Southern shines amid gloom to take Journal ladies trophy

Sep 23 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

THE cream rose to the top in The Journal Ladies Trophy yesterday when the only single-figure handicappers in the field, Fiona Southern and Pat McIntosh, filled the top two places, despite having the worst of the weather.

The No 1 pairing in the draw, they played the first five holes at Gosforth Park Ladies Club in steady rain and, as Southern, a former county captain from the Bamburgh Castle club, put it afterwards, “the sun only came out when we were coming off the course.”

Yet although the going was inevitably heavy, the course was in good enough condition for the victor never to have to seek relief from casual water.

On coming off the course first, Southern had been far from convinced she would prevail. “I looked at my score and I though, yuk, that’s not good enough,” she said. “Nobody is more surprised than me that I have won.”

As it turned out Birtley’s Vicky Parker, the Durham heat winner, was the only one of the double figure handicappers to get within three strokes of the top two in finishing third.

The Northumberland heat winner, Bedlingtonshire’s Majorie Dickinson, was fourth.

Thanks to the generosity of event sponsors Golfing Holidays, the runner-up in the final receives a £100 voucher redeemable in any PGA professional’s shop and one of the secrets behind Southern’s victory lay in her finishing second in last year’s final at Ramside Hall.

The 2007 voucher formed the lion’s share of her expenditure on a Ping G-10 driver, which she is using to good enough effect to have gone one better this time in making off with the first prize of an overnight golf and spa treatment stay for two at De Vere Slaley Hall.

McIntosh, a former Miss Great Britain from the Tyneside club, playing off four, returned a nett 82 to finish two shots behind the 58-year-old Southern, four times the champion of the host club.

This is the first time in almost four decades Southern has not been playing her golf at both Gosforth Park and Bamburgh, having relinquished her membership at the Park last winter.

Southern, whose husband John is the retired managing director of a timber importing and saw milling company in Jarrow, returned a gross 88 on the par 75 course, a nett 80 with the reduction of her handicap of eight.

She scored 44 on each half of the course and boasted a trio of threes on her scorecard, on the par-four eighth and the par-three 5th and 14th.

At the par threes she missed each green, but, as at the par four, she chipped from off the green to leave each putt stone dead at two feet.

The Northumberland captain, Lucy Newton, told the 12-woman field at the presentation ceremony: “There were no losers here today.

“You have all first of all won your club qualifying stage to get through to the county stages and then you have all finished in the top six at the county qualifiers, whether that be Northumberland or Durham.

“So all 12 of you are all winners when you get through to the final of The Journal Ladies Trophy.”

TO contact Golfing Holidays, ring (01670) 789877, fax (01670) 789872, email sales@golfingholidays.org or visit www.golfingholidays.org

RESULTS: 80 Fiona Southern (Bamburgh Castle, 88-8); 82 Pat McIntosh (Tyneside, 86-4); 85 Vicky Parker (Birtley, 105-20); 87 Marjorie Dickinson (Bedlingtonshire, 102-15); 88 Ruth Carey (Close House, 111-23); 90 Doreen Curry (Wearside, 111-21); 91 Chris Lees (Bellingham, 109-18); 93 Susan Nicholson (Ryton, 113-20); 94 Cas Smith (Durham City 111-17), Margaret Southworth (Consett 122-28); 95 Norma Thompson (Alnwick 115-20); 96 Mandy Smith (Morpeth, 116-20).