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IGC CLOSING CUP 2008 |
Congratulations to Iain Gidman, Closing Cup Champion for 2008
Awake not too early for IGC's final outing of its 20th anniversary, the Limited Club Closing Cup at Hulencourt, I breathed a sigh of relief. Saturday had seen a severe frost and the secretary, our good "ami" Charles told me that it had been so cold with a biting wind the day before no-one playing had finished more than 9 holes.
Sunday was calm, dry, the temperature a little above freezing and the course in excellent condition.
The clubhouse was buzzing, the coffee was hot and piping and with the members exchanging views on which 4 clubs to select (a 4 iron and a driver being 2 clubs selected for example as the optional putter), all of the 29 competitors were optimistic of an interesting day.
At this time of the year, scoring in such conditions is not easy and no surprise therefore that most were already thinking of their aperitif and lunch well before the 18th hole.
33 sat down to lunch joined a litle later by Hon President Barry Stamps who had flown in to London in the morning from Thailand especially to be with us.
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Captain Paul Pickard started off the speeches with a fine resumé of IGC's year. A feature of Paul's captaincy this year has been his eloquency; Especaiily when being on the losing side of the interclub matches which as he pointed out was too often for comfort. The summary covered all of the major events that IGC has run this year, paid tribute to not only our sponsors for the extreme generosity but also to the members for the wonderful support that they have given these competitions through the year. Paul complimented the winners and paid especial tribute to the performances this year of club champion Per Aidemark who not only defended his championship this year but also won the Winter Cup and the RU21 championship. |
Paul also remembered a few of the off course highlights of the year and notably Michael St-Clair George's fine speech and poem at the championship dinner. I would like to add Paul's closing speech amongst those highlights! Paul finally signed off by admitting that the joys of raising a very young family had prevented him from devoting the time that he would have liked to the IGC captaincy and that he would be standing down as of the end of the day to spend more time with his family. Lester apologised on behalf of Fred who was down with a viral infection and not attending for probably the first time in the history of IGC's Closing Cup.
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Lester thanked Paul on behalf of the Board and the Committee for being a fine captain this year. He confirmed that vice-captain Iain Gidman would take over the captaincy until Opening Cup next year when the results of new elections will be announced. Lester added that Sybil had also asked to stand down as Ladie's Captain after another 2 years of sterling service on the committee and that as a result IGC would be asking for nominations for Captain, Vice-Captain and Ladies Captain in January with elections in March. Finally Lester was pleased to distribute the 2009 Spring Calendar and remarked that despite the ever increasing challenges of getting value for money for the IGC members, the club would still endeavour to provide competitions on a wide variety of courses throughout Belgium throughout 2009 and beyond. |
 3rd Men Cat 1 Per-Andreas Bjorgan |
 2nd Men Cat 1 Alain Ducarme |
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 2nd Men Cat 2 Bill Purdue |
 1st Men Cat 2 John Smillie |
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 3rd Ladies Margriet Van Heck |
 2nd Ladies Anne Morley |
 1st Ladies Suzanne Lenaerts |
 Runner-up Closing Cup Stuart Hurst |
Winner Closing Cup Iain "my first trophy with IGC" Gidman |
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 Winner of the FRED (Field's Recognition of Endeavour and Diligence): Iain "what another trophy?" Gidman |
 Winner of the RU21 Trophy and the Golfer of the Year award: Per Aidemark |
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