CLUB-MAKER became club-shaker as Michael Aldridge celebrated what every
amateur golfer covets.
The York man who has honed, shaped and tailored hundreds of woods and irons
for golfers to then go out and notch holes-in-one sampled the exhilarating experience for himself when he notched his first ace in more then a decade of 'pottering around' various golf courses.
Aldridge, who runs his General Golf Ltd business from Clifton Park, was competing alongside fellow club-maker and friend Pete Clarke at the Mid-Yorkshire GC at Darrington, near Pontefract.
They reached the par-three 134-yards hole when Aldridge let loose with a seven-iron shot.
"We could see the top of the flag and about a yard down, so we could not actually see the hole," he recalled.
"I knew I'd hit the shot well, because when you hit about 150 poor shots in a
day you know when you've finally pinged one. But when we got to the green
there was only one ball on the green and that was Pete's.
"I thought I must have overshot the green and thought 'oh heck'. But Pete then asked what I had been playing. When I told him the make of ball he said: 'It's
here in the hole'."
That's when exultation set in for the 61-year-old former hairdresser, who
traded in scissors, clippers and cuts for pliers, vices and putts just over
ten years ago when he first took up the profession of club-maker.
"It would have been so much better had I been able to see the ball go into the hole, but the feeling of getting a hole in one was marvellous," enthused Aldridge.
"I've made plenty of clubs before for golfers who've gone on to score holes in one, but to finally do it myself was superb."
A former footballer of local repute - helped to found the York Sunday Afternoon League - Aldridge tutrned to golf almost by chance on a holiday in Florida.
"I'd been involved in local football for years, but you can't keep getting the business kicked out of you so I took up golf. I was in America when I went to
a training course to become a club maker. It's gone on from there."
Aldridge is not a member of a club as the demands of his thriving business in
Auster Road on the Clifton Moor trading estate does not afford him the time to
play as much as he wanted. But now he can at least share in the glory-stories he has so far only heard from his customers about the day they got the perfect one.
PERFECTION meanwhile was the province for reigning York ladies amateur
champion Elaine Duffy.
The Heworth GC star capped off a superb 2001 with a conquest of northern
Italy, where she won the Sunday Express 'Keep A Six Off Your Card' competition
grand final.
The 31-year-old independent financial advisor beat seven other finalists to
win the event's prestigious trophy, plus a custom-made set of Maxfli Revolution irons at Golf Club Le Fonti at Castel San Pietro Terme.
Five-handicapper Elaine, one of only two women in the final, beat last year's
champion Keith Jones on count-back after both totalled 38 points on the
parkland course with superb views, but littered with many water hazards. Earlier the finalists enjoyed practice rounds at courses in Bologna and Modena.
Elaine could not have got off to a better start when she eagled the par four
first, where she holed her second shot from 60 yards. As part of the prize she
will be able to defend the title back in Italy next year.
But Elaine's 2001 could barely have been bettered. Besides winning the top
York title she also won Heworth's ladies' championship, the Heworth Lady Captain's day, and two knockout events as her handicap was trimmed from seven to five.
She told the Evening Press: "I attribute the year to running my own business,
Invest itpronto, and being able to organise a working day around golf,
especially in the summer months.
"My employers have not been understanding in the past. In fact my previous
employer thought golf was a waste of time."
Of her Italian job she added: "We all had a fantastic time.
"Golf is still a middle-class sport in Italy, yet people of all ages just mill
around with the formality of the UK clubhouse. "I was just delighted to do Heworth GC and its ladies' section proud."
HEWORTH GC have retained the York Union of Golf Club's Lewis Trophy for the third year running.
An exceptional round of 61 by Bernard Mennell and Garry Taylor saw then finish a stroke ahead of Easingwold pair Steve Faulkner and Chris Metcalfe, who nudged their club-mates Tony Wilford and Howard Dawson into third place on the countback system.
SCRATCH player Gary Stothard and 11-handicapper Rick Barela won the Harrogate and District Alliance competition at Oakdale this week with a round of 64.
Knaresborough currently lead the Knaresborough Team Trophy with 28 points, followed by Harrogate 14, Oakdale 8 and Pannal 7.
JEAN Foster, a member of Fulford GC ladies' section, sealed a fine double when
she won the October medal with a two-under-par 72, one stroke ahead of Jean
Abbey. It followed her triumph in the veterans' trophy competition last month.
Liz Jones, meanwhile, won the spring and autumn Crummack with a 36-hole score of 150, one ahead of club captain Judy Jones.
HARROGATE GC and Pannal GC have been named among 100 clubs from across the globe to receive an oak tree to celebrate the Professinal Golf Association's centenary.
The 'Centenary Oak Trees' have been grown from acorns from the famous Oak Hill course in Rochester, New York and have been awarded to clubs with strong links to the PGA.
Harrogate receive their tree to mark the fact Henry Crapper was chairman of the PGA in 1957/8 while at the club.
Pannal's tree is to celebrate their running of PGA competition over the years, including the PGA
Updated: 10:37 Saturday, October 20, 2001
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