The 2016 pre-season lunch was held at Gullane Golf Club on Saturday 5th March and was a lovely start to the season. 78 members attended the lunch including many new members and by the noise at the tables everyone enjoyed getting together before the season started. The event started with a glass of prosecco and a chance for everyone to see the newly furbished Gullane Golf Club and everyone admired the new decor and feeling of space in the upstairs area. The members were welcomed by the Captain Barbara Biggart who also mentioned ELLCGA guests Janice MacLeod, Captain of Whtekirk, Beryl Morris former chair of the East Lothian McMillan Committee and Nicky Black, Captain of Gullane Ladies Golf Club.Janette Buchananan our President gave the Grace and we all enjoyed a lovely lunch.
After lunch Elaine Dick, Vice Captain gave us a potted history about Babe Zaharias, a very talented athlete and golfer from America. She was the first American winner of the British Ladies amateur championship held at Gullane in 1947. She started her athletics career playing basketball and her team reached the National Finals 3 years in a row with Babe awarded the stop amateur award of All american Player. She then developed her athletics and won 2 golds and a silver medal in the broad jump, javelin and high jump respectively. She then was introduced to golf and loved it. At that time her drives were 240-260 yards which is amazing when you think of the equipment then. She had problems with her amateur status so played many exhibition matches including trick shots with Gene Sarazen and Tommy Armour. In 1938 she married George Zaharias and with his encouragement gained back her amateur status. She came over to Gullane in 1947 after successful events in America and beat local member and Scottish Champion Jean Donald in the semi final of the British at Gullane. She then turned Professional and continued to win tournaments but sadly lost her fight with cancer age 45 years. Her husband donated money to Gullane golf Club for a junior prize to be played for by members of Gullane Primary School. In 1963 Torphin Golf Club asked her husband to donate a trophy in her memory and George donated the wonderful Babe Zaharias Trophy seen today at the lunch. This was the last trophy she won before her death. The trophy and the Ultraplast Trophy for handicap has been played for ever since and many big names have won this including Belle Robertson, Margaret Pickard (nee Nichol), Jean Bald and Jessie Valentine. The trophy moved around and then was played at Whitekirk in many different forms. Janice MacLeod approached Nicky Black to see if Gullane would take over the trophy. Gullane agreed to host the competition for 2 years and Nicky approached ELLCGA to see if we would facilitate the competition. ELLCGA committee agreed to facilitate the competition with it rotating round East Lothian Golf Clubs and the other lady captains agreed . It will revert back to a stroke play with scratch and handicap prizes. After this overview Janice MacLeod handed the trophies to Nicky Black for the tournament this year to be played on 22nd August 2016.
After this the draw for the raffle and the draw for the 100 club took place and the winners are below.
100 club winners
1st Liz McLelland
2nd Gail McKill
3rd Jane Herd and Linda Henderson
Raffle Winners
Round of golf for 4 at Dunbar Liz McLelland
Spa Voucher for Archerfield £90 Carol McLeod
Blue Sky Pilates voucher Janice McLeod
Lesson Alistair Good Liz Dunn Butler
Lesson Martyn Huish Jean McNeil
Barbara McIntosh kindly gave a vote of thanks on behalf of the members to Gullane Golf Club and to the ELLCGA committee. I personally would like to say thank you to Gullane Golf Club and to Steven Marshall and his team for working so hard to make ELLCGA members so welcome . I would like to thank Elaine for her organisation and her speech about Babe Zaharias and to Linda Henderson and Janet Fairweather for selling tickets for the raffle so successfully. It really was a very happy day.
Below are pictures of the event
Thank you to all our lady members for supporting the event.
Barbara Biggart
Captain ELLCGA
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