Heggarty honoured for 25 years at Royal Liverpool

Mar 25 2008 by David Birtill, Liverpool Daily Post

MAUREEN MADILL, a former Curtis Cup player, is among four North Region professionals to receive the PGA Advanced Fellow awards.

The 50-year-old, who was born in Northern Ireland, is probably better known among younger golfers for her gentle tones as an on course commentator for the BBC.

But Maureen, who coaches at Wrexham club Clays, has an impressive playing record as an amateur and professional.

Before joining the paid ranks in 1986 she won the British Ladies Amateur Championship in 1979 and the strokeplay title the following year, when she also played in the Curtis Cup side beaten 13-5 by the United States at St Pierre, Chepstow.

Maureen, who coached the Great Britain and Ireland side for the Espirito Santo Trophy in Berlin in 2000, played on the Ladies European Tour until 1996, losing in the final of the Woolmark Matchplay Championship in 1989 and finishing runner-up in the Haninge Open in Sweden the following season.

She lives in Cheshire and worked at Carden Park for 15 years, then Portal before moving to Clays.

Other recipients include John Heggarty, who celebrated his 25th anniversary at Royal Liverpool last year.

He started at Hoylake as an assistant to the late John Morgan and combined the role of club professional with playing the tournament circuits in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere.

At 20, he was then the youngest professional in the country but today enjoys teaching and has been involved with both the Ladies Golf Union and the Welsh Ladies Golf Union. He is also helping young assistants learn how to teach.

Gary Butler was professional at Formby for nine years until he joined the European Tour as a tournament administrator and rules official earlier last month.

He became interested in the laws of the game when a member at Romiley, where he was pro for nearly a decade, asked him for a ruling and had to bluff his way out of it because he did not know the answer!

Because of that, he took the rules examination at the Belfry and later became R&A qualified.

He initially honed his new skills at North Region tournaments.

Former North Region chairman and captain Mike Ingham, who retired last summer after 34 years at Cleckheaton, was also honoured.