The opening of the 2024 Order of Merit got underway with the first major at Druids Heath Golf Club in Walsall Birmingham. A strong field of 42 CGS members took to the fairways hoping to lift the Fix-Up Cup. In spite of all the recent rain the event experienced dryer conditions during a calm spell, with the weather looking to improve. It seems the calmer conditions was short lived, at the time of writing this report the rain and wind has been back again in full effect, lets hope things will stabilise for events to come.

The Druids Heath course wasn’t in too bad a condition, the greens were treated the week before and looked slow but with all the slopes and borrows they were running quick and were very tricky to read. Its a tree lined course, so accuracy off the tee was paramount otherwise a chip out would be required to reduce the damage.

The Fix-UP event was booked many months ago and was locked in with deposits and nearer the date all subs were collected and paid totalling over £2000. In these difficult times where many clubs are struggling financially such a large sum on a Sunday would be welcomed by most and when you break it down at the end of the day its two grand for 42 people to use your course, its not like we are using up any resources as we bring our own equipment and aren’t costing the club anything apart from playing on their turf. Anyway, having booked the event months ago it seems that the Club still managed to mess up the booking and booked members at a time which we had reserved months prior. So rather than just hold their hands up and say to members you’ll have to tee off after the society, no, they changed our tee time putting us back by almost an hour and not only that they mixed club members in amongst our group just so their members got their booked tee time. In all the times I’ve played society golf I’ve never seen this before where they’ve put people out in amongst the society group. The worst part was we had people who’d travelled from Manchester and Bristol to play. It was terrible and very disrespectful and down right outrageous, it just makes you think!

In spite of the treatment we received at the start of the day, we still had some golf to play so we just got on with it.

The Fix-Up Cup has been around now for many years. In the early days of the CGS before we had trophies for all our events we simply gave prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd etc., so one of our members Neville Rhoden decided to purchase a trophy for us to play for, the trophy was named after Neville handy-man business called Fix-UP and so the Fix-Up Cup was born and has been the first major of the season ever since.

Its been a difficult winter and unless you’re lucky enough to be a member of a course with sand-based fairways not much golf as been played during those winter months. Even some courses who would normally be open all year round have had to close on occasion due to the relentless amount of rain we’ve experienced the past few months. The lack of play would no doubt have an affect on some peoples golf game and it showed at Druids Heath. Some of the names you would normally see around the top of the leader-board were absent. Maybe as the season goes on we’ll start to see those names move up. On this occasion they weren’t in the running so the on-course nearest the pin prizes would be the order of the day and at Druids Heath we had four of them with the longest drive having been cancelled and replaced with another nearest the pin prize. Those prizes went to Vassel Brown for nearest in one on the 11th, Carlton Donalds for nearest in one on the 14th and nearest in three on the 13th with George Branch claiming nearest in two on the 18th.

In golf and in sport generally the say practice makes permanent, and this was evident for George Branch. George’s golf game has been on the ascendancy for the last three years, his name is always there and there about s, on previous occasions he’s won his division in the Order of Merit and seems to be in and amongst the prizes at most events. Having been a division one basketball player for many years he’s transferred that competitive energy into golf and its starting to pay dividends. With not only winning nearest the pin in two on the 18th he also sealed victory at Druids Heath and claimed the first major of the season picking up the Fix-Up Cup with a 36 point score, pipping new member Martin Braham on count-back, with Roan McLeod in 3rd on 33 points claiming that spot on count-back from Al Beckford.

Apart from the fiasco with our tee-time, the day went well and was well supported by members. The committee have once again delivered a quality event and with new members joining all the time they must be doing something right.

The next event will be held at the The Welcome Golf Club in Warwickshire were members will be playing for the Caricom Cup.

Congratulations to George Branch and all the winners at Druids Heath.