Dear Member

It gives me enormous pride and is a great honour for me to be elected to serve as Captain of Royal Montrose Golf Club, especially in this our Bicentenary Year.

2010 is a historic year for Royal Montrose Golf Club when we celebrate our 200^th anniversary.  We owe a significant debt to our forefathers who founded the club in 1810, and were responsible during the 1800’s for not only developing the game here in Montrose, but also throughout the world in places as far apart as Australia and the USA.

Preparations for the momentous Bicentenary celebrations have been ongoing for two years.  Created by our Bicentenary Convener Harry Faulkner and with the assistance of a number of members I am delighted to lead a wide and varied programme of both golfing and social events which have generously been sponsored by a variety of both local and national businesses.

Captain Ian A Harley launched the Bicentenary with a Press launch on Thursday 3rd December 2009 when many members dressed up in period costume to tee off the celebrations.  The undoubted “money shot” being Alasdair Ramsay in his “old Tom Morris” look alike pose.

On the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay glasses were raised to toast the founding members of the club and officially start the 200^th anniversary year with the raising of the new Bicentenary Flag watched by members of Royal Montrose and neighbouring golf clubs who first footed the club.

On 23^rd January over 80 members and guests gathered to celebrate Rabbie Burns with a Burns supper organised by past captain Sandy Jessop.  The address to the haggis was conducted by Ken Fairweather and the immortal memory by Dr Jimmy Thomson while the toast to the lasses was made by Len McAllister and a more than competent reply in rhyme from Claire Burnett.

On 14^th February over 50 members gathered in period costume and using hickory shafted clubs played under 1830 rules, re-enacting the game of golf as it was played over 200 years ago.  This event was postponed from 2^nd January due to bad weather.  Following a hotly contested competition winners were Rick Brown & Murray Smith, with past captain John Anderson and Ashley Alston winning the best dressed period costume competition.

On  Friday 11th February Harry Faulkner and Richard Phinney launched our new Royal Montrose Golf Club history “A Golden Tyme Indeid”, which is the fruits of their hard work over the past two years and is proving a very interesting and informative read, and they both have to be congratulated on the quality of the publication

Our Schools project was launched by Harry Faulkner on Tuesday 16^th February to help rejuvenate our junior section and ultimately the future of the club, where all entrants from the six local primary schools and the academy received vouchers for a free golf lesson, and those who choose will be able to join the Royal during 2010 for free.

Over 160 members and guests attended an exciting night of dancing at our Members Bicentenary Ball on 26^th March in the Town Hall to celebrate our 200^th Anniversary.  Scottish dance music was provided by the Wayne Robertson Trio, a cabaret by Centre S.T.A.G.E. and an auction that raised over £600 towards the Bicentenary events.

On 5^th April we were delighted to host a party of twenty five Chinese visitors, who were competing in the ‘Carnoustie Country Tartan Golf Week’, to play seven holes with hickory shaft clubs dressed in period costume.  The visitors thoroughly enjoyed this unique experience, with members also dressing up to add to the atmosphere.

Harry and I were invited to the Tartan Week prize giving on Friday 9^th April in the Carnoustie Hotel where we were presented with an engraved crystal plaque by Simon Sung of Pro Simon (Shanghai) Ltd who is providing us with 200 crested polo shirts for our week of celebration players.

As advised at the AGM I had the honour of representing the club on Wednesday 7th April at a special golf day held by the Royal Household Golf Club at Windsor Castle to celebrate HRH Duke of York’s 50th birthday.  On behalf of our members I presented Peter Walter, Captain of the Royal Household Golf Club, with our new Bicentenary Shield and a signed copy of our new history “A Golden Tyme Indeid”.

After meeting and greeting with over 35 other Royal Golf Club Captains from around the UK, we played 18 holes over the Windsor Park course before retiring to the great hall in Windsor Castle where HRH Prince Andrew hosted a reception for the Royal Captains and additional guests.  It was particularly pleasing to meet a number of Royal Club Captains who are looking forward to coming to the Week of Celebration in Montrose in August/September 2010 to help us celebrate our 200th anniversary.

We are delighted that members are engaging so enthusiastically in the Bicentenary golf and social celebrations to date and we look forward with anticipation to the rest of the year’s events

Brian Ritchie
Captain

A copy of this page with associated photographs is available as a PDF file download.