Fleming Watson Team
There’s a little bit of a changing of the guard this year for the junior team with some of our prominent “senior” juniors moving on and some of the team playing lower down now having to “step up” and play a bit higher up the team. However, team managers Clare Marie Macaulay and Stewart McGill have been putting them through their paces with a couple of early season get togethers ahead of starting the defence of our title on Masters Sunday the 13th of April.
Short Term – Easter Holidays
Junior Coaching
The numbers for our junior coaching sessions running from Monday 7th April to Wednesday 9th April at 9.30-10.30 and 10.30-11.30 are very encouraging somewhere around 2 dozen at last count.
Please come up and support those sessions or just enjoy a coffee and some peace and quiet in the comfort of the lounge whilst Clare Marie is inspiring your youngster.
For the Younger Kids – Flag Championship
We’re looking to run a number of flag championships over the course of the spring and summer starting with one during the Easter Holidays. We’ll have a qualifier that will see four of our youngsters go to a Regional Final at Renfrew and if they do well in that onto a National Final at Gleneagles.
The brief explanation is we flag how far around the course they can get with 36 shots.
junior-flag-championship-guide-pages-web.pdf
For those who are “Course Ready” with Handicaps
We’ve got a 10-day long stableford competition with the winner being the player returning the cumulative four best round points tally over those 2 weeks. Who’ll walk away with the first junior prize of the season?
More to come nearer the time on registering to play each day.
For those that are “Course Ready” but don’t have Handicaps
GET ONE We just need fifty-four holes played (not even completed) and you’ll be issued with a handicap and on your way to competing week to week. You can do it via the app but let’s keep it simple and fil in some score cards and we’ll get you your starting handicap.
Renfrewshire Golf Union Junior and Youth Championship
Fereneze is hosting the Caven/Menzies strokeplay championship on Sunday 4th May. It goes without saying we’d love to have a couple of home winners so if you’ve not yet entered you can register via the My Scottish Golf App.
Medium Term – Summer Holidays
12 and Under on 1st January – No Handicap or Handicaps 37+ – Junior Sixes
Having made our debut in Scottish Golfs Junior Sixes last year and giving the younger kids and those new to golf a wonderful experience we couldn’t not do it again, so we’ve entered and been placed in a league with East Renfrewshire, Kirkhill, East Kilbride and Playsport East Kilbride. This is very much an introductory event for kids new to golf and we’ll assemble a squad of twelve with six playing in each match. It’s a really great format to introduce the kids to golf and we had complete beginners playing last year. As parents/grandparents you’re encouraged to go round the six holes with your kids and encourage them, I assure you, they’ll need your support.
Scottish Golf have an aspiration that we’re 50/50 on boys and girls too and we had no girl representation last year so anything more than zero will represent progress.
Our first game will be early July at Kirkhill with the other four fixtures needing to be complete by the end of August.
You can find out more about Junior Sixes at the link below:
scottishjuniorgolf.org/events-competitions/golfsixes-league/
Golf Nines
Golf Nines is a progression from Golf Sixes and is for kids with handicaps between 17 and 36 and is broadly the same format as the Sixes but over nine holes. This bridges the competitive gap for some players before they might progress onto playing for club teams. We’ve entered this year and will look to field a team. It may be that some of the people with new handicaps will fit the bill for this.
I’ve not had any information yet on what league we’ll be placed in.
Scottish Golf Club Hire Fund
We’ve applied for some funding (which we’ll match) that will allow us to buy some junior sets and rent them out for the season to some of our juniors. This might be useful for families where golf is not played by parents and should help keep the overall cost of starting the game to a minimum. We hope that the annual subs of £55 (or free if you have an adult relative who is a member) combined with very reasonable rental fees will keep the cost down for beginners.
