Delay fails to deflate ladies at Lurgan

The winner with 39 points was Grizel Turkington. Grizel’s form has been steadily improving in the last few weeks and two weeks ago she was just pipped for a section prize, but everyone was delighted she went one better this week and won the Captain’s Prize especially as she was first out in the morning in the worst of the weather.

The runner up spot went to Sian Mulholland with 37 pts. Sian has had a frustrating season with some flashes of brilliance mixed in with some golf that wouldn’t just please her, but on Tuesday she had a great round featuring two birdies on the 5th and the 8th and held on well to produce her winning score.

The gross prize went to new course record holder, Niamh Ward with 33 pts. Section one went to vice-captain Fiona Cummins with 36 pts and Fiona just pushed Nuala Beatty into section one’s runner up spot on the count back with Diana McClelland, who had the other 36 pts in this section, collecting the past captain’s prize.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed in the last few weeks that Claire White has been having a run of good golf and that continued on the big day and resulted in her winning the section two prize with 36 pts.

Runner up in section two was Julie Jordan with 35 pts. The section three winner was Deirdre McGlone with 36 pts. Deirdre had a slow start to her round but whatever refreshments she enjoyed at the ninth picked her up and a tidy back nine saw her into the winners circle. Runner up in section three was Mildred Martin with 34 pts just beating Lily Woods on the better back nine.

The students prize went to Eadaoin Ward with 33 pts and the two nines went to Eithne McAtavey and Fiona McGrady. It wouldn’t be Captain’s Day if Joy Stevenson didn’t feature in the prizes and this year she was successful in winning the committee prize. Closest to the pin at the 17th was Elaine Bell and closest to the captain’s drive was Eleanor Turnbull. The final prize went to the 9 hole winner Joan Bruce.

This year the Lady Captain introduced a sweep for the ladies to pick the winner with half the money raised going to charity and the other half going to the winning ticket holder. This sweep proved very successful and no-one cheered louder than Eileen McCann when Grizel was announced as the winner as Eileen had drawn Grizel in the sweep.

In her winning speech Grizel, on behalf of all the ladies, thanked Lady Captain Pam Graham for her array of prizes. All the ladies received goodie bags from Pam and refreshments at the ninth and they were all appreciated.

Lady Captain’s Day started with a huge disappointment for everyone with horrendous weather on Saturday morning but in hindsight spurred on by Pam’s energy and enthusiasm the ladies turned it into an excuse to have two celebrations instead of one with a great day and night on Saturday and on Tuesday making it a Captain’s Day that will always be fondly remembered, so a huge vote of thanks to Pam for all her work and well done to all the winners but especially to Grizel Turkington the 2014 Captain’s Prize winner.