July 13 and 14, 2019. One amazing weekend in the life of this great little golf club. Elsewhere, Djokovic and Federer played one of the greatest Wimbledon finals of all time; England’s cricketers won the World Cup in thrilling fashion, and Lewis Hamilton drove his way into the British Grand Prix record books. But eclipsing all of this, IGC turned out in record numbers to say a fond farewell to former Club Secretary Mark Adams. A day later, an IGC team of 20 golfers strong and true, withstood the might of Royal Waterloo, and turned-in a famous 12-8 victory.
 
IGC’s summer-season competitions are now well into their stride. With 23 Summer Cup events out of 31 now played, the leaderboard sees Suzanne Butler and Barry McAlpine jostling for top spot, with Richard Ivens and Per Aidemark also in close striking distance. The overall result is based on your best six cards. So with eight events still to go, it really is a case of anyone’s trophy to win. 
 
The much-loved (but could be better attended!) Royal Trophy is now at its halfway point … five events gone, six to go. Again it’s anybody’s trophy to win. With the overall result based on your best four cards, we currently have three players who have submitted three cards … which sees Richard Ginder in the lead (net +17 vs par), followed by Nigel Butler (+23) and Paul Meersman (+26).
 
WORTHY WINNERS: of recent IGC competitions:
 
Accidentally omitted from Issue 5 of newFairway News, we are pleased to make amends and report the following June event:

• Sun June 23 (Five Nations Méan) summer cup: First-time IGC winner Simon Coy (35 pts) pipped Barry McAlpine on countback; third was Gregg Hawson (31 pts) … also making headlines on this day was former test cricketer Brighton Watambwa who produced an ace at the plunging downhill par-3 13th … alas, with his provisional ball! The ever-ruthless golfing Gods then contrived to allow the first ball to be found, and Brighton eventually left the green with a triple-bogey six!

Returning to July events, we further note:

• Sat July 6 (Mont Garni) summer cup: First: Richard Ivens (40 pts); runner-up Per Aidemark (38 pts); third was Alastair Fyfe (35 pts) … excellent round from Richard on a balmy day in Mons … and good to see Barry Stamps making a late first-appearance of the year.
• Sun July 7 (Naxhelet): First: Marco Attilio (38 pts); runner-up Suzanne Butler (37 pts); third was Richard Ivens (33 pts) … enjoying a summer break in Belgium from Singapore, Marco showed that even mighty Naxhelet can be conquered.
• Sat July 13 (Empereur) Mark Adam’s Farewell: in first place was the team of: Paul Meersman, Adrian O’Sullivan & Daniel Troncone (112 pts), on countback from runners-up Nick Compton, Adrian Cunningham & Alvaro Lopez Garcia; third was Suzanne Butler, John Hughes & Barry McAlpine (103 pts). In the individual event … first place went to Paul Meersman (43 pts … just back from two weeks of solid golf in Scotland); runner-up was Alvaro Lopez Garcia (42 pts) and third was David Winter (39 pts) … the excellent field of 39 players enjoyed Mark’s very generous prize table, plenty of speeches and more of Nick Compton’s seemingly bottomless reservoir of anecdotes.
• Sun July 14 (Royal Waterloo) inter-club match: following defeat in 2018, IGC hit back with a momentous victory against the might of Royal Waterloo. The final score of 12 pts to 8, reflected some hard fought but amicably played matches. Notable amongst them was Barry McAlpine & Mark Adams’ victory against two seriously low handicap golfers. And then there was Richard Ivens and the “ringer from Manila!” … but more on that in Parish Notices (below).
• Fri July 19 (Royal Latem): Royal Trophy: winner Suzanne Butler (net +1 vs par); runner-up Richard Ginder (net +4) on countback from Nigel Butler. Summer Cup: best stableford points tally was Suzanne Butler (35 pts), with Nigel Butler and Richard Ginder both putting in cards worth 32 pts … lovely Latem, as horticulturally garden-like as ever.
• Sat July 20 (Rigenée) summer cup: First: Andy Sisk (42 pts, with a 5-point eagle at 17 and a blob at 13!); runner-up Barry McAlpine (33 pts), on countback from Simon Coy, on countback from Nigel Butler, on countback from Carlo Presenti … well done Andy … streets ahead of the field … as was Irishman Shane Lowry later in the day at Royal Portrush.

UPCOMING EVENTS for your diary: …. plenty more fixtures in addition to these: 

• Sat July 27 (Empereur) inter-club match: the annual triangular “clubs sans terrain” fixture against EU and MUGS. In each flight, on each hole, the IGC, EU and MUGS players “split” six points, based on their respective net scores. Always a convivial match!
• Sat Aug 3 (Rinkven) summer cup: our second visit to this much revered course north of Antwerp … and home club of the Ginders.
• Sat Aug 10 (The National) summer cup: another second visit of the season … this time an early 8am start at “The National”.
• Thur Aug 15 (Falnuée) inter-club match: our assumption (get it?) is that we and Falnuée will generate sufficient numbers on this Belgian public holiday, and rekindle a historic fixture against this ever-popular club … with it’s wonderfully historic clubhouse. 

PARISH NOTICES: what the world’s golf press is talking about: 

• Overseas members: following their respective departures from Belgium’s shores, IGC is delighted that several former “full” members, opt to pay the unbelievably modest €50 “overseas” member annual fee.
  –  although the benefits of overseas membership are too numerous to mention(!), amongst them is the opportunity to play in IGC competitions on return visits to Belgium. 2019 has seen several distinguished overseas members briefly “return to the fold” … 
  –  Mark & Sarah James (visiting from Singapore), and Debbie & Syd Wright (from deepest Surrey) put in appearances at this year’s Spring Stay&Play. Also taking a break from the tropical heat of Singapore, Marco Attilio played a few times with us in July, notching-up a winning round at Naxhelet. And who will forget Roland Schissau (visiting from the Philippines) partnering with Richard Ivens, to beat Royal Waterloo’s leadership pairing of Denis Heskin & Jim Wallace. In the process Roland acquired the thoroughly undeserved title of “the ringer from Manila”!
• The Rules, again! … regarding a ball that is lost or goes OOB ( … it’s come up a few times recently). In such cases, you can apply the IGC “local rule” that provides an alternative to the “stroke and distance” rule. With a two-shot penalty you can drop in the “vicinity” of where your ball was lost/went OOB. In the “vicinity” means a point no nearer the hole, between the point where you think your ball was lost/went OOB, and a point two club lengths into the fairway. In the case of a lost ball, you can also drop two clubs on the other side of where you think it was lost (i.e. away from the fairway).
  –  If you opt to hit a provisional ball, and you cannot find your first ball, or it is OOB, then your provisional ball becomes the ball in play. If your provisional ball is also lost/goes OOB, you can drop “in the vicinity” of where it was lost/went OOB, but with the two-shot penalty now applying to the provisional ball (i.e. you are now playing six if the provisional ball was hit from the tee). Alles klaar!

IGC COMMITTEE MEETING: (July 9)
At the fourth IGC Committee meeting of the year, we welcomed former Secretary Mark Adams for the first part of the meeting, and were delighted to see Rodolphe in fine fettle … having just come out of the operating theatre after a full hip replacement.

• the meeting resolved to explore the cost and possibilities of a South Wales Stay&Play in 2020, based at the impressive Celtic Manor Resort.
• provisionally scheduled interclub matches were confirmed against EU/MUGS (July 27, at Empereur); Falnuée (Aug 15), The National (Sept 28) and NATO (Oct 6, at Pierpont). 
• Mark Adams led a session in which he passed on his experiences and lessons learnt from his time as IGC’s Secretary.
• IGC’s membership now stands at 125, which includes 15 overseas members. Andy Sisk confirmed that further membership enquiries were in the pipeline. 
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