Saturday the Club travelled to Fermoy for the annual outing. Beautiful clear morning with the sun shining but some patchy clouds threatening the rain. Great welcome in Fermoy from Kathleen and her helpers. A nice cuppa and some lovely fruit scones and we were ready for anything. Fermoy is a very challenging course, lots of trees and tricky shots but with the freshly trimmed fairway and the greens in mint condition everyone was looking to do a good score in the singles. Gretchen Ahern was the best nett for the Ladies with Eileen Murphy in the runner up position beating Josie Twomey on the back nine while Pat Conway was the Gross Winner. Pat O’Keeffe was the best nett in the Gents with Gentleman John in second place while Frank Riordan was the Gross Winner. Pat Moore , Billy Fitton and Paddy Dennehy were seen carrying out in-depth viewings of the course covering as much territory as possible.
Gretchen was back in the winners Enclosure for the fourball with Pat Moore while Margaret Bowen and John Dineen were runner up with Tim Murphy and Josie Twomey taking the gross and Shelia O’Leary partnering Betty White took second gross.
For the finale and to work up a good appetite there was a three ball scramble sweep which saw Gretchen with a hat trick partnering Paddy Dennehy and Frank Riordan to take the nett with 9 under while the gross was won by Billy Fitton who was closely supervised by Betty white and Josie Twomey also on 9 under losing out for the nett to the higher handicappers.
The members travelled to the Castle Hotel in Blarney to finish the evening with some magnificent cuisine from a menu that had a wide variety of dishes which was first class. The Maire D was in fine form and provided excellent service along with his serving staff. Eileen Murphy who recently celebrated a big Birthday was surprised with a cake and another rendition of Happy Birthday from the Lakewood Choir ably assisted by the Castle Staff. A great night was had by all and Frank kept the speech making very short .
Sunday morning Noel Mac and Robert Spillane brought in a magnificent score of 51 points, both were dovetailing well, even with Noel missing some short putt but making up by chipping in from 8 and 10 feet. Noel was complaining about playing in the company of heavyweights but after this performance he must be now classed in the super-heavyweight category. This was Roberts maiden win in the Lakewood colours but from the way he was playing he will be featuring a lot more. Ted Canty and Betty White were the Gross Winners and a little Birdie said that Ted was on fire shooting up a stormer with seven birdies beating the combination of John Ahern and John Dineen on the back nine. Catherine O’Keeffe was over the moon when she was announced as the second nett winner partnering Sheila O’Leary who was in splendid form shooting 50 points including a couple of four pointers and Catherine’s making full use of her shots was enough to keep them ahead of the rest of the pack.
Sunday evening Noel Mac led Frank Riordan and Rick O’Mahony into the Winners enclosure with a magnificent score to take the nett in the threeball while everyone else went home with memories of what if.
The annual St Mary’s Competition is scheduled for next weekend with all proceeds going to the school.
