of Clubs competition which was held at Worfield Golf Club, Shropshire on Thursday 21st July.

Well done also to Emma Howie who had the third best gross score of the day.

2nd Team Away Match v Lincolnshire 2016

Our match against Lincolnshire took place on 5th July at Canwick Park and we were relieved to have a dry and sunny day for our first away competition.