GOLF ACADEMY

The school’s golf academy continues to flourish. Our resident professional, Stuart Hemmings, is now giving weekly tuition to about thirty boys and girls of all abilities.

Our aim is two-fold:
                   1) to have the best golfing facilities of any independent school in the country. In so doing we will have a unique facility that can attract both day and boarding pupils to the school.
                   2) to develop golf in the school as a main-line sport ranking along side rugby and cricket. Stuart has ambitious plans to lift the quality of golf at St. Bees so that we may compete against the very best independent schools in the country. Our success against Sedbergh in June 2010 (2 matches to 1) was a major boost to the development of golf at St Bees.

In the last Bulletin I wrote about the new Golf Studio behind School House. This is proving to be a wonderful and unique facility for the school. But to add to that, the school now has the Tom Fletcher Extensive Short Game area down at the golf course, and work is just being completed on the Costeloe Chipping and Putting Green behind the studio. This is a huge, two-tiered green with several bunkers and pitching areas built round it. To have such a facility in the very heart of the school is fantastic and our thanks must go the the Costeloe family for their generous contribution which allowed this putting green to be built.

I also reported about the setting up of the St. Bees School Golf Foundation. Michael Coffey and I, as trustees, are now very keen to attract donations, whether they be one-off or regular, annual donations to the Golf Foundation to allow us to award bursaries to promising golfers whose families would otherwise struggle to afford the school fees. Your support in this is vital.

Finally, it is very important to have good golfers leave the school to play their part in upholding the school's reputation in such prestigious tournaments as the Halford Hewitt and Queen Elizabeth Coronation Schools Trophy. We need to be collecting silverware.

Matthew Rigby