Charities received an estimated £18,000 from the seventh annual Swing for Sammy golf day at Muswell Hill Golf Club in north London last week, boosting the total raised by the event to around £111,000.
Charities received an estimated £18,000 from the seventh annual Swing for Sammy golf day at Muswell Hill Golf Club in north London last week, boosting the total raised by the event since it began in 2008 to around £111,000.
The day is staged in memory and honour of Samantha Trow (nee St John), a teacher at Brooklands primary school in nearby East Finchley, who died, aged 26, of bowel cancer in February 2008.
Once again, the principal beneficiary was Cancer Research UK, but donations were also made to St Mark's Hospital Foundation in Northwick Park, the Royal Marsden Hospital, Hospice in the Weald near Tunbridge Wells and North London Hospice.
Co-organiser Ben Trow, Sam’s husband, said: "This is a fantastic result, yet again, for a small suburban golf club. We raised around £93,000 from the first six years of Swing for Sammy and to have maintained that rate yet again is absolutely exceptional. Everyone involved, especially the members, staff and friends of Muswell Hill GC, should be extremely proud of themselves. Many thanks are also due to all our backers - from the golf industry, from local businesses, numerous golf clubs, both local and farther afield, and many private individuals. This proves that where the battle against cancer is concerned, we really are all in it together."
More than half the 38 fourball teams that took part won prizes on the day, headed by Muswell Hill member Dave Moore and three of his work colleagues. Their score of 86 points was matched by four more club members, all with the surname of Jones - Julian, Tim, Graeme and David - who finished second on a countback.
Muswell Hill head professional David Wilton provided Moore's team with a Titleist golf bag each from his shop, and each of the Joneses with a Titleist wedge. Third place, on 85 points, went to a line-up assembled by another MHGC member, Micky Bannon, and their prize was four shirts from luxury Italian apparel company Chervo.
Ben Trow's father Paul, one of the organisers and also the current captain of Muswell Hill, sported a garish pair of blue and white culottes on the day - not as a bet, but to promote another of the team prizes, from 'alternative' apparel company Royal & Awesome.
Paul said: "I'm not really known for my sartorial elegance, nor will I be after today in all probability. But for such a good cause in memory of a much-loved and treasured member of our family, I'm prepared to cut a dash beyond the norm."
