As reports and articles in this publication will attest, in many ways 2005 has really been a great year for our Club. It is a great pity that the dams project, which promised to be the cherry on top, has had a setback.

Firstly we record our thanks and appreciation to Santam for their continued support of our Club Day. Their sponsorship goes back to 1974 when the competition was first launched and has certainly played a major role in ensuring that it has become our premier event of the year.

The qualifying score was a record 48 points and resulted in some of our highly competitive teams not qualifying! Congratulations to Mark Kalil, Vince Shahim, David Joseph and Ali Valenti for their win with an impressive 98 points in fairly gusty conditions. The best dressed team, under the advice of one of their wives I believe, went to Rob Lawson, Gavin White, Conrad Botha and Colin van der Meulen.

A feature of the day was the high percentage, of “young” players, well over 50%, who qualified to play on the day, as well as the number who entered into the spirit of the occasion and dressed as teams. Despite a lack of rain Alan Fieldgate and Jackie Sekatane produced a wonderful course to play on.

Pierre Roux, who represented Santam, was most generous in complimenting the club for the fantastic spirit that was so evident as well as the impressive organisation of the event. Alan Burgess must also be mentioned for all that he does behind the scenes – greatly appreciated Alan.

Our new club constitution allows for the presentation of “The Wanderers Golf Club Colours” and the Club Day prize-giving was used to acknowledge our first group of recipients. Those present were amazed at the recipients’ high level of commitment to the Wanderers as well as their individual achievements either as players and/or as managers and administrators. Unfortunately space precludes us from including their impressive golfing CV’s in this publication.

A dozen awards have been agreed upon but only eight recipients were able to attend the function - the remaining awards are to be made at the Club Championships. Congratulations go to Graham Crosson, Mike Roe, Sean Hanley, Eric Sandstrom, Jimmy Littlewood, Andy Ostle, Ian Moncur and Steve Cullen on being awarded their Colours.

Congratulations to the Ladies scratch league team which won their league. Our handicap team did particularly well finishing just half a point behind the eventual winners but did us proud and we congratulate them. As reported previously our first and second scratch league teams did not have a particularly successful season with the second team losing their position in the premier league, the third team finishing in the top quarter and our newly entered fourth team winning their league. Thanks to all players as well as managers for their efforts. We intend introducing a new approach to our 2006 season and request all interested in playing league, be it scratch league, handicap league, mid amateur (over 35) league to please contact Lenn at the Proshop, Ian Finlay or myself sooner rather than later to assist with our planning. I hope the competitive group of young players at Club Day will make themselves available.

Speaking about talent, special mention must be made of three great club members who have been holding the Wanderers flag high over the past few months. Firstly Ian Moncur, who has represented Central Gauteng seniors every year since 1998 bar one, has led the stroke averages in South African “Seniors” and as a result has been awarded his South African Colours!

Steve Cullen, too, has had an incredible year which included winning both the KwaZulu-Natal and North West Province Senior Championships, going on to convincingly to win the South African Senior Amateur Championships and representing South Africa in the Senior side against Austria.

The same can be said about Norman Raad who represented South Africa at the end of October after playing wonderful golf for the past few years. Norman has been unbeaten in scratch league for a good few seasons and is captain of our first team as well as the Gauteng side. This year he led his team to victory at the interprovincial with his final game being the decider! Andy Ostle managed the victorious Gauteng side and rumour has it that the acceptance speeches from Norman and Andy had a distinct Wanderers flavour!

It is appropriate that we commend the many who do so much for our club behind the scenes, from the sponsorship of the caddies to assistance with the juniors and school players, the SAMS Captains, seniors committee, Wednesday school organisers, league players, managers and captains, sponsors and the ladies committee – you all make the Wanderers the great club that it is.