30/08/2026
Captain’s Day 2026 results.
This year's Captains Day took place once again at Girvan golf course on Saturday August 29th playing from the white tees and the course was in fabulous condition, which contributed to the good scoring on the day.
Due to the continued non-provision of catering facilities within the Clubhouse we once again followed last year's successful format with the same arrangements.
We played only one round of stroke play golf on the day with an early tee time start of 09.00am and my thanks to Golf South Ayrshire for allowing the Chase GC early access to the tee times.
With three separate events, all players faced the possibility of competing with 3 different playing handicaps (front 9/back 9/18 holes) although our usual Chase GC restriction of 28 stroke handicap for 18 hole events was applied to the overall 18 hole Captains Day Quaich competition.
The front 9 was played for the Ronnie Montgomery Trophy (members) and in 3rd spot with a nett 30 (2 under par) was Ian Speirs. Runner-up with a nett 29 (3 under par) was Mark Mancini who was pipped to the top spot on countback by Peter Cavanagh, courtesy of a better last 6 holes.
The back 9 was played for the Ian Smith Trophy (members) and in 3rd spot, via countback, with a nett 29 (3 under par) was Peter Cavanagh.
Runner-up with the same score but a better last 6 holes was Brian Kelsey but our winner with an excellent nett 28, (4 under par) was Alan Muir.
We offered four chances to win Nearest the pin on holes 5/10/14/18 and on hole 5, Club Captain Gerry Cavanagh fired a 5 wood, 171yds into the cup for a hole-in-one and drinks all round back at the Chase Inn, fantastic start to the day.
On hole 10, Dougie Beattie was closest at 16ft but failed to convert for the birdie and the same fate befell Club Champion, Alan Smeeton whose effort from 19ft on hole 14 just missed.
It was left to Scott Kirk on hole 18 to hole from 5ft for his 2 (his second of the day) to complete the NTP prize winners.
Once again, we were lucky to have visitors competing in our event and thanks to William Frew (Glenluce), Dave McKay (East Kilbride) and the newly-wed Andy Gibson (Ayr Seafield) for joining us this year.
It was Dave McKay who took away the spoils with a nett 66 (2 over par) and his round contained a solitary birdie at hole 4 as he picked up prizes donated by Richard Gordon (PGA professional at Belleisle Park) and our own Jim Burnett - my thanks to them both.
The best gross score was fired by Alan Smeeton whose 67 (3 over par) contained birdies at holes 9/16/18 and not surprisingly Alan also claimed the Fred Gerrish trophy for the best gross score on the eight par 3 holes with a tally of 26 shots.
As usual the battle for the overall Captains Day Quaich was a tight affair with eight players scoring par or better on the day.
In 5th spot with a nett 62 (2 under par) was David Edgar who scored a solitary birdie at hole 5.
Just beating David on countback (bk9) and finishing 4th was Brian Kelsey who was beaten to 3rd spot by Alan Muir with a nett 61 (3 under par) which contained birdies at holes 4/16.
Runner-up with a nett 60 (4 under par) was Peter Cavanagh who must have regretted his horrendous opening hole where he started with a ten (10). It is to Peter's credit that he never gave up and came so close to winning the overall event.
Our winner this year with a fine score of nett 59 (5 under par) was Mark Mancini with his round containing birdies at holes 8/16 as he triumphed by a single stroke.
The prize presentation, with hot and cold buffet provided, took place in the lounge bar of the Chase Inn and my thanks to Elaine and Stephen Kelly for the use of the facilities and to John, Jack and Claire for their efforts behind the bar.
Finally, my thanks to everyone who attended and made the day such a success and hopefully we may do it all again next year.