Greetings from John Murray
Moray Golf Club - PGA Golf Professional

I hope you've all had a fantastic week on and off the golf course and welcome to another exciting edition of the Moray Pro Shop weekly newsletter, bringing you up-to-date with all the latest news and gossip from within the walls of MGC.

The Moray Open

It was the usual hectic week at the 112th Moray Open last week as 336 competitors took to the courses. We had some mixed weather with some heavy showers on Wednesday and unfortunately Friday’s prize giving had to be held indoors for only the 2nd time in 22 years and the first in my 9 years at Moray GC.

However despite some showers there was also plenty of glorious sunshine too which helped to make the week a successful one.

Moray Open Champion & Club Champion Celebrating Kyle's Win

Kyle Godsman finally lifted the scratch section title after losing in the earlier rounds the last few years despite being leading qualifier. It was no different this year as Kyle led the qualifiers on 133 with 65 (New) and 68 (Old) for a -8 under total, 3 shots ahead of Stuart Tatters on 136 (68, 68).

However this time around Kyle made it count to lift the trophy after a 2/1 victory in the final against his good friend Jeff Wright in a tight contest that included 6 birdies between the players. I was lucky enough to referee the match and was delighted that both players made my life very easy with no rules decisions necessary and some fine golf played. It's just a shame there has to be a loser!!

In the Division 1 final Alex England was victorious with a 3/1 win against Kemnay member Steve Moore. This is the 2nd time Alex has won the trophy in recent years. Well Done Alex!

An all Moray Final in division 2 saw Gareth Marshall take on one of our up and coming junior members, Jack McNeilly. A closely fought final eventually ended with a narrow 1up victory for Gareth. Congratulations to Gareth and I'm sure Jack will go one better next year!! I did manage to get a photo of “Gareth and his Technicolour trousers!!”

Unfortunately we are still waiting for the official photos from our resident photographer John C Macgregor so I haven't managed to get these into this week’s newsletter. However I’ll be sure to include some snaps next week. Thanks to John for taking all the photos and giving up so much time to do so.

For a full roundup of scores from the Moray Open Click Here.

On the undercard, we had a new event which we ran on Thursday...The Moray Open Putting Champion which was open to all gents, ladies and junior members and Moray Open competitors. We ran a 16 hole event (2 x 8 holes) which was ran through the day and I eventually had to call last orders on the putting green at 9.45pm!! (Only 3.45 hours later than planned)

The 2017 Champion was Andrew Stuart with a total score of 27 (-5) to pip a whole host of players on 28 (-4). Well Done to Andrew who can be seen here (fair chuffed) collecting his PING Putter as 1st Prize.

The Pro Shop Raffle was drawn on Thursday morning and the winners were as follows:

1st Place - Glenn Roberts - TaylorMade Spider Putter
2nd Place - John Holt (Visitor) - adidas Tour 360 Boost Shoes
3rd Place - Brent Macleman - Vokey Wedge
4th Place - Gareth Edwards - Dozen Pro V1

I would be very happy to hear your feedback from this year’s Moray Open and any suggestions as to how we can continue to make the event such a success! Click here to leave some feedback.

Ladies section

Duffus Inn Ladies Open Stableford (CSS 70)

Division 1
D. Crane (19) 40pts; D. Phillips (Garmouth) (10) 39pts; K. Livingstone (Kemnay) (12) 38pts; M. Barr (Nairn) (12) 37pts.

Division 2
V. Pastakia (24) 36pts; N. Forbes (28) 35pts; S. Wilson (32), B. Caie (22) 34pts

Ladies Dr G. D. Gormley Trophy (CSS 79 R/O)

W. Ross (9), B. Caie (22) 82; M. Ingram (20), A. Souter (22) 83; E. Munro (17) 86; D. Crane (18), J. McPherson (24), I. Wilson (19) 89.

Ladies 9 Hole Stableford (CSS N/A)

A. Pickthall (25) 20pts; J. Pratt (9) 18pts; A. Souter (11) 17pts; M. Smith (12) 16pts; S. Harding (16) 15pts; J. Campbell (14) 14pts.

Shop news

Shop Promotions

We still have our Galvin Green clothing available with a 25% discount in store as well as 10% OFF Putters in the shop.

We have now received our new PING G400 range of woods and irons in-store. I have put together a demo set which includes the new Driver, Fairway, Hybrid, Crossover and Irons. If you’re interested why not contact us and take them out for a FREE trial!!

The general interest so far has been very positive. We will be testing the product ourselves shortly and so watch out for our video review coming soon. We hope to have a date available for a trial day as soon as we have some more of our demo product arrive.

For a full roundup of scores from the Moray Open Click Here.

Double Up with TaylorMade Golf

We have a great promotion in-store this month which gives our customers a double trade up price. We will basically get you a golfbidder quote for your current product. TaylorMade will then double up this offer when buying any M Series Driver, Fairway or Hybrid.

Come in past the shop and have a chat about this promotion and see what we can do for you!

Bonus Ball Draw

Our latest draw is for a new TaylorMade Limited Edition Ardmore TP Putter (£249) at £4 per number.

Rule of the week

Order of Play

Adrian and Brian hit their drives into the area of GUR short left of the 16th Green New. Their balls were 2 feet apart with Adrian’s further from the hole. Both players decided to take relief. When they had completed the procedure for GUR relief they now found that Brian’s ball was further from the hole. Adrian turned to Brian and asked “does that mean that you now play first.”

No. the order of play is determined by the relative position of the balls before relief is taken therefore Adrian should play first.