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1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery
Golf Capt E Philip RHA
Golf is one of those sports that can be difficult to get people interested in unless they have always wanted to give it a go. You can’t just turn up and play like most sports. It
requires equipment that can be very expensive and an even more expensive membership at a golf club if you want to play regularly. When I arrived at the Regiment over 4 years ago, there were no more than 2 or 3 golfers. After a few away trips to Celtic Manor Golf Resort, the figures still didn’t improve. I found myself being the lone golfer in the Regiment entering the competitions. Most of these are individual events but the Holloway Trophy is a team competition run between all the Gunner Regiments. It requires a team of 5 to enter and is played in a match play format. To this day, we still have not had any success in entering a team.
As President of regimental golf, it can be difficult to get people involved. Fortunately, we now have Bdr Crown on board and he is working hard amongst the younger members of the Regiment to reinvigorate golf within 1 RHA while I try and persuade some
of the budding officers to join in. We now have a healthy pool of golfers within the Regiment with Bdr Crown organising a regi- mental golf day at Hampshire Golf Club recently and I now have high hopes for us entering a team into the Holloway Trophy next year.
So far this year there have been 3 events entered by Captain Rupert Gregory, Captain Paul West, Bdr Crown and myself. In April, the RA champs were held at Belton Park Golf Club in Grantham while the Spring Champs and South West Individual Champs were both held at Tidworth Garrison Golf Club. All with a mix of results but certainly not ones to be ashamed of.
The Regiment holds 2 sets of clubs so that anyone can have a go before committing to buying equipment. Many of us play more than one sport so there’s no reason why golf can’t be one of them. It is a game for all abilities and ages and a great way of getting outdoors and meeting people from other batteries or regiments.
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