It has already been a busy start to the season with regards to junior golf development here at RND. So I thought I would take this chance to fill everyone in on all the things we have been doing to grow the game in the local area so far in 2019. Our aim as one of the top clubs in the area is to do our bit in any way we can to ensure that the next generation are getting the chance to give golf a try and hopefully take up the game more seriously in the future. I am lucky enough to have been involv...

The Ladies are delighted to have been able to donate the funds for this new air cleaner. The money came from the excess raised for our 150th celebrations last year. Since then we have been looking for a suitable item we could buy for use by the whole club and we hope this air cleaner will be a huge benefit to us all. Many thanks to all involved in the fundraising effort.

It was a lot tougher than most expected but RND's "old men" are through to the second round of Devon Veterans' Emmerton Court Trophy. After winning their away leg 4 and a half to a half at Torrington two weeks earlier they were given a rare battle in the return before getting home 3 and a half to one and half. Captain Simon Hopkins spent most of the afternoon gibbering nervously about the wisdom of his selections before everything came right in the end. First pair out Clifford Brown and Phil Hal...

The Club have been working really hard with our Mens teams with practice evenings and training throughout the winter and hopefully this will come to fruition in the next few weeks as the first round of The Rosebowl (for which we are the current holders) and The Palairet Memorial Trophy (which we last won in 1957 but we were runners up in 1978!!). The Rosebowl is up first and is this Sunday 19th May with first tee 0930 at Portmore againt Torrington Golf Club. The Palairet 2nd round is then at Cre...

Friday marked the first match of the year for the Ladies Presidents Trophy team.This is a singles match play competition for ladies of handicap 20 and below. The match was against Ilfracombe and first out was Liz Blight v Jean Wills. Jean loves playing at  RND, always plays well and won the match. Next up was Jeans daughter Jo. There was another fight but as an up and coming new player she won the day v Rosemary. Denise our Captain won 6/4, while Sahara beat Steph Long who plays off 18 on t...

The Still Cup, which is the Ladies singles scratch matchplay, started their season yesterday. We had a depleted team at Saunton missing Paula, Liz M and Gro. The weather was very windy and as they started teeing off it started to rain heavily. Liz Bird [5] lead the way playing in her debut for the Still Cup, her opponent was Abi Moyes. Liz managed a 1/2 but the rest of the team Liz Blight, Sue Ackland, Heather Gale, Rosemary Ferguson, Denise Hood and Val Cook were less fortunate. The match finis...

After an excellent 7/3 victory against Bigbury in The Emerton Court preliminaries our Vets team played Torrington away in the first half of the first round. This is played Home and Away and the total counted after both matches. The weather was awful but the team prevailed with a winning margin of 4.5 - 0.5 the individual results were as follows: Hood and Sykes getting the half. Fisher and Brown winning on the last Horne and Stubbs winning comfortably White and Fenton 2&1 Miller and Wickham w...

It was a difficult call to decide who should go out first when we arrived at Saunton on 4th May. First out was Liz McKay with Liz giving one shot playing Barbara Beer, this ended on the 13th with Liz winning 6 and 5. Next up was Denise Hood no shots given in this game Denise lost on the 18th. Sahara was storming going out in 45 she was playing Anne Wallace and won 6 and 4. Paula Gibbs was giving 8 shots to an in form Helen Letherbridge, Paula was 1up on the 18th tee. Third shot to the green Hele...

Round 1 of the Parker Trophy saw RND face Tiverton at Tavistock on Sunday 5th May. A sunny yet breezy day saw us face a young, talented Tiverton side, who brought caddies and spectators along with their players in the club minibus. Pair 1 of Ollie Tanton and Dave Ashley struggled early on, with Ollie the first to admit he had a rare off day with his ball striking. The quality of our two county players shone through though, and going into the 18th with a 1 hole advantage, Ollie hit a good drive a...

The Vets played Bigbury on Friday in the first round and first leg away at Bigbury. They came away with a two and a half each halved match with wins for Gary Fisher/Cliff Brown on debut. Also Tony Allin with Richard Stubbs recorded a win after making a special effort to play as he was a reserve and replaced David Miller who was unable to play due to flu. Andy Hood and Geoff Sykes got a half

The ladies league matches got off to a successful start with the Devon league team beating Thurlestone Golf Club at RND on 1st April. The team was made up of Trish Jordan, Pauline Marais, Anna Wright, Denise Evans, Val Cook, Alex Guy, Tania Wickham and Victoria Wheatley. RND won 5-2 with Pauline and Anna narrowly losing on the 17th and 18th holes respectively! A great result and hoping for an equally successful result against Axe Cliff Golf Club at their course on 12th April. The ladies North De...

The Winter Foursomes Trophy has been decided for the winter season 2018/19. Congratulations to Steve Morrish who managed a second place in the final event with Phil Hall to just pip Richard Hughes by just half a point who won the last one with Gary Fisher. It seems like Sundays throughout the last winter had the worst of the weather as the Series was supposed to be over 5 events with your best 3 to count and 3 times the event was cancelled due to bad weather. In the end we managed to play 4 time...

The crows finally seem to have stopped pecking at the greens and surrounds. The grubs they seek have migrated deeper into the soil and out of reach. We will continue to search for remedies in order to try and prevent a re-occurrence next winter. We have managed to patch and repair the majority of the damage caused to these areas, it is now just a matter of dressing/levelling and growing the patches in. The greens (not attacked by crows) have made it through the winter in good order, but like the...

Firstly, Happy New year to you all from the greenkeeping team. The winter is proving very difficult for us.  The mild weather that we have seen for the most part   brings high disease pressure to the greens.  Although the greens have coped well without any significant scarring there has been some discolouration and weakening to the affected greens, this should grow out as we move into the spring.  You will have no doubt seen the extensive damage that we have been sufferi...

The Men’s Dinner speaker for 2019 will be Jeremy Robinson European Tour player and Director of Blackstar Golf. Jeremy had a successful Amateur career with wins at: 1982 Peter McEvoy Trophy 1985 Lincolnshire Amateur Championship 1987 Brabazon Trophy, Lagonda Trophy, Berkshire Trophy, Scrutton Jug. Jeremy represented GB in the Walker Cup in 1987 winning two and halving two matches. He turned Professional in 1988 were he won Five times on the Challenge tour.Jeremy played in the Open Championships o...

Sunday the 6th January saw the annual Officers Installation Ceremony after The Lowis Cup Greensomes. Mrs Heather Gale who was President for 2018 handed the Presidents Medal over to Dr Dick Ford to start his year in office. Ethan Jeffrey was made Junior Captain, Tania Wickham the Ladies Captain and Simon Hopkins the Veterans Captain. The Golf winners were presented with their prizes: 1st Alastair Ashworth & Keith Hutchins - 43 2nd Julian Goddard & Ethan Jeffery - 42 3rd Martin Butler &...

The 65 good men who attended the annual Christmas gathering enjoyed some good food good company a little libation with some light entertainment all combining to make a very pleasant social occasion. In the absence of the Captain recovering from painful dental surgery involving inserting stitches in his mouth which frankly did not evoke the sympathy it merited coupled with the fact that the Vice Captain had fled the country meant that Andy Hood next years Vice Captain was called upon to present t...

Sunday evening was the presentation for The Whisky Foursomes events which are held on the 9th and 16th December. There are also presentations to winners of the last three monthly medals, Perpetual Trophies for the years golf and plenty of other hard fought Trophies for individual, Foursomes and team golf. Congratulations to all the winners and a massive well done to Royston and the hard working kitchen and bar staff who appeared to feed hundreds of members with fantastic Christmas dinners! Here ...

The greens are now at the winter cutting height of 5mm and I’m happy that they are still performing very well as we head into December.  They have a good dense coverage which should help them see out the winter months.  The greens were deep tined to a depth of around 11inches, which allows some much needed air into the soil profile and helps reduce the compaction caused by machinery and golfers. They have already recovered well from this procedure with minimal affect to how the ball ro...

  Event two of the Winter Foursomes Series took place on Sunday 2nd December on a blustery but thankfully dry day. The scoring was excellent with most pairs taking advantage of the scoring opportunities presented down wind, with today's event being played off the Red tees.  With an excellent score of 42 points the winning pair were Chris Drew and Martin Gibbs. 40 points meant Mark Luscombe and Steve Morrish took 2nd, with Martin Butler and Shaun Loze taking the third and final prize on...