Our final event, event 11 on our calendar, saw HGS return for a full day of fun at Alresford Golf Club.
Following hot on the heels of the Ryder Cup shenanigans, (Ole, Ole Ole, Ole!) we lined up, Captain vs Vice Captain for the Captain/Vice Salver, with members generally embracing the adoption of team colours; a great idea but somewhat lost due to the rolling nature of the day meaning we were never all together in our team colours. Not easily solved but maybe something to look at for next year?
With Team Vice (you know what you are) being victorious last year and a full 18 points being available across the day’s play, Team Captain(😎) started out knowing they needed 9 ½ points to claim the shield, with 9 points being enough for Team Vice (you know what you are) to retain it.
Thick fog briefly threatened to delay proceedings, but we managed to get away on time and for the most part, we enjoyed a very pleasant day. The course was in really good condition, with fairways and greens exceptional and the trees, well, they were everywhere, let’s leave it at that.
Fittingly, the golf was closely contested. Despite there being no ties across any of the 18 matches played across the day, the end result was Team Captain 9 v Team Vice 9, meaning Team Vice retained the trophy (Don Rea take note of the correct usage of this term) with Vice Captain Keen accepting the award on behalf of the reds. Well played Team Vice.
As well as the team matchups, during the day’s play, Andy King and John Ferris played out the final of the Summer KO, with Andy winning out 3&2. Huge congratulations to King Andy for being our KO champ and indeed John for making the final. A special mention to Steve Elliott too for once again organising our KO competitions; on behalf of all members Steve, thank you.
Of course, being our last event, society business wasn’t finished. Once members, and indeed guests, had polished off a very tasty dinner, we took a few moments to celebrate our season’s event winners, re-uniting them with their hard-won trophies, their names freshly engraved, now forever a part of society history. Congratulations to all our winners, the full list added below.
We also awarded our Champion Golfer and Clubman of the Year awards, both of which deserve, for different reasons, a few words of special mention. Firstly to Clubman, intended to highlight and ‘reward’ those members who organise, attend and support events by staying on for presentations. On this basis I don’t think there could have been a more worthy winner than Adrian Crossley, who does so much for the society behind the scenes. Congratulations Adrian, our Clubman of the Year for 2025.
As for the Champion Golfer, it became obvious quite early in the season where this particular trophy was going. Dave Cousins flew out of the traps, winning our first event at Test Valley and picking up 2 further wins before we were 6 events in, and Dave didn’t even attend event 5, so that was 3 wins in 5 starts; Scottie Scheffler eat your heart out. This gave Dave a commanding lead, which he continued to build across the remainder of the season, ending up with almost double the points of the nearest challenger. I think we can all admit that his level of golf is on another level to most of us most of the time and it was with genuine pleasure I got to award and present Scottie Dave as our Champion Golfer for 2025.
Finally, there was the award of the Ruby Trophy. This is awarded by the Captain for services to the society. As always there are several contenders and it really is difficult to isolate one contributor over the others, running the society takes a team effort and we’re lucky to have those that we do, doing the roles that they do. Nevertheless, someone has to take the trophy home and for this year, my award went to Richard Selby. Again, Richard, on behalf of all the members, thank you for all you do and in particular the way that you go about it.
So that’s a wrap on our 2025 season. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time as Captain 😎and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again in 2026 (and maybe one or two of you before that in the Winter KO) under the stewardship of our to-be Captain Keen. By way of a sign-off, and to appease those calling for an appearance of the easel during Alresford’s post-event formalities, I’ll leave you with this image…
Event Winners
Category | Winner | Score / Notes | |
| Event Winner | Vice Captain | 9 v 9 | |
| NtP (am) | John Taylor | ||
| LD (am) | Steve Jenkins | ||
| NtP (pm) | Steve Elliott | ||
| LD (pm) | Dave Cousins | ||
Vice Captain – Event Winner | |||
| Longest Drive & NtP | |||
Season Winners
Hursley Golf Society Champion Golfer, Clubman and Ruby Award
