Wow what a great way to finish the SdM social calendar!
The SdM Christmas dinner dance was held at the excellent venue of Val d Oliveras with the members and guests all dressing to impress. Everyone enjoyed a pre dinner drink followed by a tasty buffet of mixed salads mains and desserts.
LM33, an outstanding local band, entertained the audience after dinner with excellent music , encouraging the majority of the audience onto the dance floor.
Today the Thursday boys and girls met up at La Bella Vita restaurant near Carvoeiro to celebrate the annual pre Christmas dinner. Organised as ever by the one and only Dave Tweed, 66 of us sat down to a sunlit lunch protected from the Algarvian winter by being indoors. Dave read out the league table from the bottom up and after the ritual humiliation of the losers, Per Lars (in second place) and Simon Arnes (overall winner) suffered the ultimate humiliation of having to accept one of Tweedie’s renowned trophies!
Seventy one SdM members contested for the coveted Christmas Hampers on Saturday 7th December in a Texas Scramble.
Afterwards the group retired to the clubhouse and ate a banquet prepared by members making and bringing their food offerings from around the world.
First Prize:
Per Lars Tonstad
Jan Daapan
Richard & Wendy Emrich
Second Prize:
Chris Rooney
Nigel Cotterill
Steve & Jill Edwards
Third Prize:
Andy Richardson
Bill Honour
Des & Barbara Briggs
Friday was the Finals day of this year for the Interleague at Amendoeira, preceded by a Better Ball Stableford competition, with 3 pairs representing each club. All 22 clubs were present.
It was a wonderful day, the course was in a good condition and it was well organized.
More than 150 people enjoyed a delicious buffet, followed by the presentations and handing out the prizes to all the winners from each League and of course the Better Ball competition of the day.
Winners of the day were Boavista with a magnificent score of 124 points, closely followed by Pinheiros Alto with 122 and in 3rd place Alto with 119 points.
Congratulations to SdM member Ria Raap for her nearest the pin prize!
The Division Winners were:
Vale do Lobo - Division 1
Espiche -Division 2
Carvoeiro -Division 3
Many congratulations to past Captain Les Smith on his first ever hole in one after 39 years of trying!
Les hit a 7 iron on the 136 metre par 3 15th hole at Silves. The ball pitched just short of the pin and went straight in!
Les's ace was the third in recent weeks for SdM members after Bernard O'Reilly and Des Briggs both had similar successes.
Less than a month ago our game against Silves International was unfortunately cancelled, and that left us with a gap in our calendar.
Bravely our intrepid competition secretary, Eddie Kassner, stepped into the breach and organised a replacement competition - “not (quite) the Presidents cup”. Please don’t underestimate the logistics of organising this type of competition and many thanks to Eddie for saving the day.
Rain intervened but failed to disrupt a very successful event with “Not (quite) the Rest of the World” team (19 1/2) narrowly losing to a “Not (quite) the USA” team (22 1/2).
Our very own Poor Man’s Band entertained us (indoors due to the weather) for over an hour, and the celebrations lasted well into the afternoon.
Congratulations to Mel Huxtable who won the 11th annual Past Captain's Trophy, his first victory in this prestigious event.
15 past Captains were welcomed by present Captain Dave Darling who immediately demanded money, allegedly for prizes!
So under grey skies, and after the obligatory photo, three four balls set off into the gloom, remarkably the weather stayed dry and in decent conditions some truly poor scores were recorded, with the notable exceptions of Les Smith 34 pts and Mel with 37.