Stoke Park win prestigious national golf title

Stoke Park win prestigious national golf title

Members at Stoke Park are celebrating yet another golf success after the men’s team won the prestigious National Golf Club Challenge.

Created to raise funds for the military veterans’ charity On Course Foundation, the National Golf Club Challenge is the UK’s largest amateur charity golf competition, bringing thousands of club golfers together on their own courses throughout the UK during the summer months.

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And Stoke Park – in the guise of five-man team Craig Kreeger, Phil Fretwell, Hany Abbas, Paul Trendell and captain Trevor Danks – saw off the challenge of Bristol & Clifton, Puckrup Hall, Royal Club du Hainault, The Rayleigh, and Chesfield Downs, in the grand final played over the renowned Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry Resort, to secure the coveted Lee Westwood Trophy.

Team captain Danks said: “We squared up to the challenges of battling through blustery weather conditions and against a highly competitive field of the UK’s finest club golfers. Stoke Park’s consistent and steady scoring from all five players was capped off with an exceptional individual round of level par by Paul Trendell, carrying the team to an eight-shot margin of victory.

“Stoke Park is proud to be associated with both the National Golf Club Challenge and the On Course Foundation and we are looking forward to defending the title in 2017.”

Director of golf Stuart Collier added: “We are, naturally, delighted that our guys were able to win this trophy – congratulations to every one of them. Following on from the ladies’ fourth successive victory in the Bucks Shield, it completes a wonderful year for our golf club.”

Set within 300 acres of beautiful private parkland estate in Stoke Poges, Bucks, Stoke Park is only 35 minutes from London and seven miles from Heathrow Airport. Laid out across 300 acres of mid-19th century, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown-landscaped parkland, the 27-hole golf course was designed by the legendary Harry Colt in 1908.

It is one of just two five-AA Red Star golf clubs in England and the historic land on which it stands is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The historic course played host to the PGA Matchplay in 1910 and, even more famously, the golf match between Sean Connery’s James Bond and Auric Goldfinger, in the 1964 film, Goldfinger. It also has a thriving golf club with around 800 active members.

During the winter of 2015/16, every bunker on the Colt course – the first nine holes of the historic 27-hole layout – underwent major renovation to both shape and size, as part of a seven-figure investment in a facelift of the whole course.

This winter will see a similar overhaul of the Alison course – holes nine to 18 – as Stoke Park looks to bring the second nine into line with the aesthetic quality and playability the front nine now enjoys.