Global field at Maderas

This year's Virgin Atlantic US day took place at the superb Maderas Golf Club in San Diego. With a course in perfect condition, especially given the current drought situation, and the expected Californian weather to match, our Flying Club Swingers experienced a memorable day of golf. What makes these days so special is not only the opportunity to play superb courses, but also the chance to catch up with friends and make new friends from around the world.

We had Swingers flying in from the UK and South Africa, together with Swingers travelling from all over the United States making the day even more special. It was great to welcome a few new Swingers and some we haven't seen for a very long time, including South African Alistair Steele, a former Season 5 finalist making his first appearance in 8 years, not long enough ago for us to forget the bus incident though Alistair!

Alistair was in fact our first winner of the day taking home Closest to the Pin on Hole 7 with a shot to within just a few inches. Longest Drive went to an Englishman living in California, Stephen Jones, a truly massive drive on Hole 14.

In the Team Stableford event, we saw a score which we have not seen in nearly 20 years of running golf days! Congratulations to Stephen Hall, Rob Evans, Rob Lewis and Brian O'Connor on an incredible score of 100pts!

With so many great prizes from our sponsors, we were able to award prizes down to 8th place, which was good news for the ever-popular Clinton Heap who travelled across from South Africa, just for this event. Clint finished with 35pts, taking 8th place on a countback.

In 7th place was Stephen Jones with 38pts, whilst another Englishman who travelled all the way from the UK to play, Terry Woods, took 6th place with 39pts - a score which will no doubt help his climax to the Swingers season. 5th place went to local Swinger Sanford Chen with 40pts, whilst another local Stephen Hall bagged 4th spot with 41pts.

The top 3 clearly played some incredible golf. Special mention to Alistair Steele, who battled a hangover, to record one of the rounds of his life - 43pts off a course handicap of 6 - well done Alistair!The runners up spot went to another of our UK Swingers who came over for the day, Jurgen Schwabe, and we bet he's glad as his 45pts has now put him in prime contention to qualify for the Final.

That just leaves our winner, Brian O'Connor, who has come back from a broken leg to record an incredible 47pts and thus qualify as our first finalist of the S13 Final. We will be seeing Brian in South Africa this September, and with just 3 weeks left of the season, it won't be long until we find out the names of his team mates!

Thank you to all our partners who made this event possible, and to all of our Swingers, many of whom travelled long distances to support the day.