Page 135 - Mind, Body and Spirit 2016/17

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This last year has been another success story for RAPTC golf, our numbers continue to grow, the players continue to improve and after 13 years we now have some silver to boast about.
The rst competitive match of the year took place at Merrist Wood. Eight serving and eight retired RAPTCI’s formed up to take on the AGC in what was a well fought battle. Both teams displayed their gol ng skills yet there would be no overall winning team on the day and the game was drawn at 2 1⁄2 - 2 1⁄2 points a peace.
The RAPTC Festival of Golf (FoG) took place in May at the Carden Park Country Estate near Chester. This event brought together over 30 RAPTCI’s from both past and present. The event is all about maintaining strong links between our serving and retired RAPTCI’s by enjoying some golf with good company followed by food and a few drinks at the bar. As with previous years the event was a great success and enjoyed by all. We now look forward to the next FoG set for May 2017 to be held at Donnington Valley Golf club.
In July the RAPTC Golf team entered the annual Inter Corps Championships at Saunton Golf Club, Devon. In the rst round we met the No1 seeds, the Royal Signals. Despite the team’s best efforts the Signals were just too strong and they took the victory. Not overcome by this slight set back the team re-set themselves to face the AAC in the rst round of the plate competition in which the team convincingly won 4-1. Next up was the Intelligence Corps, now growing with con dence and starting to get a better feel for the conditions of Saunton golf course the team pushed on forcing the win over the Intelligence Corps with a 3-2 victory.
Into the nal and now feeling the pressure the team quickly settled into the nal battle with the RE and took the win 3 1⁄2 - 1 1⁄2. After a 13 year wait, the team nally got their hands on some silverware.
Come August it was time for another trip away, 10 lucky RAPTCI’s from past and present visited Le Touquet La Mer in France for 3 days of golf in the sun shine. All in all a nice little golf break aboard for all those who attended and more great memories made on the golf course, it’s a hard life this golf lark.
As the season came to a close the RAPTC Annual Association Championships were held at Pine Ridge Golf Club near Deepcut. It was yet another great turn out for RAPTC golf and as always some great golf was on display with both our serving and association players scoring well (despite the weather), yet it was the association who handled the weather the best and were the overall winning party.
On an individual setting, the top serving players on the day were SSgt Stu Hawkins who won the Scratch Championship and SSgt Al Murray winning the Handicap Championship.
As for the Association, a ne performance from Gordon Ashworth saw him win the Scratch Championship and the Association Handicap Championship was won with a great performance from Gary Easter.
Moving forward, RAPTC golf is consistently growing, we have xtures set up for the New Year and also the FoG and an overseas tour to look forward to. We encourage all to come along and join us at one of our events.
RAPTC GOLF
SSgt (SSI) C Watson RAPTC
Festival of Golf WO2 Ian Lester at Merrist Wood RAPTC Inter Corps Plate Winners
SSgt Stu Hawkins – showing us how it’s done in France SSgt Al Murray – Serving The Regimental Secretary and his fancy golf ball Handicap Champion