Landmark AGM – Ladies Section

Despite snow the Ladies’ held their Annual General Meeting and paid tribute to Mary Vine by electing her as the Club’s first ‘Honorary President of the Durham City Ladies Section.’ 

Mary has played a major part in supporting the club for over 50 years. She was involved for a number of years at Mount Oswald, our previous site and has been Secretary of Durham City in the 36 years the club has been at Littleburn.

As well as supporting the club on the administrative side Mary was no mean golfer attaining a handicap of 5 in her halcyon days winning the Club Championship on 8 occasions. One of the highlights of her playing career was in 1978 when she partnered Martin Sexton to win the County Mixed Foursomes at Durham City. This was the first major achievement for the club following the move to Littleburn and paved the way for a number of successes thereafter.  

Over the years Mary became and still is probably the most well known official in County Durham, how many times do we hear ‘ask Mary’? During that time she had many honours bestowed upon her and these include: 

·         Captain of the Ladies Section in 1965 and also in 1987, the clubs centenary year.

·         Durham County Ladies Captain 1988/89

·         Durham County Ladies President from 1998 to 2002

·         Chairperson of the Northern Division of the English Ladies Golf Union (ELGA now EWGA) in 2001.

·         The Henry Cotton Award in 2006. This is a national award for her services to golf, in particular encouraging juniors to play and get involved in the game. 

In her new role Mary will continue to be involved and her advice will be invaluable to the club.   

The AGM also saw Sheila Smith hand over the Captaincy to Joan Dawson. Sheila enjoyed a very successful year and was the first Lady Captain to drive in the 2010 golfing year. Joan was also Lady Captain in 1997 and her Vice Captain for next year will be Maureen Dempster.  

Doreen Armstrong was elected as Ladies Secretary succeeding Mary Vine.