CENTENARY 2007

A couple of amateur photo's!

Opening Flag Raising Ceremony.

                 CENTENARY TROPHY WINNERS

                                      Jeffery Taylor and Neil Kelly of Royal St David’s

Mr Michael Lunt, Captain of The Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

Formal Banquet:

The Following pictures and articles supplied courtesy of:

Flagraising: Captains of Royal golf clubs from around the world brought their club flags to fly high over the Royal Port Alfred golf course for the week-long centenary celebrations.

CAPTION:  Michael Lunt, club captain of the Royal and Ancient St Andrew’s Golf Club, were in Port Alfred for the RPAGC centenary last week. Here he is seen playing at the Fish River Sun course during the golfing celebrations. Photo by Jon Houzet.

 Michael Lunt’s speech

 Elbé van Heerden

 The banquet finishing off the weeklong Royal Port Alfred Golf Course centenary celebrations was a huge success with a turnout of about 450 people. Several speeches were made during the evening, but one of them will stand out in memory, with Michael Lunt, club captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in Scotland proposing a toast to the RPAGC on behalf of all the Royals that attended.

 Lunt was dressed in the traditional Royal and Ancient golfing attire, a formal red jacket and the silver queen Adelaide medal around his neck. He proposed a toast, made a joke or two and told guests about their club’s tradition to wear red jackets and the medallion around his neck.

 The wearing of red jackets comes from the age old requirement that golfers had to wear red so that members of the public could see where the players were. This still applies to a number of clubs today, including the Royal and Ancient.

 The silver medal, which Lunt wore on Friday night, stems from the time when the Royal and Ancient received its royal sanction until 1836 when King William IV, after a lot of pressure from Major Murray Belshes of Buttergash, finally consented to the club taking the name “Royal and Ancient”. “The club was then given a gold medal, which became the prize for the annual autumn tournament. Two years later Queen Adelaide became the patroness of St Andrews and gave the club a silver medal as well, for the captain,” Lunt said.

 Lunt also told of the history of the 254-year old Royal and Ancient St Andrew’s Golf Club that was started so many years ago by “twenty-two nobleman and gentleman” who drew up the first working rules of golf. Most of these rules are still in use today.

 RPAGC manager Ron van Niekerk said it was a touching moment when Lunt praised the RPAGC. “He told guests how wonderful the week was and that it was an honour to be asked to speak. He also said that he spoke on behalf of all the Royals present when he thanked us for the week’s hospitality,” said Van Niekerk. 

 “He is a very fluent and amusing speaker,” said Heather Howard who attended the dinner. “You could hear that he is a practised speaker and he was very easy to listen to.”

 The highlight of the evening was when Lunt presented The Royal and Ancient’s gift to the RPAGC as is their tradition. “The other clubs give theirs during the week,” said RPAGC club captain Noel Stötter. “St Andrews gave us a silver plate with a gold inlay of the Royal and Ancient’s insignia. It is absolutely beautiful and not something you see every day,” he said.

 The 254 year old Royal and Ancient Club of St Andrews, with its 2 400 members, is the oldest golf club in the world and is described by many as the birthplace of golf.

CAPTION:  The last rounds of the RPAGC centenary were being played on Thursday, February 22, and Friday, February 23. Two representatives from every Royal club played against each other in a Betterball Medal Competition. Here, from left to rights, is Lord Barry Neil of Wellsworth from the Royal Epping Forest Golf Club, Tully Heywood of the Royal Burgess Golfing Society of Edinburgh, with Mick Rushmere, RPAGC president, and Noel Stötter, the RPAGC men’s captain, who were representing Port Alfred. The slightly windy and cloudy weather were ideal for the last day of the centenary Cup.

 Picture:  Elbé van Heerden

Noel Stötter, RPAGC men’s captain, and his wife Joani, with some of the gifts that the other Royal clubs have given to RPAGC.

 Royals come laden with gifts

 Elbé van Heerden

 All the visiting Royal clubs gave the RPAGC a birthday gift to the centenary celebrations. “All the clubs brought something,” said Joani Stötter, the men’s captain’s wife.

 “None of them can be UITGESONDER,” Stötter said. But some shone brightly in their beauty.

 The Royal Liverpool Golf Club brought a limited edition of 25 prints by Chris Millichamp. The painting is of the golf club with a view of the clubhouse and a sand bunker on the course in front.

 Andrew Cross, their club captain, said in a letter to RAPGC: “Don’t look at the bunker too long though – you might feel your grip tighten as if you were attempting a delicate chip over it.”

 Some of the gifts were rather unusual, like the “Tappit Hen” from Royal burgess Golfing Society of Edinburgh. Said their club captain, Frank Malcolm, in a letter:  “Our gift to you is a ‘Tappit Hen’, a wine jug so called because its knob shape resembles a hen’s tuft. At the time of the founding of the Royal Burgess, Tappit Hens were widely used in Edinburgh taverns as a favoured means of dispensing the claret wine that was then – as now – popular tipple of the golfing classes.”

 The RPAGC also received a replica of the St David’s Gold Cross from the Royal St David’s Golf Club while the royal Guernsey Golf Club gave a Guernsey milk can, a familiar sight on coinage stamps and so forth which began life in 980 AD when monks from Normandy, France colonized the island of Guernsey. The can was developed to use minimum amounts of metal, but to hold maximum amounts of milk. In the earlier days was made of tin, but nowadays it’s usually made from silver, silver plate or copper and is popular as a gift.

 The Royal Epping Forest Golf Club gave RPAGC a Burridge Olde English handmade crystal bowl and Royal Ascot Golf Club brought a Waterford Crystal Vase.

 The Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club’s gift is the putting up of a cabinet where all the gifts can be displayed. The plaque going onto the cabinet is engraved with their name and the date.

 “It’s the RPAGC’s birthday and everyone brought us presents. In return we give them a birthday party and a week of golfing!” Stötter said. All the gifts are engraved with a message from the club who has given the present.