Ken and Terry set highest standard

Jan 26 2008 by Mel Booth, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

MANY are the momentous names to have played in the colours of Meltham, 100 years old this year, and whose fairways have been trodden by famous Open champions.

High on the list of luminaries is Ken Greenhalgh, a scratch player who became the second winner of the Halifax, Huddersfield Union championship which had been inaugurated in 1947.

And, in 1957, he became the first from Meltham to serve as Union president.

Son of a past captain and president, Ken joined Meltham as an 11-year-old in 1927.

He reached the semi-finals of the Yorkshire Amateur championship at Sand Moor in 1948 and from that year to 1952 represented Yorkshire, winning 14 and halving one of his 20 matches.

Captain at Meltham in 1950 and club president in 1977, he also was a member at Fixby and Moortown.

Terry Garner is another Union champion who has served as club captain and president.

A British Boys international in 1948, he was Union champion in 1959.

He represented the RAF in 1949 and 1950.

He held a handicap of one for 25 years and in 1962 scored a round of 65 playing off that handicap.

A winner of many trophies at Meltham, he was a member of the Union team for 22 years from 1953.

John Reynolds, son of a founder member of the club, was a scratch player who as a senior was still good enough to be selected for the Union team. He too served the club as captain and president.

Michael Hirst, who won the Meltham Challenge Cup four times in five years, also represented the Union team, while Anthony Sheard claimed the Challenge Cup in five consecutive years from 1993, and was also a Union team player.

In 1990, in winning the club’s Victory Cup, he scored a record 65 for the old course, now the winter course.

Chris Mear, president of the Union in 2004, is captain of the Union team which he has often represented as a player.

He is still an outstanding player and holds the distinction of providing Meltham with their first success in the Union Scratch Foursomes (with Mark Garrett in 2005).

Current club president Chris Naylor became the second from Meltham to serve as president of the Union in 1994 and, at the annual meeting in March, will be confirmed as a vice-president.

Betty Barstow had a remarkable year when ladies captain in 1959-60.

She won six medal competitions, three bogeys, the Thick Hollins Cup, Jubilee Cup, Avison Trophy, Redfearn Rose Bowl, Peace Cup, Ladies OH Sykes Foursomes with Mrs L Price and the fourball competition with Mrs HV Beaumont, plus four other individual prizes.