BARELY has weak spring sunshine peeped through the showers and Malton and Norton Golf Club's women wonders are anticipating next winter.

That long-range fore casting of focus is because the club's midweek marvels are already eyeing a hat-trick of East Yorkshire Ladies Winter Alliance championships.

The determined mood was never better summed up than by team member Chris Glendinning, who also serves as the Malton and Norton representative on the East Yorkshire Ladies Winter Golf Association.

In the wake of this year's retention of their winter-warming crown, she declared: "The dates for the 2006-07 competition have already been put in our diaries. We are all determined to make it a hat-trick. We will be there and we will be up for it."

There's no doubting that the Malton and Norton brigade were up to the past winter's challenge of defending their 2005 championship. For they finished the six-event tournament, which features players from all 18 clubs from the Alliance, an emphatic eight and a half points clear of Hessle GC, their nearest challengers.

It was the third triumph in the last four years in the East Riding winter arena for the ladies of the Welham Park-based club and their fourth since the year 2000.

Even though many of the club's best players are not able to play in the event, because it is played in midweek throughout the winter, Malton and Norton relish the format in which each of the 18 clubs fields four couples. The pairing with the best score counts towards the eventual championship rankings.

The defence of the crown was this year aided by having been able to call upon Curtis Cup ace Emma Duggleby, who has held sway as North Yorkshire's most successful woman amateur player for close on a decade.

Added Mrs Glendinning: "It was a great team effort with a lot of enthusiasm throughout the squad.

"This year we have particularly benefited from the pairing of Emma Duggleby and Judith Fishburn, who proved to be our main prize-winners."

The Duggleby-Fishburn axis triumphed at Easingwold and Ganton, while also bagging a fifth place at Fulford, where Mrs Glendinning and her playing partner Judy Butler claimed sixth spot.

"At Malton and Norton we have a strong core of players, who have all showed a great team spirit. And we are all lucky in that we have a club pro like Steve Robinson who can help us with coaching," said Mrs Glendinning.

"Some of our better single-handicap players in the club are unable to play every week because the events are played in midweek when a lot of people are working, but we seem to thrive on the competition. It's always such a good event and I think Malton and Norton are the envy of quite a lot of the clubs in the East Riding."

York-BASED professional Kirsty Taylor, seventh on the Ladies European Tour last year, starts the 2006 campaign in the Tenerife Open at Abama GC from April 27-30.

FULFORD GC's Iain Simpson won the club's first medal of the season with a five-under-par nett 67.

Updated: 10:58 Saturday, April 22, 2006