Members of the British Golf Industry Association teed off to raise £24,000 for the Golf Foundation, at the BGIA golf day and dinner, held at Frilford Heath Golf Club, near Oxford, 11-12 April
This was the third annual golf day hosted by the British golf industry, with all the focus on having fun on the course while raising valuable funds for the Golf Foundation – the junior golf charity that is committed to helping introduce more youngsters to the game and maintaining that early interest as they develop.
Frilford Heath kindly offered the use of its facilities and the Red Course, one of the prettiest and most challenging heathland courses anywhere in golf, was the setting as 22 teams of four competed: teams coming from the largest golf club manufacturers in the world to the smaller private and family firms that all play a vital role in the British golf trade.
Around 100 industry personnel sat down to a pre-tournament dinner, sponsored by publishers EMAP, helping to create unity among BGIA members while starting the ball rolling in the fundraising effort of the event. A total of £4,600 was raised in the charity auction as everything from signed flags from The Masters in Augusta, to gold discs from pop stars, came under the hammer. The fundraising continued the following day with a raffle and an on-course charity challenge that both helped to raise a further £1,000.
Mike Round, chief executive of the Golf Foundation, said, “We would like to sincerely thank all the members of the BGIA for this wonderful fundraising effort and the great organisation of this event. All the money raised will be going to strong initiatives to help junior golf.”
Mike Round joined chairman of the BGIA Marcus Illingworth in thanking Frilford Heath for the opportunity to use the facilities of the famous club to stage the successful day; Illingworth describing it as a “wonderful occasion for the trade”.
The victorious team was True Temper, which edged out Srixon (second) and Callaway (third) in a card play-off, while Fredrik Lindgren from the European Tour won the longest drive and Nike’s John Watchorn won nearest the pin.
Spokesman for True Temper David McCarthy said, “The important thing about these events is to have fun while helping a good cause and we wouldn‘t have been able to do this without the excellent co-operation from Frilford Heath and the warm spirit shown by all involved.”
Apart from EMAP’s sponsorship of the dinner, True Temper sponsored the longest drive, ANC parcels hosted the charity challenge to hit the difficult fourth green in one shot and SGB magazine sponsored ‘nearest the pin‘ on the ninth hole.
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