Reigate Heath Golf Club's Marathon Fundraising Effort
Posted on 13th October 2022 at 19:18
It really does take a village...
We have been immensely fortunate to have the support of the Captain of Reigate Heath Gold Club, Karl Edwards, and his team mates this year. They have been raising funds for us throughout this year, and we wanted to share their latest amazing fundraising event with you. Karl and David, the director of the golf club, decided back in the summer that they were going to do what they have called a 'Golf Marathon' - and it really was a heroic event!
This is how Karl described the event:
The great idea...
"One sunny afternoon, in the middle of August, I was sat in the clubhouse mulling over how we might be able to boost the fund raising for the Captains Charities when I came up with the idea of something involving golf at Royal Ashdown Forest and Reigate Heath. At this point a ‘helpful’ member (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are) suggested golf at each course with a bike ride between the courses. Whilst I loved the idea, those saddles have always looked a bit sore to me!! So I decided there and then that I would do that but walk between the two clubs rather than cycle… after all its just a walk right!?!
Luckily for me, David Campbell overheard my foolish idea and volunteered to do the event with me. "
So, how did it go?
"Fast forward to last Thursday and David, myself and Mike Jones found ourselves on the first tee at Royal Ashdown at 6:20am about to embark on our first 18 holes of the day. Bearing in mind the frightfully early start the tee shots were all pretty decent. 2 hours 50 minutes (four croissants and a couple of lost golf balls) later we had finished the round and set about preparing ourselves for the walk to come.
Swapping out golf balls for much needed hydration in our golf bags, David and I set off.
The first half of the walk was along the Worth Way, which was really rather splendid. As you can imagine we got some very strange looks from people we passed on the way… it’s not often you see two people carrying golf clubs so far from a golf course (at last count I think we heard ‘lost your ball mate’ about 23 times!!!).
We amused ourselves by telling each other our life stories, putting the world to rights and hitting the odd golf shot on the disused railway track (two pretty decent ones as it happens – ask David to see the videos!). Eventually, we made it to the Balcombe Road where the real test began. It is amazing how much harder it felt walking by the side of a busy road rather than strolling along the delights of the Worth Way."
"A quick pit stop for some snacks provided by Mrs Edwards lifted the spirts (the Captain having been a little grumpy at the number of pubs we had walked past and not sampled).
Eventually we wound our way to Woodhatch. At this point I was very happy as I had it in my head that it would be another 10 minutes or so to the Club. What I can tell you is that it might take 10 minutes in the car but it is much closer to an hour by foot… and there is what felt like a very steep hill to clamber up… but we made it and were both delighted to see so many smiling faces at the clubhouse to greet us.
A quick Pimms and an inspection of the rapidly growing blister collection on my feet and we were ready for the home straight, with Mike and Damian Hallett kindly caddying for us. David had said to me during the week that the hardest part of the day would be the 10th tee at Reigate Heath… having to turn away from our eventual finishing point was indeed very tough (although it was made a little more palatable by the bottle of Bolly that Tony Brooks arrived with)."
"Finally, we made it to the 18th green to be welcomed home by many of you. By the end I was exhausted and very much ready for pizza (thank you for organising that Emily).
The stats for the day were:
11 hours 43 minutes of walking
50.58km covered
62,521 steps
36 holes of golf
7 lost golf balls
a couple of generous gimme’s
67 stableford points each…
… but most importantly over £8,000 raised for the charity.
A big thanks to Mike for getting up at a ridiculous hour to play with us at Royal Ashdown and then to come back for our Reigate Heath round. Thanks to Jane and Vicky for ferrying us to Royal Ashdown at silly o’clock in the morning. Thank you to Damian and Tony for the company on the second round.
And obviously a HUGE thank you to all of you who sponsored us in our endeavours. Raising such a large sum of money to help the young people and their families has made the blisters all the more bearable!
Finally, I cannot express how grateful I am to David to agreeing to do the entire day with me… without him there is no way I would have been able to do it… a true gentlemen who I could never thank enough."
We want to hear from you!
We really can't thank Karl and David and the entire club enough for their support of our charity this year. The money they have raised will go directly to funding mental health treatment for children and young people in our area, making a huge difference to their lives. One family who have received this help reflected, "receiving such early support was vital and I can't express that enough."
We'd love to get other local organisations on board, sharing our support of children and young people living in our area, so if you've got a fundraising idea, why not get your team on board and do your 'thing' to help us #changethestory!
Alternatively, if you're aged between 10-18, you can complete our quick survey to let us know bit about your experiences.
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