‘WE’VE CATALOGUED EVERY ROUND OF GOLF WE’VE EVER PLAYED’
Newcastle and Northern Dental Surgeons Golf Society are celebrating their centenary anniversary this year – and they’ve got the scores and stories from more than 750 fixtures to prove it!
When Mr H.P. Friend and his 17 colleagues gathered for a round of golf at the City of Newcastle course on March 16, 1923, little could they have imagined that the Newcastle and Northern Dental Surgeons Golf Society would still be in existence 100 years later.
Every single round ever played has been documented and passed down through generations of members. There are leather-bound ledgers which detail the meals they ate, the formats they played, and how much they tipped the staff. Perhaps the most poignant part is the return after WWII and the list of members ‘no longer with us’.
Nowadays, though, everything is catalogued digitally. Where the fixtures were once relayed through letters, now they are communicated on Whatsapp by the secretary. At the end of every year the results are then printed out and placed in a dedicated album for posterity.
“I would guess we’re at over 750 fixtures now” says David Walton, Centenary Committee Chairman. “We try to visit a new course or what you might call a ‘big course’ every year, but most of our events are sponsored by local businesses.
“We also have trophies for every fixture and some of them date back to the start of the Society. They are fairly battered old things, so once the winner has a picture taken with it, we put it back in the box just to preserve it.”
The group currently meet up eight to 10 times a year, playing 36 holes at courses such as the Colt and Filly at Close House, Rockliffe Hall and Goswick. Permanent fixtures include a match against a group of doctors which predates WWII and an annual away trip. This year they’re off to Portugal, their first foreign outing since 2015.
The society used to be drawn from current and retired dentists, but today’s membership is more varied and covers a multitude of professions, such as a car dealer, a frontman in a local band, and a PA to a bishop. Walton estimates that they’ve got close to 60 golfers signed up, with ages ranging from late 20s to early 70s.
They have recently relaxed the rules to admit female members, but they still remain tied to older traditions, such as wearing a jacket and tie for dinner and black tie for the end-of-year AGM. For their centenary match at Newbiggin Golf Club in Newcastle upon Tyne in March, they even turned up in period-style clothing and used hickory clubs on one of the holes.
“Tradition is a really strong theme of the society,” says Walton. “We did wonder whether some of the stuff might shoo our newer and younger members out of the door, but they’ve really embraced it.
“Most people, when they join the society, they end up staying for a long time and I think that’s because we try not to take ourselves too seriously.
“In 2018, we introduced the ‘Shirt of Shame’, which has varied from the truly ghastly to something quite desirable. This year the Sunderlandsupporting fixtures secretary has set the bar for not coming last at an all-time high with his red-andwhite-stripe number, given the vast majority of us are Newcastle fans through and through!”