On September 5th, Lady Captain, Anne Wakelam and Vice-Captain, Michelle Parry played in the PING Women’s 4BBB Pairs Stableford National Finals at Thonock Park, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire and came 5th with 44 points. They had won the PING qualifier at club level with 48 points on July 28th and this meant that they were invited to the National Finals with 50 other pairs who had also scored 48 points and above. Runners up at Club level were Ange Smith and Pauline Cooke who received a PING Betterball Towel.
On arrival at Gainsborough, they were both presented with a PING Monsoon golf bag for having qualified for the finals and a PING umbrella for having won the Club qualifier. Luckily, they had brought a car big enough to get four golf bags home! They were one of the first pairs to tee off and were relieved to connect with the ball after having their photos taken on the first tee before being announced as representing Bromsgrove Golf Club over the loudspeaker system. The golf went reasonably well with both players fitting in well with each other hole after hole. It was quite hot which was unexpected as rain had been forecast earlier on in the week. The course played well even after a thunderstorm during the night. One of the highlights of the day was a flyover by the Red Arrows as Michelle stood on the 16th tee. They were very impressed that PING and England Golf had gone to such trouble to make it a memorable day!
Anne and Michelle then had an agonising wait after finishing and submitting their card to see if they maintained their fourth position as everyone came in off the course. With two pairs to finish, they were in 5th place and prizes were awarded up to 6th place. There was disbelief all around as they realised, they had come 5th overall.
They were then presented with a beautifully engraved cut glass vase and a voucher for £75 by the Head of Ping Europe and the Head of England Golf.
Overall winners with 48 points were Jasmine Kim and Reidun Karlsen of The Leatherhead. Seven hundred clubs entered the event so it was a tremendous achievement to reach the Finals. In 2020 PING and England Golf introduced a Mixed Betterball Stableford competition and this has replaced the Ladies Plate Final which was held for the next 50 pairs who did not qualify for the Grand Final. After the success of the Mixed Open this year, Michelle will be looking into whether this will be a viable option in addition to the Ping Women’s 4BBB next year.
The whole day was an amazing experience and Anne and Michelle haven’t stopped smiling since!
The Featured Image shows the Director Ping, Michelle and Anne and a representative of England Golf