Your Captain 2015
You may not associate me with putting pen to paper or public speaking but I have been told that, as from last Thursday's AGM, it is part of my role as your Captain. Since Thursday I have had time to reflect and dwell on the daunting task I have let myself in for but , I am comforted by the support I have already received during my year as Vice-Captain and my seven days in the top job.
First and most importantly I thank you all for your confidence and generosity in electing me Captain and thereby giving me the opportunity to put something back into the club that has been such a big part of my life over the past 38 years. Also, I must congratulate my predecessor for his outstanding year in office and for his support and insight into the role of Captain. It was a privilege to have had a ringside view and, Dave, "Thank you for giving me such a hard act to follow". Likewise, I congratulate our past President, John Carr, and the rest of the management team for steering the club through yet another successful year.
My aim is to build on the successes of recent years and to assist in this task I am pleased to welcome my longstanding friend, Lincoln Boulton, to the President's Chair, the vastly experienced Andrew Baxter as Vice-Captain and Jayne Baxter as Lady Captain. It goes without saying, that there will be a heavy reliance on the Management Team and I look forward to the support of those who work tirelessly behind scenes for the benefit of us all. I welcome the new members of the team, Mike Andrews, David Smith and Joe Smith and applaud the contributions of the retiring members Tony Brindley, Barry Hughes, Peter Mottram and the irrepressible HDB Robinson for their past contributions
There is no doubt that we have a fantastic and continually improving golf course and I can confirm that your management team is committed to exploring affordable ways of improving our membership package and club facilities. In 2015 you will see the results of the course winter programme and the new state of the art teaching facility (and boy do I need that!).
I have always been a keen supporter of social events and with the support of the Lady Captain I hope to develop this side of our club facilities together with general clubhouse improvements.
I will endeavour to keep you informed through this newsletter but till the next time I would remind you of the following events (please contact Jen for details and bookings):
i. 13th December - This Saturday's Christmas Disco & Live Duo Event
ii. 31st December - New Year's Eve Dinner/Dance
iii. 1st January - 12.00 noon Captain's Drive-In (Alternatively, Watch the Captain Duff His Tee Shot off the First) - followed by nibbles and perhaps a glass of wine.
I can't guarantee the exuberant, polished style of my predecessor but I can promise a commitment to the future success of Leek Golf Club and a determination to uphold the standards associated with one of North Staffordshire's premier golf clubs.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all
Trevor Eccleston, Captain 2015
WORST JUMPER
Another couple of entries into the competition and one of my personal favourites - Alan Harrison thinks Christmas is coming and I'm not sure where Dave Toft managed to find this from.
DAFT HAT CORNER
As the cold weather is now upon us I have seen a lot of people wearing woolly hats, here are some of my favourites, not that I would ever wear them.
Clockwise from top:
John Isaacs (at least it hides his hair),
Mick Nadin (made me feel hungry),
Geoff Shaw (what was he thinking)
Alan Bonehill (looking very proud, he didn't know what the picture was for),
Neil Shenton (remembering the days)
Mike Andrews (as expected)
TRACKMAN
My Latest Trackman lesson was James Dean (20 Handicap) James came to me for a lesson and was struggling to hit his driver with any sort of consistency or distance.
We began the lesson with a warm up and then moved on to hitting drives and from the off I could see that his Driving was suffering because same as my previous lesson he was not transferring his weight and that resulted in James hitting down on his driver as you can see from his averages below:
Carry (yds) Total (yds) Attack Angle (deg)
183.9 210.4 -2.8
Once we discussed what was needed to do to improve James attack angle we started to see drastic improvements in distance as well as accuracy as you will see from the average figures below. We managed to increase James driver carry by a whopping 30 yards.
Carry (yds) Total (yds) Attack Angle (deg)
214.8 233.2 0.1
Reply: TrackMan Golf - HD Screencast
"Hi Greg. Thanks for the emails and the lesson was great. Trackman is brilliant. Is there any way you can up load the video of my best swing? Thanks. James Dean"
Reply: TrackMan Golf - HD Screencast
"Hi Greg. Loaded it all up on my laptop now. Managed to view all the videos. Absolutely great. Helped me a lot that last lesson. I'll get to grips with the transfer of my weight and then we'll have another lesson."
CLUB FITTING WITH TRACKMAN
Some of you may know that Trackman is also an excellent club fitting tool as it will show you figures that need to be improved to give optimum ball flight figures that will give you better results, these figure can be altered by changing club heads and shafts without changing your swing.
Dave Lowe (19 handicap) came for a club fitting as he is looking to treat himself in the New Year. Dave's current clubs are Mizuno JPX 800 Pro and they are 5 years old so he wanted to see whether a new set of more modern clubs could give him anything extra.
Here are the figures from his own club (6 iron)
Carry Total Club Path Attack Angle Club Speed Launch Angle
154.1 163.0 -0.3 -3.6 84.8 18.6
The next club we used was the New Mizuno MP-54 which Dave liked the look of and wanted to stick with the Mizuno brand as his previous clubs have been good to him. The figures for the MP-54 are below:
Carry Total Club Path Attack Angle Club Speed Launch Angle
156.3 169.8 -1.9 -7.4 85.8 19.1
After using the Mizuno we could see that it was giving Dave nothing extra so I recommended that he try the Titleist AP2 irons as they have a similar look and feel. Here are the results:
Carry Total Club Path Attack Angle Club Speed Launch Angle
165.5 177.1 -0.7 -2.7 86.5 19.3
As you can see from the figures by changing shaft and head options without the swing changing we increased Dave's 6 iron distance by over 10 yards without losing accuracy.
RESULTS
Pro's Sunday Comp - 7th December
1st Place- Rob Parkes, Chris Jones and Dave Barker- 95 Points
2nd Place-Terry Alcock, Karl Blundred and Dave Smith- 94 Points
3rd Place- Ken Ratcliffe, Tony Brindley and Bernard Matthews 82 Points
Pro's Winter League - 7th December
1st Place - Dave Robinson 40 Points (bk 9 - 20) - 5 Points
2nd Place - Dennis Vincent 40 Points (bk 9 - 17) - 4 Points
3rd Place - Lee Bowers 39 Points (bk 9 - 20) - 3 Points
4th Place - Andy Baxter 36 Points (bk 9 - 21) - 2 Points
5th Place - Pete Nixon 36 Points (bk 9 - 18) - 1 Points
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