Castletown Golf Links and the Palace Hotel and Casino hosted a golf day and dinner to celebrate St Patrick’s Day on Thursday 17 March and in aid of the charity Oskar’s Dreams which supports Rebecca House, the children’s Hospice. Oskar’s Dreams is the chosen charity of the year for 2011 by Steve McGowan the captain of Castletown Golf Club and it was Steve who organised the event. Both the golf day and dinner were very well supported by the Isle of Man community and guests had also travelled from Scotland, Ireland and England to participate. There were 26 golf teams competing for the prizes and bragging rights and it was played in glorious weather for this time of year. Castletown Golf Links was really looking at its majestic best and good old St Patrick had even arranged for the course to be watered in the morning. In 3rd place were the very talented team of Phil Games, Gordon Drake, Helen Corlett and Dick Cochrane, the runners-up and fuelled by a few pints of Guinness each before the golf, were Steve McGowan, Eamon McGowan, Peter Walsh and Tony Paras, but the team that excelled on the day to grab 1st place were the Riley’s Team consisting of Martyn Riley, George Ferguson, Roy Garnett and Jimmy Sharples with a fantastic AM-AM score of 95. Martyn Riley gave an impressive speech thanking all those involved with the event, but unfortunately there was no mention in his speech of any discounts being given at Eden Park Garden Centre to celebrate his team winning!
Special thanks go to Graham Ferguson Lacey for giving us the courtesy of the Castletown Golf Course and thanks also to the club professional Andy Patterson for his valuable assistance and everyone else who helped on the day. Most of the golfers and quite a few more – there were 213 for dinner – then moved to the Palace Hotel for the evening dinner and dance which naturally had an Irish theme. Guests were entertained to some exhilarating Irish Dancing by the brilliant team from the Western School of Dance and a novelty act of giant Irish Leprechaun’s who shall remain nameless for fear of adverse publicity. Live music, plus plenty of Guinness made sure everyone enjoyed themselves to the early hours of the morning. There was a charity auction and raffle and with the combination of the golf and dinner events the total raised for Oskar’s Dreams was an incredible ?40,000. It really is an astonishing amount raised from one event and Steve McGowan would like to thank everyone for participating, those who very kindly donated raffle prizes and auction items, those who bid very generously for the auction items, everyone who helped with the admin and organisation before and on the night and final thanks to the Palace Hotel staff for the wonderful support at the Golf club and at the Hotel.
-Ends-
Friday 25th, March 2011 09:10pm.
