PATRONS’ DAY COMPETITION
Friday, 11 October 2024
At La Moye Golf Club
2024 was a landmark year, being the Trust’s 40th anniversary. The Trust Deed was signed on 12 July 1984 by the seven original trustees, namely: Norman Rumball, Reg Jeune, Darius Keaton, Terry Lavery, Colin Sutton, Eric Baker (Captain of Royal Jersey Golf Club) and Jeremy Peel (Captain of La Moye Golf Club).
A golf competition and lunch is held annually by the Patrons of the Trust, who compete for the John Rothwell Memorial Trophy, named in honour of the late Jersey politician who was instrumental in fundraising for the statue of Harry Vardon, which stands at the entrance to Royal Jersey Golf Club. Indeed, the Rothwell trophy itself is a bronze statue of Vardon, designed by local artists Maureen Ratel.
On Sunday 15 July 1984, the Harry Vardon Trust was officially launched by the staging of a challenge match at Royal Jersey between world renowned USA professionals Jack Nicklaus and Hale Irwin, versus the British pair of Tommy Horton and Brian Barnes. Nicklaus was then the most famous golfer in the world and is still the most successful major championship winner in golf history., At that time, Tommy Horton was Head Professional at Royal Jersey. It was the British duo who ultimately won the match, but the biggest winners were the future elite young Jersey golfers who would benefit from the funding provided by the Trust.
Forty years on, the Trust Patrons duly gathered at La Moye for their annual golf day. Fittingly, an invited guest for the day was Mark Rothwell, son of the late John. Mark very kindly donated an advertising poster from the 1984 Nicklaus match, which had hung in his father’s office for many years and was auctioned at lunch for the benefit of the Trust. The winning bid came from Royal Jersey Golf Club, who will display the poster in their Vardon Bar.
Current Chairman, Andrew Keites, welcomed all the players to La Moye and thanked Mark Rothwell for his kind donation. To set the scene, the Chairman ran through a few news headlines from 1984, including:
· Torvill and Dean winning Winter Olympic Gold with their Bolero routine
· The Brighton Bombing of the Conservative party Conference
· The Miners’ Strike
· The Los Angeles Olympics
· Band Aid
· The assassination of Indira Ghandi
· PC Yvonne Fletcher killed at the Libyan Embassy in London
· Launch of the Macintosh PC
· Virgin Atlantic’s maiden flight
· Seve Ballesteros winning The Open at St Andrews
· France winning Euro 84
· Frankie Goes to Hollywood
· The release of ‘Terminator’ starring Arnold Schwartzenegger
With reference to 40 years of the Trust, Keites summed up by saying, “We can look back with pride on our work and look forward to helping future golfing talent to emerge.”
The winner of the golf day was past La Moye Captain, Dennis Lavin with 33 points. 2nd was current Royal Jersey Captain, Howard Cooper with 31. Chris Huelin (31 points) was 3rd and Andrew Keites (also 31) came 4th.