If you missed The Grove game I think you may have missed one of the highlights of our calendar year. The course was a joy to play because there were not too many hazards or water to negotiate. The greens were fantastic. Though the display outside the clubhouse showed the speed at 10.5, I think it played more like 12. Anytime you hit the green further than 20 feet away from the pin there was a very good chance that you would take more than 2 to get down. The ball just can't stop rolling. You need the hole to get in the way to stop it!

The conditions were superb. The tees were extremely flat- a very rare thing. In fact this is the first time I've come across tee grounds as level as that.

The weather was glorious. The club facilities were excellent as well. And the food was not bad either. Only problem was the manner it was served. The steaks & fish n chips came in big platters to be shared. Either we're a very hungry bunch of big eaters, or their portions were small. The last two groups that came in were in danger of going home hungry. But the very sporting caterers eventually did come up with more delicious grub. Well done.

Those that came early probably noticed that things were not running as smoothly as usual. That was because Vincent and Simon weren't there. So I hope you guys appreciate what they do for you every game without you noticing it. Our understudy did realise that he should have come an hour earlier to organise things. To be fair, he did take a wrong turning somewhere along the way. I think it's a good eye-opener for him. In future, I am sure if he has a game to organise he'll know not to party till 5.00am but 4.00am so that he can come an hour earlier.

Despite everything, Jon did well to keep his cool. Max JJ worked extremely hard to help smooth things over till Jon and Raju arrived. He also did the scores in Simon's absence. Thank you very much guys and everyone else for chipping in. You're a great bunch and a pleasure to play with.

Thanks also to Joyce & Eddie Lim for sponsoring the event. The package they negotiated for us were really special. To play there on a Saturday morning you'll be looking at £175pp. It's nice of them despite being very busy building their very successful chain of restaurants to come back every year to sponsor and play a game with us. Thanks again and may you two be even more successful in the future. Cheers! And er.. same again next year?

The results were surprisingly good despite the tough greens. Father O'Neil 38pts 3 rd , Elsa Tong 38pts 2 nd , and Roy Piper 40pts topped the guest prizes. And all of them off single figure handicaps !

Simon Chang won the division 2 with 33 pts and Rudy Cipres won the division 1 with 35pts. Overall 3 rd went to Richard Evans with 36pts. He now leads the Road to Woburn with 164pts with 5 games played. Eddie Lim won the overall 2 nd spot with 38pts but gave away his prizes. Champion of the day was Katriya Chua with 40pts. I think the daddy was prouder of her feat than her. All three were in the £5 pool, and they shared the £145 pot accordingly.

Richard Cook scored 33pts and now has 144 points from 4 games for the Road to Woburn. The contest is still wide open, and anything can still happen. Come join us at the next game at The Buckinghamshire on Sunday 29 th August. Lee's Travel is sponsoring this game. It used to be the MAS ticket game but the prize is now split between this game and the Road to Woburn prize, I think. I am sure Vincent will clarify this when he sends out his emails.

By the way, if there was a best dressed prize that day, I think Margaret would have been in contention in her tight fitting all white, extremely short Michelle Wie dress (I'm told- I wouldn't know as I don't watch golf on the telly). I first thought it was more Centre Court attire than golf, but then what do I know!!

There's a long gap between now and the next game. If anybody wants to organise any friendly 4- or 8-ball in between, and would like to involve me, email me.

If not, see you at The Buckinghamshire, hopefully, family holidays permitting.

Bok
Captain

PS. If you ever go back there next year, don't drink the coke. At £4.50 a pint you can get 4litres at Tescos!

What a contrast from one game to another. After Stockley Park anywhere would have been better, but Silvermere is more than better. For a public course it is really good, especially the greens. This represents good value for money. I think it's worth a return sometime in the not too distant future.

The weather was superb. Strange as it may sound coming from me, I think it was a bit too hot. As a group of us were going for a smelly curry after the game I didn't bother bringing anything to change after the game. But it was so hot that the sight of the shower and towels made up my mind for me, even though I had to change back into my dirty clothes. On my way out of the shower I met TK Wong going in. I mentioned that the water might be a bit too cold for his old ticker as there was no hot water. After a whimper or two, a little while later he emerged smiling and said that if I had turned the lever correctly I would have had hot water! There you go- never underestimate an older person for he is usually wiser… some of the time.

By the way if you had missed the curry, it was nothing special. One or two of the dishes were still very good but the rest were not what they used to be. The gathering was good but it did drag on a bit in the end – everyone was struggling to finish the food. The entertainment was crap. Avtar, you're not the ‘singer' you used to be. The minute the bill was settled everyone sort of flew off in the direction of their home except for a couple of diehards who were on their third or fourth bottle of whiskey!

Surprisingly, for a tight course like Silvermere, the results were pretty good. Jonathan, with 37 points, would have won the overall title here 9 times out of 10. However, this time there were 3 better scores than his, and he only managed to win the division one prize. The division two prize went to Jasper who has re-emerged after a long spell of absence.

Chen Soo played very well for the first time since he joined MGS but was unlucky to lose to me on count back for overall second place. I had an extremely lucky day.

Margaret played out of her knickers! She must have screamed her ball into all the 17 holes she completed. 41 points is a great score here by any standards. Well done Margaret!

Well done to all the other prize winners, including Frank, the longest of the long that day. Also amongst the winners is that TK Wong again- third in division one. What did I say about never underestimating the older player. This guy must be the oldest in our society by a distant mile, and yet he keeps popping up amongst the prize winners on a fairly regular basis. I can only wish I can be half as good when I am nearly his age.

There were quite a few matchplays that day. Among the notable winners is that TK Wong again. He beat Heidi in a close fought contest. Please check out our website for the rest of the results.

On the Road to Woburn table, Richard Evans leads with 128 points(4games), followed by Julia Chew 124 points(4games), and Chen Soo third with 121 points(4games). This is still early days and only your best 7 scores count. Of those who have played only 3 games to date, Richard Cook leads with 111 points, Margaret is second with 106 points, and I third with 104 points. If you look at it from an average score basis, Richard is the true leader with an average of 37 points but to take full advantage of the scoring system he needs to play the minimum 7 games. So come on you guys. The contest is still wide open.

Thanks very much to Dick for so generously sponsoring the day. He has been with MGS for a very long time and MGS is blessed to have a member like him. He is extremely sporting, and participates for the pleasure of participating & our company. I and all at MGS wish you a very happy retirement.

Thanks also to Simon and Vincent for organising everything. It is because of their capabilities and experience that everything runs so smoothly on the day- something that we've come to take for granted. Thanks guys.

See you at the Grove next time.

Bok Yeoh
Captain

I guess if you have to get a Society Day Disaster both in the weather and the golf course then the this was the Day!!! The course was a minefield at first sight and when the heavens opened all it did was speed up slow play. Many apologies to the 38 players that turned up for 18 holes and the two that walked off after 9 holes because they forgot their rain gear but congratulations to the winners namely overall winner PC Foong and overall second Raj Desaur who are the higher handicappers at MGS and who I am sure you will have noticed at MGS but have not visited the overall winners rostrum before.
They have both had serious illnesses and we will be doing a drug testing on them soon!
There were matchplays being played and I got hammered by Max JJ Lim who easily beat me 4 &3 with his injured knee and twice chipping in for birdies. You better believe in the Injured golfer if you have not before!! Good luck to him and the rest who won that day!

Full results and photographs on our MGS website kindly update by Max.
Bok Yeoh, our Captain has donated £50 towards his Cleft Lip Charity and at the Stockley Park game we collected £270 in total. I will still be collecting £5 each from those that did not turn up!!! We ended the day with a fish and chips meal and the prize giving by Ronald Lim who dished out KIASU and Kam Tong vouchers to the winners. Margaret Wong who wanted an early tee time to get back to work was still there after the prize giving and those that stayed back enjoyed her company thoroughly! I hope the customers were not waiting to get served in her restaurant!

Our next game at Silvermere on June 26 is kindly sponsored by Dick Lawrence who kindly wants to spend some of his golden handshake on MGS and as I write a good turnout of more than 44 are expected.

Lets hope for a drier day and a nice course to play this time otherwise I think Jonathan will have to take over the reins earlier than he envisaged.

Keep practicing and play well!

Vincent
Secretary

I was reading my last news and realised that I omitted an important bit at The Oxfordshire event as I was rushing to complete the newsletter before travelling to The Masters.
A presentation of a caricature photo of me (see MGS website) was made by Max JJ Lim at The Oxfordshire to commemorate my tenure as Captain of MGS from 2006 to 2009. I was pleasantly surprised and the photo is now hanging in my office.
I like to thank you all for this nice gesture and it was indeed a good fun 4 years and as I have said many times before, my job was made so much easier with the strong support of the committee members who are really the force behind the organising.
Finally just to prove that I was at The Masters, I attach a photo taken outside the Club House together with one with Fanny Sunneson on the flight back to London.
See you guys at Silvermere.

Peter Chew
MGS VP

It's nice to see you all again. For me it was my first game this year, as I missed the last game through an injured ankle. First of all, thank you for electing me as captain for this year. I had not intended to stand for the post but it just sort of happened. Anyway, I will stick it out for a year and do my best to dishonour you lot. That will teach you to select your future captains sensibly.

Vincent couldn't have picked a more glorious day to hold the Finchley GC game. It took a lot of organising by Yoon behind the scene to put everything in place. As it is a private members club we needed a member there to accompany three of us guys in every group that teed off. Well done Yoon. Many thanks to Rick as well for co-sponsoring the day. Not only does he take all the pictures for MGS but this as well.

Usual thanks to Vincent, Simon and Max JJ for co-ordinating everything to make sure all went smoothly on the day.

What lovely weather! Playing in tee shirts in April! Even some of those that qualified for the £10 discount were at it too. Hope they were sensible enough when they get home to bring out the hot water bottle and a hot chocolate before retiring to bed early. Not only was it hot, the golf too, surprisingly, bearing in mind that we were playing from the back tees.

The ‘young-again' Ronald(must ask him where he found the fountain of youth) was nearest the target on the signature 12 th hole, and Vincent hit his tee shot furthest on the 13th. Eddie won the bandit division, and I won the ‘proper' division prize. Simon Chang who didn't think it worth his while to enter the £5 pool finished 3 rd overall. Richard Evans found not only his form but also his sense to enter the £5 pool came 2 nd . And Murray Bruce who arrived late and didn't get to enter the pool came in first overall.

The pool money went to Richard, Eddie and me.

On the matchplay front, Eddie beat Alex, Dominic beat Ronald, Francis beat Joyce, TK beat Bruce, and I beat Thomas who didn't have a good day on the greens.

Congratulations to all the winners. Don't forget to look up the result page for further details.

The meal after the game was very good. The roasts were excellent. I saw Ronald asking for the burnt fat side of the gammon. He sure knows how to eat. The beef and salmon were fantastic. I didn't try the turkey. Overall, I think it came second to Woburn last year. Woburn had better desserts. I thought the spotted dick tasted a bit gingery, but Dick liked it.

After the prize-giving and photos Vincent invited me to say a few words about the captains charity this year. I thought it would be a good idea to add a voluntary £5 to the cost of the next game at Stockley Park for this year's charity as the green fee for that game is quite cheap. But as soon as I had said that I was shouted down to make it compulsory. Someone added that if you didn't play the Stockley Park game you could still add £5 to any future game that you play. That I'll leave to you. This will be the only charity event for this year.

The charity I have chosen for this year is the cleft lip appeal, Operation Smile. It costs just £150 and takes only 45 minutes to transform a child's life forever. My reason for choosing it is because it is one of the smaller & lesser known charities. Not because I have a repaired lip. What I have is a strong Malaysian accent. Ha!

The next game is on Saturday 29 th May at Stockley Park. It is very near to Heathrow Airport. Please try not sky your tee shots there as there are a lot of low flying aeroplanes. Ronald has kindly agreed to sponsor the event. I hope he gives out those delicious roast ducks from his restaurants again for the NTPs & LD. And the overall winner might get a dip in his fountain of youth.

Slow play. Aaarrgh! It was bad again at Finchley. Apparently this time, the finger was pointed at me. I do apologise unreservedly. Normally, I am not a slow player. I think my terribly exciting matchplay didn't help. Still that shouldn't be an excuse. I think this time the layout of the course did contribute in some ways to the slow play. I remember I overshot the green on the 4 th hole. And I couldn't take my next shot till those playing directly behind and across on the long par 3 7 th had finished teeing off.

I think a 4-hour MGS event will never happen, but please, please do try your best play and enjoy your golf at a more urgent pace so as not to spoil it for everyone.

See you all at Stockley Park.


Bok Yeoh
Captain

It does not seem that long ago when we had our last game of 2009 at Woburn at the beginning of November and now here we are at The Oxfordshire for our first 2010 event.

For this opener, Steve Vella of Daily Fish Supplies Ltd is again the sponsor and MGS is fortunate to have members like him and the other sponsors to support the games.

The Oxfordshire has been established for nearly 20 years and was the venue for many prestigious European Tour events. It is fairly long and water comes into play on many holes. Their signature hole is the par 5 17 th with water all along the fairway towards the green to catch any wayward shots.

50 golfers turned up to begin their 2010 campaign. Bacon roll and coffee was served from 9am before the first group teed off just after 10am. Our new Captain was unable to attend due to an injury to his leg the week before. Let's hope that he recovers soon for the next event.

There were several match play matches being played with me having to take on our Secretary Vincent. I had the luxury of receiving one shot.

His first tee shot landed in the left fairway bunker. He then hit his second onto the green stopping some 50 ft away from the pin but promptly sunk the putt for a birdie start. This was followed by 3 straight pars and I was 4 down after 4. I managed to win one back on the 6 th and we both missed short birdie putts on the 7 th .

The 8 th hole was really a comedy of errors with me winning the hole with an 8! We both hit 2 balls into the water (one of mine was a brand new ProV ball) but my third approach landed on the green whereas Vincent missed the green and failed to get up and down. After that I did not win another hole and duly lost 5 & 4.

Our group managed to keep up with the pace of play but I have to comment that the immediate group behind us was at least 2 holes behind. It's really not acceptable to be that far behind and every effort should be made to keep play moving so as not to spoil it for everyone else.

So for 2010 at least make it your mission to improve this aspect of your game and avoid slow play .

Dinner of soup and roast pork was served from 6pm after which Chris welcomed everyone to the first game (and there were some new faces but also good to see some of the old ones).

I had to stand in for the sponsor to present the prizes and there were some very good results, notably the 47 points scored by Jimmy Chua's 13 year old daughter to win the guest prize.

The overall winner, Richard Cook, scored 41 points and also won the NTP and longest drive. His handicap is reduced accordingly and his progress over the year will be ‘closely' monitored. Well done.

Overall the day went quite well. Simon made some remarks about recording your scores and it will help a great deal if everyone would brush up this aspect and keep your scorecard correctly as any mistakes made can be costly to the individual.

It would also help if, on arrival, everyone takes it upon themselves to seek out Vincent or Jonathan and pay their green fees before disappearing to change or practice. Help us to make your day as enjoyable as possible.

Enough of my withering and sharpen up your game for Finchley especially your short game as it is a narrow and tight course (will suit T C Por). Regrettably I will not be there (sunny Spain and Valderrama beckons) but hopefully our new Captain will be.

And just to make you guys salivate, I am on my way to watch The Masters on all 4 days and the weather forecast for the final two days are warm and sunny. Keep an eye for me on TV.

Woodhall Spa Weekend 6th & 7th March 2010

Although this is not an official MGS event, I thought it will be a good idea to report on this especially the social side in this particular instance.

Woodhall Spa is the home of the English Golf Union and has 2 courses, the Bracken which is designed on American style and the Hotchkin which is really an inland links with huge deep bunkers and you do not need to go to St Andrews or Carnoustie to enjoy the British Open experience without the wind blowing too hard.

The trip was organised by Jonathan our Secretary understudy and the cost of £129 per person for 2 rounds of golf (especially the Hotchkin which is rated in the top 30 UK courses), hotel, dinner and breakfast represent outstanding good value and we can't wait to go back again.

Only 16 golfers made the trip possibly because of the unseasonal weather even though it was the first weekend in March but we all had a great time with great food and company and a few of us played reasonably well with the exception of Kimberly Ong who played two great rounds of golf and bagged the daily prizes of cash and golf balls as well as the overall title over the two days. Well played Kim!

The highlight of the golfing weekend was celebrating Tommay Thomas' wife birthday dinner. It was a hilarious evening with a lot of singing but no dancing, thankfully, from Dominic Giacon due mainly to a few bottles of champagne and lots of wine flowing, I think!!

Peter Chew