UK (Cheshire) Trip - Friday 18th to Monday 21st June 2021
Nigel Cooper and Mark Wray are organising this trip. Arrangements (originally planned in 2020) have been updated slightly due to the Pandemic Roadmap schedule.
Outline Itinerary & Costs
Golf
We will be playing four rounds of golf at these quality courses:
| Friday 18th | 1st tee time -13:00 | Delamere Forest |
| Saturday 19th | 1st tee time - 11:12 | Portal Premier |
| Sunday 20th | 1st tee time - 09:36 | Portal Championship |
| Monday 21st | 1st tee time - 11:00 | Wilmslow |
Accommodation, Rooming and Transport Arrangements
We will have 3 nights on a DB&B basis at the Macdonald Portal Hotel, Tarporley, Cheshire. We have arranged 14 single-occupancy bedrooms and 5 twin rooms, satisfying the requests made by members and the hotel's room availability.
Please make your own arrangements for transport, taking account of the latest pandemic rules for sharing cars.
Package & Buggies
The cost of the trip, including the golf, twin-bed accommodation, breakfast, dinner on all three evenings, two lunches (at Delamere Forest on the first day and Wilmslow on the last day), prizes and a commemorative team gift, is £475, with a £25 per night single room supplement making the total £550.
A £75 deposit was paid, followed by the balance by the end of April 2021.
Please note that transport and drinks are extra.
No buggies have been arranged so far, and are likely to be 'single use'. If anyone does require a buggy for any of the four courses please advise Mark Wray who will try to arrange.
Order of Play, Playing Handicaps and Results on your smartphone
As we have done in the previous three UK trips, details of the latest position of the golf competitions will be available during the trip on a website designed for your smartphone.
Bookmark this specially-designed Cheshire Trip Website (click on the image below to get the link).
Competitions & Teams
Competition Formats & Handicaps
Competitions and prizes will follow the same format as enjoyed successfully in Scotland in 2019:
| Competitions | Prizes |
| 4 x daily Stableford competitions | 1st place -
£30; 2nd - £20; 3rd - £10 & wine for nearest the pin |
| Trip Individual competition | 1st place - £30; 2nd - £20; 3rd - £10 |
| Trip Team competition | £20 to each member of the winning team |
| Virtual knockout competition | 1st place - £30; 2nd - £20; 3rd - £10 |
| Usual sweepstakes | Details to follow (Covid rules to apply) |
Players will play off 95% of their Course Handicap (regular HGS Handicap Adjustments do not apply).
However, between each round, handicaps will be adjusted by -2 for the winner of the last round and -1 for 2nd place. This is slightly less severe than in 2019 as we anticipate that the new WHS will generate more representative handicaps for this trip.
Team Selections and Order of Play
4 teams of 6 players have been selected to reflect and support the pandemic requirements for people to stay in groups of 6 indoors for meals, drinks and (where applicable) shared rooms etc. Therefore this year there will be no handicap seeding.
| Team: | PFIZER | |
| Mike Roberts | Dom Rawcliffe | Darren Priest |
| Rob Holliday | Martin Gaunt | Paul Sherwood |
| Team: | MODERNA | |
| Brian Williams | Sean Hutton | Tim Axe |
| Nigel Cooper | Max Hopkins | Maurice Jones |
| Team: | ASTRAZENECA | |
| Ken Mackay | Mark Wray | Peter Watson 2 |
| Peter Bollands | Keith Nicholson | Kevin Herbert |
| Team: | NOVAVAX | |
| Lance Porter | Trevor Jones | Richard Bramall |
| John Gill | Tony Fletcher | Alistair Babbington |
We have retained the pre-generated order of play format introduced in 2019 which guarantees that no-one plays with another member more than once over the 4 rounds, ensuring you will get to play golf with 12 of the 18 members in the other teams during the trip.
There are no team captains this year to assist with social distancing. Instead team orders for round 1 and the virtual knockout draw were selected pre-trip by lottery.