Ladies' Letters: Your right to reply
This page is your chance to tell us what’s on your mind. So whether you feel the need to mount your soap box and vent your fury or tell us about a great golfing experience, this is your opportunity.
And it could easily be worth your while – the Star Letter each month wins a Cobra S3 Max women’s offset fairway wood.
The wood is available in a choice of 3 (18˚), 5 (21˚), 7 (24˚) and 9 (27˚) models with a ladies’ Fujikura Blur shaft. Right hand only. Please state preferred loft when email us. For more on Cobra products visit www.cobragolf.co.uk
How to contact us Send your letters to email: [email protected]
What you’ve been saying… May’s Star Letters
Club membership matters!
Dear LG,
WHEN I took early retirement three years ago I wanted to join a club, get my handicap and play with a ladies’ section. It took me some time to pluck up the courage but from the moment I joined I knew I had done the right thing. Within a year I was playing in competitions and even privileged enough to represent my club in matches.
When I took ill in October I was devastated not to be able to play. The ladies at my club (Meole Brace, Shrewsbury) have just been fantastic. They are inspirational in every way – friendly, supportive, encouraging and just amazing to be around.
They have taken time out to keep in touch with me. From home visits to texts, emails and regular phone calls they have kept in touch throughout. They have been the tonic I needed to keep motivated and in good spirits. If anyone is ever in doubt about joining a club, I say do it.
It is the best thing I ever did and I can now look forward to playing again soon.
Denise Crittenden, via email
A round dozen
Dear LG,
I THINK it would be great idea for the game at club level to be played over 12 holes, for these reasons.
We would attract more members as a round of golf could be completed in two hours and not the three to four hours as is the case now. I say this to encourage those missing thousands of possible members in the 25 to 45-year-old bracket who find the time currently spent playing a round of golf is not conducive to the modern family.
There is also the fact that 12-hole courses would be easier and cheaper to construct and maintain.
It is something that none other than Jack Nicklaus has talked about a lot in recent years but you rarely hear anyone else discussing it.
D McDonald, Essex
The signs are there
Dear LG,
I HAVE suspected for some time that my wife has been cheating on me. There are the usual signs, the phone rings but if I answer the caller hangs up. My wife has been going out with ‘the girls’ a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says ‘just some friends from work, you don’t know them.’
So I decided to check on her. I decided to hide in the garage behind my golf clubs so I could get a good view of the whole street when she arrived home from a night out with ‘the girls’. It was at that moment, crouching behind my clubs, that I noticed that the graphite shaft on my driver appeared to have a hairline crack right by the clubhead.
Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it back to the shop where I bought it?
Jim Windridge-France, via email
Slow play not the issue
Dear LG,
THE slow play discussion continues – everyone has an opinion and remedy but the problem seems no closer to resolution.
Slow play is, of itself, not a problem. If a group of golfers want to spend five hours of their time enjoying 18 holes where is the problem in that? However, when the conduct of such a group of players effects the enjoyment and safety of other players then there is a problem. Then the problem is one of behaviour and it is plainly inconsiderate, discourteous and disrespectful – in short it is simply bad manners.
So what is the remedy? It is very hard to change someone’s manners but perhaps we golfers are too polite to say to a fellow golfer ‘Your behaviour was that of a selfish, inconsiderate bigot’. We feel more comfortable with a passing ‘A bit slow out there today’ or simply a mutter into our post-round tipple.
J Crawshaw, via email
I think it would be great idea for the game at club level to be played over 12 holes
One times two
Dear LG,
CHALGRAVE Manor president John Gibson, 75, achieved his second ever hole-in-one at the par03 10th in December, getting a 1 – nett zero – for 5 Stableford points in the Friday roll-up!
He next played on Sunday, in the medal, arrived at the 10th tee and watched his ball land about two feet short, roll across the green and drop in the hole for a second successive ace!
Again he recorded a one nett zero! So that is 10 Stableford points scored and with no shots recorded. Beat that!
S Rumball, Chalgrave Manor GC
Moment of ‘glory’
Dear LG,
I KNOW it is important to look back on your life events and cherish your favourite moments but…
It may sound bad but I love thinking back to my honeymoon in the Maldives – not just because it was my honeymoon but also because I got a hole-in-one.
Is it bad that I remember more detail about that one swing of a club – which made me shout so loud they heard me in the clubhouse – than anything else which happened on the honeymoon? Oh yeah, what makes it extra special they put my name on the wall in the clubhouse. What a moment. Does anyone else have a similar story to tell or am I just a bad husband?
Matthew Lawson, via email
Editor’s note: Yes it is bad, Michael, and I can only hope that your wife is not reading…
Hats off to Biddy
Dear LG,
CROWN Golf has recently awarded 95-year-old Biddy Benson an Honorary Life Membership to Cams Hall Estate GC in Hampshire in recognition of her many years of playing golf.
Biddy, a founder member, was surprised but absolutely delighted when she was presented the award, by the lady captain Pam Guymer at the AGM.
Biddy, who currently plays off 27 but previously has been as low as 7, says she was recently considering retiring but now she will play on for a few more years, but only if it’s warm!
Interestingly, when Biddy was 92 she realised a lifetime ambition; she played a competitive round in fewer shots than her age, she shot a gross 91. Not many people can claim to have achieved that!
Jane Walsh, Cams Hall GC
