Clean sweep of wins in Praia – Northcliffe Golfing Society

It was definitely a family affair at this year’s Northcliffe Inter-Company golf competition, with Society President Lord Rothermere joined by his two sons.

Golfers and tennis players were a heady mix as they played over three great golf courses and a local tennis complex.

Lord Rothermere again captained his “Chairman’s” team against a “Northcliffe” team led by eldest son Vere Harmsworth, who is vice-President of the Society.

Making up the family turnout was younger son, Alfred, who partnered his father in the “Ryder Cup” style match against Vere.

The golf practice round was at the intimidating West Cliffs course, where so many players saw their golf balls disappear into the surrounding undergrowth of the former nature reserve never to be seen again.

The golf competition then started the following day in head-to-head matches at the challenging Royal Óbidos course, with the second round at Praia del Raia with the spectacular views of the sea.

Having lost by a wide margin last year to Vere’s Northcliffe team, it was a clean sweep of all the trophies this time for the Chairman’s team.

First it was a 6 –3 victory at Royal Óbidos to win the “Associated Newspapers Challenge Cup” for having the most stableford wins in the first round, including The Harmsworth/Mulchrone Trophy for the pairing with the highest stableford points that was won by Lee Terry and Alfred Harmsworth with 44 points.These first round trophies werepresented later that day at a Gala Dinner with both the golf and tennis players joining together.

Society Vice-Captain, Barry Theobald was presented with the Ian Wooldridge Trophy, awarded for Corinthian fair play over the year, so typified by the Daily Mail legendary sports columnist during the year.The JAK trophy reflecting enthusiasm on the golf course of the former Evening Standard’s cartoonist was also presented to fellow cartoonist MAC who each year draws a suitable cartoon for the Society to auction.

Champagne prizes in the “Nearest the Pin” competition at Royal Óbidos were won by Nick Stevens on the 3rd hole; Ian McIlgorm 6th; Alex Rosen 8th; DJ Corbett 13th and Alexandra Wood 15th.

With the comfortable overnight win , it was the Chairman’s team that again took the honours at Praia del Rey with a 6 – 2 victory with one match halved, winning the Arthur Fuller Cup for the most match play wins.

Then to top off a brilliant weekend overall victory, it was Lord Rothermere and youngest son Alfred who were clear-cut winners of the Vere Harmsworth Challenge Cup in the match-play competition with a 6/5 win.

All the wins meant the Chairman’s team comfortably won the main weekend trophy, the Viscount Rothermere Cup as the overall tournament champions.

There was no “Nearest the Pin” competition at Praia del Rey as the Club were unable to put out the usual markers.

At every tournament, the Mail’s award winning cartoonist MAC donates a golfing cartoon to be auctioned and this raised £1,000.

The final amount raised with the raffle plus money raised in the Back the Winner competition goes towards the Golf and Tennis societies to help subsidise future events.

This was the 33^rd Inter-Company Golf Tournament with a wonderful mix of staff from within the company including golfers from Ireland.

The next golf fixture will be a first “Summer Scramble” at The Berkshire on Monday, July 10, arranged instead of the usual individual singles.

Announcing the tennis results, organiser Mark Wareham said that using the courts at the nearby Bom Sucesso tennis centre had been a great success, plus the advantage of being able to use the paddle courts and that it is planned to use a mix of tennis with the paddle courts for future events. As well as playing golf, Lord Rothermere managed to organise a game of paddle tennis between his golf rounds.