February 15th, 2024

It was another rain affected week at Pannal with weekend golf seeing a full course closure. However, on Tuesday 6th the ladies did complete a 13-hole Stableford competition which also included the rescheduled Round One of the Ladies Winter Trophy. Poor weather on the day restricted the Trophy field to just four Ladies. The winner was Hilary Ingram with 22 points, runner up Amanda Dunn with 20 points with Vicky Eyre third on 16 points.

On Friday 9th the Main lounge was full to welcome former Ryder cup player, Sky TV golf commentator and proud Yorkshiremen Howard Clark to the club. Well over 100 members and their guests enjoyed an excellent two course supper and fund-raising activities on behalf of the Captains’ Charity St Michael’s Hospice. After a very quick round of “heads and tails” bingo there was enthusiastic bidding for various auction items including four ball vouchers for top Yorkshire courses and a signed Leeds United shirt. Coupled with a separate silent auction over £2000 was raised on the night for the Hospice.

After that Kevin Lynch, former top level football referee and after dinner speaker, who is also a Club member, chaired a question-and-answer session with Howard who entertained us with a detailed expose of his golf and broadcasting career. In some 26 years on the Tour Howard played in over 500 PGA Tour events with a 70%+ success rate in making the cut. He made 6 Ryder Cup appearances and reminisced about his famous hole-in-one at the 11th at Oak Hill in the 1995 event. He also spoke about the various Ryder cup captains he played under, singling out Tony Jacklin for the way he transformed the prestige of the team and galvanised the players into a winning team.

After the formalities were over, many members took the opportunity to chat informally to Howard and share his teenage memories of seeing his first professional tournament at Pannal which cemented his ambition to become a professional golfer.