Clinton clinches final place in California

We recently returned to the stunning Maderas Golf Club in San Diego for the annual Virgin Atlantic Swingers US day. The event saw a mix of US, UK and ROW Swingers come together for a fun day of golf in the Californian sunshine. The hot favourite was South African Clinton Heap who in a practice round the day prior shot 39pts and was looking very comfortable with his game. It was great to see so many of the guests arrive a day early, play 18 holes and meet up for dinner, which shows the true essence of what Flying Club Swingers is all about. On the day itself, we were blessed with clear blue skies and a gentle breeze making conditions pretty much perfect as our guests arrived to their bumper packed exclusive US goody bag. Out on the course, our Swingers were soon finding out that the course, although not long, was certainly no push over. It was in superb condition, with immaculate fairways and fast running greens proving tricky. In the Nearest the Pin competiiton, few hit the green, and although Terry Butrym was arguably closest to what was a very tough pin placement, he was just off the green, leaving his playing partner and former ROW Captain Chris Cattran to gleefully take the prize! In the Longest Drive competition, Steve Jones won with a monster hit on the spectacular par 5 14th hole.

In the Team Stableford competition, the international threeball of South Africans Alistair Steele and Clinton Heap and Welshman Andrew Davies, came second with a total of 87 points winning some Trendy Golf merchandise. But, it was the Brian O'Connor, Robert Evans, Paul Segal and John O'Brien team who finished top with 89pts each winning a Cleveland hybrid. In the individual competition, our prizes went down to seventh place, with Paul Segal winning a pair of Dirty Dog sunglasses with 32 points. Robert Evans finished on 33pts to take sixth place to win some clothing from Trendy Golf. In fifth place, local South African and Torrey Pines member Alistair Steele, who also shot 33pts, won prizes from Trendy Golf and Dirty Dog. In fourth place was David Hansma, also with 33pts, who won a Cleveland RTX-3 wedge and a pair of Dirty Dog sunglasses. The top three all came in with impressive scores. In third place was South African Clinton Heap who had made the longest journey over to the event. Clinton shot 36pts winning a SkyCaddie GPS watch, whilst Terry Butrym shot 37pts to win a Srixon stand bag. Top of the pile however was multi finalist Brian O'Connor who shot 42pts to win the Stewart Golf R1 push trolley. Brian however, was unable to accept the main prize this year of a place in the S14 Swingers Final at Streamsong in Florida. As Clinton Heap was the next player with the necessary qualifying flights, we can confirm that our first ROW team member for S14 is indeed Clinton. Congratulations and we look forward to seeing you attempt to defend the Pedlar Trophy you helped team ROW win at Sun City last year. A big thank you to all our Swingers who travelled to San Diego to spend the day with us, especially our UK and SA contingent of Terry Woods, Leon Loberman and Clinton Heap. We appreciate all your amazing support, as we do the sponsors who helped provide an amazing goody bag gifts and prizes - thank you Srixon, Cleveland Golf, Trendy Golf, Hertz, Stewart Golf, Level 4, Dirty Dog, Gleneagles and SkyCaddie.