MONTHLY TERN
Green is the word! P2
Course Manager, Matty Smith updates us on the course conditions
Club News P3
Robbie Stewart, keeps you in the loop with all that is happening at the Club
One stretch of North East Scotland's golfing coastline. One 5 iron. Four golf courses. One mission...
To help fellow sufferers and seek ways to further research into this, as yet, incurable disease.
TOn October 7th, Ian Esslemont will embark on a unique golfing challenge across the stunning North East Scotland coastline.
The person who guesses closest to the correct number of shots will win a free fourball at the beautiful Newburgh Golf Course and a meal for four, including drinks, at the OGV Taproom Clubhouse. The runner-up will receive a limited edition Doddie’s Tartan Golf Cap and a round of golf for two at Cruden Bay. These are fantastic prizes for any golf enthusiast or for someone looking to give a special gift to a golfer they know.
The challenge set by Ian is a powerful demonstration of how sport can bring people together for a greater cause. Every donation, no matter the size, will play a part in potentially making a huge difference in the fight against MND.
With plenty of time still remaining before Ian’s challenge, the £2,500 goal is well within reach, and there’s every reason to believe that donations can surpass this target. To support Ian’s challenge and have a chance at winning an amazing prize, visit the JustGiving page and make a donation today: Ian Esslemont is fundraising for My Name'5 Doddie Foundation (justgiving.com)
his, however, is no regular test of Ian’s golfing skills - it is a heartfelt mission to raise funds and awareness for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, a charity dedicated to fighting Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
Ian will be armed with only a 5 iron and he will tee off at Royal Aberdeen and aim to play a single golf ball 10 miles along the beach to our home here at Newburgh Links. On his journey, Ian will play a hole at two other prestigious golf courses, Murcar Links and Trump International, before finishing the challenge at Newburgh’s 18th hole. His goal is to complete this 10-mile stretch, including playing at four different courses, in under five hours.
What makes this challenge even more special is the club Ian will use - a 5 iron which belonged to his good friend, Scott Stewart, who was diagnosed
with MND in 2023. The choice of the 5 iron is a tribute to the late Doddie Weir, the rugby legend who wore the Number 5 jersey for his clubs and country. Weir, who was diagnosed with MND in 2016, founded the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation to support others battling the disease and to fund research towards a cure.
Ian’s goal is not just to complete the challenge but also to raise as much money as possible for this great cause. The goal set on the JustGiving page is £2,500 and the fundraising efforts so far have seen great support, with the current total raised over the £2,100 mark. Each donation of £5 or more will not only contribute to the cause but also allow donors to participate in a fun guessing game: estimating the total number of shots Ian will take to complete the challenge.
Handover of Scott's 5 iron to Ian in Scott's back garden in Stirling.
Scott and friends at this year's British Open at Royal Troon.
Consistency is Key
It’s been another incredibly busy year at Newburgh Links, with the team working tirelessly to enhance all aspects of what we offer here at the club.
I want to take a moment to personally thank Wayne and John, who have gone above and beyond to meet my high demands and expectations. Their dedication has been exceptional, and I’m truly grateful for the effort they’ve put in to help us move forward.
Consistency is Key
At Newburgh Links, our ultimate goal is to provide a first-class golfing experience, and consistency is the key to achieving this. Every detail matters, from the quality of the greens to the overall experience we provide for our members and guests. Our main focus has always been on the greens, ensuring they remain in top condition, but we recognize that there are many other areas that require attention.
As a small team, we’ve had to carefully manage our time and resources to ensure all aspects of the course are improving. It’s a delicate balance, but I believe we’ve made great strides this year. The progress is evident, particularly with the ongoing support from OGV, which has been Dare I say it but have we had our summer!?
instrumental in helping us grow and enhance the club. I fully expect Newburgh Links to continue advancing and evolving year after year.
While we’ve achieved a lot, maintaining that consistency is going to be crucial moving forward. We don’t just want to provide a top-notch golfing experience occasionally – our goal is to make it a standard, something our members and visitors can always count on. Whether it’s the condition of the course, the quality of service, or the overall atmosphere, consistency will be the foundation of everything we do.
Matty Smith
Course Manager
The Importance of Teamwork
One thing I want to emphasize is the importance of teamwork in everything we’ve achieved. The course’s progress wouldn’t have been possible without the collective effort of our small but dedicated team. Wayne, John, and the rest of the staff have shown incredible commitment, and their passion for the club is evident in the results we’ve seen on the course. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together, and I’m excited for what’s to come as we continue working towards our goals.
Looking ahead, there’s still a lot to be done. We’ve made significant improvements, but there are always areas we can refine and enhance. Our focus will remain on ensuring the greens are in excellent condition, but we’re also looking at how we can improve other areas of the course and club to elevate the overall experience for everyone who comes to Newburgh Links.
Progress and Growth
One of the most exciting aspects of this year has been seeing the tangible progress we’ve made. It’s not just about the improvements to the course; it’s about the growth of the club as a whole. We’re attracting more golfers, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s clear that we’re heading in the right direction, and that’s something we’re all proud of.
The support from OGV has been a big part of this growth. Their backing has allowed us to push forward with our plans and ensure that we’re continuously improving. As we move into the next year, I’m confident that with their continued support, we’ll be able to take Newburgh Links to new heights.
In conclusion, while it’s been a challenging year with a lot of hard work, it’s also been a rewarding one. The team has put in tremendous effort, and we’ve made significant progress across the board. With a focus on consistency, teamwork, and growth, I’m excited to see what the future holds for Newburgh Links. Together, we’ll continue to build on what we’ve achieved and create an even better experience for everyone who steps onto our course.
Club updates from your PGA Director of Golf, Robbie Stewart...
Snippets... Robbie
Putting Lessons
With statistics showing that 45% of all golf shots are putts, it's strange that less than 5% of all golf lessons given are on putting.
This is something that Robbie is trying to change and, as a fully certified Frankly Golf Putting Instructor, is just the person to help you knock strokes off your handicap by reducing the number of putts you take on the greens. Robbie has built up a reputation as an excellent putting instructor over the years and has successfully provided putting lessons to all abilities of golfers including professional players.
Get in touch with him in the Pro Shop if you want to be the next player to improve your putting.
Autumn Junior Golf Camp
We will be running our popular Junior Golf Camp again this Autumn between Tuesday 15th - Thursday 17th October. An introduction to golf from Newburgh's Golf Pro Robbie Stewart including Swing, Chipping and putting. Snacks and juice provided, ages 8 and up. Contact Robbie on newburghlinks@tgigolf.com
End
of
of
Season
The Jack McRobbie Memorial Open
The Jack McRobbie Memorial Open was held on 1 September.
T
he McRobbie family expressed their appreciation that the club are continuing to honour Jack’s memory and they will be providing a tankard for the winner of the Trophy to be presented at the Prize-giving in October. The weather was kind to us and the visitors were very complimentary about the improvements to the course and the condition of the greens. The prize winners are listed below:
Scratch (Men & Women)
1ST CHRIS GILBERT (CB) 69
2ND JONATHAN DOBSON (MURCAR) 74
3RD KEITH WATSON (NEWBURGH) 76 BIH
H/Cap Men Division 1
1st MATTHEW MACAULEY (MACH) NETT 70 BIH
2ND BRIAN DOCHERTY (NEWBURGH) NETT 70
3RD JOSEPH DUNCAN (RA) NETT 71 BIH
H/Cap Men Division 2
1st DANE DAVIDSON (CB) NETT 65
2ND PAUL MCQUILTER (NEWMACHAR) NETT 72
3RD IAN MUNDIE (NEWBURGH) NETT 73 BIH
H/Cap Women
1st BRENDA OXFORD ( KENDLESHIRE) NETT 74
2ND KIM TOPPING (NEWBURGH) NETT 76 BIH
Longest Drive@18 SEAN LOW (TURRIFF) Nearest Pin@16 LES SIMPSON (NEWBURGH)
Winner of Jack McRobbie Memorial Trophy (Best Local Nett) BRIAN DOCHERTY
Donald Wood Trophy
O
n the 24th August the club held the first Donald Wood Trophy Competition, in memory of the late Donald Wood. This will be a regular fixture on our calendar going forward. The competition is open to all members, male and female, where the best nett score wins a wonderful trophy which was kindly donated by Donald's family.
Instead of the usual competition sweep, we placed a box on the desk asking for donations to the British Heart Foundation, a charity chosen by the family. We are delighted to have been able to give £210.20 to the charity from the collection on the day, so a huge thank you to everyone who took part.
Winter memberships at Newburgh
Our winter memberships at Newburgh Links are now available for only £229 - that's less than £10 per week!
Summer Greens | No Mats | 21st Oct - 28th March
If you sign up for the winter membership and take a full membership for 2025, we will discount your membership by £200.
Get in touch now to join: clubmanager@newburghgolfclub.co.uk
Join us on the 2nd of November for the Winter Mixed Open Stableford at Newburgh Links.
Jack Mcrobbie Memorial Open Results
Lynda Carnie
Saturday, November 23 Debut of Platform 5
Join us at OGV Taproom Newburgh for the Debut of Scotland's newest party-starting supergroup, Platform 5
The bands diverse musical background means a setlist of the biggest hits and crowd-pleasers.
With top quality female and male vocals, Platform 5 delivers a high-energy performance that makes every occasion unforgettable. Whether you’re planning a wedding celebration event or just want a lively party atmosphere, Platform 5 knows how to keep the dance floor filled all night!
BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/debut-of-platform-5-tickets
Tickets £10.00 + booking fee. Every ticket purchased will go into a prize draw to win £50 voucher & bottle of Prosecco. Drawn on the night.
Saturday, November 23
8:30 - 11:59pm
OGV Taproom Newburgh on Ythan Beach Road Ellon AB41 6BY
New Corporate Member
Donald Wood Memorial shield
Can you believe we’re into September already?
Donaldwas a long-time, well-respected member of our club who sadly passed away in May 2024. In recognition of his years of service and many friendships formed over those years our Seniors section wanted to honour his contribution to our club by way of an annual Seniors competition.
The above Shield has been purchased from Seniors funds and will be played for annually in May. A fitting tribute to a well-loved stalwart of our Seniors section.
Seniors “away” Opens
On Monday 5 August there was a strong turnout at near neighbours Ellon for their Senior Open. Derek Mulgrew took top scratch prize with an impressive 71 (+1)
7th August saw a Dirty Dozen intrepid Seniors travel North for their annual visit to Forres. Brian Thomson was the sole “winner”, bagging longest drive in the 65+ category. It was huuuge!
Buchan Seniors
The tour visited Peterhead on 1 August. Congratulations to Ian Mundie who shot 39 points to bag 2nd place in Div 1. Kevin Wright was nearest the pin at the 6th.
Heavy rain disrupted play at Inverurie on 15 August. Sufficient scores were returned before the course was closed making this a counting competition. John Stewart had the best of the Newburgh scores in Div 3 finishing runner up with 34 points. George Annand squeezed into 5th place in Div 2 with 35 points…..tough division. Well done boys in challenging conditions. After this round of the Buchan Seniors Newburgh occupy 4th spot on the prize money table with 225 points. Cruden Bay lead the way on 335 points.
Ythan Challenge
This is an annual contest between the Ellon & Newburgh Seniors sections. Played home and away the top 10 stableford scores for each side count towards the team score.
Newburgh hosted the first leg on Monday 19 August in what was extremely challenging winds, triumphing 342 to 327. Alan Wallace posted the best home score with 36 points.
The return leg the following week resulted in a comprehensive landslide for our Ellon opponents who triumphed 376 to 322, a huge 54 point winning margin on the day. Congratulations to Ellon on their resounding turnaround, taking the bragging rights for the year with a net win of 39 points. Best Newburgh score on the day was Grant Leslie on 39 points, and in doing so he reinstated the status quo of holding a lesser handicap than his friendly arch enemy, Stan Hepburn.
Seniors outing to Turriff – 21 August
42 of us took to our “small boats” and ventured North to Turriff to contest the Summer Trophy.
Fair to say the weather didn’t get the memo as it was largely wet and miserable. Congratulations to Les Simpson who again prevailed with a score of 38 points netting himself a clean sweep of our two summer outing trophies in 2024. Brian Andrew was a close 2nd on 37 points followed by Alex Smith on 36.
The team contest was won with a combined score of 105 points – very tidy – and congratulations go to Brian Docherty, Alex Smith and Jim Allan. Grant Leslie, Peter Scott and John Turnbull (pictured whilst the sun was out) were 2nd with 102 points and in 3rd place on 100 points was Les Simpson, John Fletcher and Dave Wallace.
Thoroughly enjoyable day topped off with an excellent carvery.
Peterhead Golf Club
Inter
club matches
A strong squad (editorial license) of 16 made our way to Craibstone intent on overcoming the 1-point deficit from the home leg.
Sadly, our hopes were…. Extinguished, destroyed, terminated….(there are so many adjectives available) ….when we suffered a humbling 7-1 reversal. Well done to John Finnie and Ken Johnston on securing our sole point and avoiding the whitewash. Let us just say we were tired from our efforts at Turriff the previous day.
Suitably humbled from Turriff and with intent on doing better our team of 16 travelled to Portlethen on 2 September for the reverse fixture. Again it rained. Finely balanced at 4 apiece from the home leg a good riposte ensued but sadly we fell just short. Congratulations to Portlethen on their 5 to 3 triumph in what was another close fought match. We won 1 and lost 3 with 4 games being tied. A very close thing. All enjoyed an excellent feed post match.
That brings our Interclub challenges to a close for 2024. Thoroughly enjoyable experience pitting our wits against senior members from nearby courses and we look forward to doing it all again in 2025. Thank you to everyone for giving up their time to represent our great Club.
These club matches are available to ALL of our senior members. If you fancy joining “the squad” next year you can furnish me with a few Pro V1’s… look out for emails requesting names.
NESSGA – North East Scotland Seniors Golf Association
Newburgh Links was delighted to host a NESSGA event on Thursday 29 August attended by 45 Senior players from across the Region.
N
ewburgh Links was delighted to host a NESSGA event on Thursday 29 August attended by 45 Senior players from across the Region. The following feedback was received from Association Club Secretary Bobby Baxter
“The course was presented in great condition, and we were well looked after by the Golf Professional Robbie Stewart and the Club’s catering staff. Thanks also to Newburgh member Brian Docherty for all his help with organising and hosting the event. I received a lot of positive comments about the course from our Association members, so I am delighted to pencil in this great venue for the same week next year."
It’s great to receive such feedback from visiting groups. If you would like to know more about NESSGA, including becoming a member, they have an extensive website at nessga.uk.
Hole in One!
Congratulations to Ian Adie on acing his tee shot at the par 3 5th hole in the Seniors stableford on Wednesday 4th September. A trusty 5 wood was witnessed by playing partners Alan Murray and Ben Christie.
Well done Ian.
What’s coming next?
It continues to be a busy period as the summer season draws to a close.
Our “major” competitions are all finely poised each with 2 rounds to go. John Stewart has a healthy lead in the Seniors Stableford qualifier on 140 points, 5 clear of Wullie Dyker. Stan Hepburn leads the field in the Monthly Qualifier (Net) standings on 288, 3 clear of the chasing pack of John Stewart and Brian Thomson. The scratch monthly medal standings are topped by Dave Burness on 307 8 shots clear of Brian Thomson. In our Summer “Order of merit” competition John Stewart stands clear on 26 points with Brian Thomson leading the chasing pack on 21 points. All competitions still have all to play for.
Alongside the forementioned listings, I’d like to thank our hard-working Match Secretary, Sam Boyle, who works tirelessly to ensure all our competitions are entered onto Club V1, the competitions are closed timely, and appropriate leaderboards shared with the group. Thanks again Sam and keep up the great work.
Winter is coming. And earlier today I saw on our Club Website that prices are out for our amazing Winter membership offer. |It would help boost club income if members could SHARE that post on their own socials… thank you.
As a committee we are close to finalising the Winter calendar and I expect to share this with you very soon. We will suspend the WHS from 31 October reverting to the tried and trusted “selfmanaged” handicap system expertly devised in previous years by Brian Thomson. Sam Boyle has again surpassed expectations by kindly volunteering to manage Senior handicaps throughout the winter. I expect to furnish you all with more specific detail on the handicap system in the near future.
Thank you all for your continued patience and understanding.
Dave Seniors Convener
PS And finally…..here’s a pic of Women’s number 1 Nelly Korda at the recent Women’s AIG Open at St Andrews. She was just remarking that she’s heard great things about the greens and green staff at Newburgh Links and is looking forward to playing our course…..some day!
Dave Burness Seniors Convenor
Foreground L-R: Robbie Stewart & Ian Addie.
Ian Addie
