Award

The Joy Winn Salver will be awarded to the player with the lowest score (compared to course rating) over a whole season’s play.  The Competition is designed to encourage the county’s elite players to participate in their regular club medal competitions. 

Eligibility

This Competition is open to all amateur female golfers who enter the SLCGA County Championship.  Competitors must remain a Full Member of the SLCGA for the entire period from the first day of the county championship to the award of the Salver (at the following year’s AGM). 

Scoring

The Joy Winn competition will be the player with the LOWEST RELATIVE scores (compared to Course Ratings) of:

1. Gross Score from Round 1 of the County Championship
2. Gross Score from Round 2 of the County Championship
3. Gross Score from the Division 1 Meeting
4. The best 2 Gross Scores from ANY 18-hole Qualifying Medal competition held on any Suffolk course.

Players who have played in the championships and division one will be asked to submit their 2 lowest medal rounds from an affiliated course between 1^st April and 31^st October. (Supplementary scores will not be accepted).

If more than one player achieves the lowest total score, the winner will be determined by a form of ‘count back’ comprising:

• The gross score from Round 1 of the Championship
• The last (chronologically) submitted medal round
• The last but one (chronologically) submitted medal round
• The earliest (chronologically) submitted medal round
• Traditional count-back on the earliest (chronologically) submitted medal round

Amended Jan 2024

Process

After the closing date, the entrants will be asked for the gross scores (and the course rating for the relevant Courses) for two of their Qualifying Medal Scores played at any Suffolk Course between 1 April and 31 October.

The Joy Winn Salver will be presented at the following year’s AGM.

History

The Joy Winn Salver was donated (by Joy Winn) in 1985.

Julie Latimer-Jones wrote:

“In 1985, when I was coming to the end of my County Captaincy, the ‘four counties’ captains decided to initiate a 36-hole strokeplay championship to take place in September and give the young county players something to concentrate their minds at that time of year when all the excitement of the golfing season was normally dead and buried.  There was talk of buying a trophy but we had no money to buy it with and I, thinking but not mentioning Joy Winn who was Aldeburgh’s long-time prestigious member, suggested that I could probably find someone to donate a trophy.

I returned to Aldeburgh and, because I knew Joy but not very well, I enlisted the help of another celebrated member who kindly approached Joy, then in her 91st year.  Joy was a special person.  Even when she was well into her eighties, I remember her accosting me at the end of a very close county championship match against Judy Barnard and asking what kind of clubs I was playing with.  She was intensely interested in the golfing exploits and expertise of young players and that was the motivation behind her gift of one of her five or six Ernest Harvey Salvers of which one was given every year at that time.  There was a slight time lag while she arranged to get the salver from the bank but then she called me and asked me to go and collect it.

By then I had handed over the Captaincy to Sheila Aldred, so I took her with me.  Joy lived in Aldeburgh in a house stuffed with pictures painted by her sister who was a notable artist and redolent with evidence of feline companions.  Her mind was as sharp as ever and she was eager to talk about the way the game of golf had changed.  She didn’t particularly like the fact that the ‘young’ played with their eyes fixed firmly on the yardage and were not being encouraged to use their hands, eyes and general skill to manipulate the ball with a variety of clubs for the same distance.  However, she was delighted to be giving a trophy that they could play for.

The next day she had her lunch, leaned back in her chair for her usual snooze and never woke up.  I had the distinct impression that she had waited for us to collect the Salver and then felt that her job was done.  It certainly meant a great deal to her.

I had the box made for the trophy and we handed it over to the Midlands Sub-Division Three with the proviso that, should the competition cease, the Salver would return to Suffolk.  This is apparently what has happened and I am very glad that it is back in our hands.  However, I don’t feel that it belongs to Aldeburgh, but to Suffolk.  Joy lived her whole life in Aldeburgh but she also loved Suffolk and enjoyed playing golf within as well as without its boundaries.  Her fame lay in her achievement of a runner-up spot in the english County Championship at some point in the 1920s, I think, and I believe she was actually invited to be President of Aldeburgh Golf Club at one point, but she declined the honour.

Somewhere in the archives is the letter I wrote to the East Region in 1985/6 but, although I have told people this story, I have never written it down before.  I feel, however, that the Salver’s history needs to be recorded somewhere so that someone other than me remembers it.”

2013

The Salver became a redundant Trophy and in 2013 it was decided to initiate a prestigious Competition for which the best and most consistent players could play.  It was felt that it should be separate from the Championship as this would devalue the Salver as a Trophy, but accepted that most of the top Suffolk players participate in the Championship and this would be an appropriate eligibility criteria, along with the Division 1 Meeting in September.  To include the scores from three qualifying Medals throughout the year would encourage greater participation at Club level.

The pros of this suggestion:

1. Offer something to strive for over the whole playing season

2. Encourage players to play in as many qualifying medals as possible

3. No age range limitations – may the best and most consistent player win

4. Avoid any conflict with the Nigel Birrell Shield (which is about the whole person and not just the golf)

5. Easy to run

6. We believe that Joy would have liked this format because of the demands it makes and the opportunities for these demands to improve the standard of golf