The Leicestershire & Rutland Ladies' County Golf Association have recently developed links with the PING Performance Research Centre based on LUSEP, Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park and co-located with the Sports Technology Institute. The centre is a £15 million facility dedicated to research into the golf swing and golf equipment, in order to master the game.

The Centre was opened by John K Solheim, President of PING, and founder of the women's Solheim Cup in 2022. 

Lindsey Leg, based at the centre,  has been carrying out research for her PhD which looks into the female golf swing. Our County Captain, Rachel East was part of the pioneering study and promoted participation into the study to specific female demographics within the county. 

As a result of this participation the L&RLCGA began to build a relationship with the Centre. 

We have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to send our first team squad members to the facility and to work with Sven Nielson the resident professional. 

The team have all used the sessions and the technology to accurately record their distances, gapping, flight paths and consistent misses. This information has then been shared with The County Captain and Vice-captain to inform foursomes pairings and partnerships. Ready for the start of the season. 

The whole experience has been unbelievable and extremely valuable to us as a squad. 

We cannot thank Jonathan Shepherd and his team at Ping enough. 

Leicestershire & Rutland Ladies 1^st Team V Leicestershire & Rutland Senior Men

This is a great match which was established during Carolyn Parkes- Walley’s Captaincy as while she was The Leicestershire & Rutland Ladies Captain her Dad was the Senior Men’s Captain.

The fixture is always played 2 or 3 weeks before the Ladies County Championship on the Course selected for the Championship, which gives the Ladies first team players an opportunity to play the course prior to the County Championship.

Each Team fielded 12 players for the 4BBB match play with handicap. There was a fantastic atmosphere on the tee and Paul Lowe (Senior Men’s Captain) introduced all the players on the tee, Peggy Remington (County President) wished the players luck at the start and came out onto the course to watch the games, it was lovely to have her support during the match.

We had 3 debuts for the Leicestershire & Rutland Ladies first team, Sally Jee (Luffenham Heath GC) and 2 juniors, Emily Wolverson L&R Junior Captain (The Leicestershire GC) and Edie Spiers (Cosby GC). Sally and Emily played together and won their match on the 17^th, Edie played with Rachel East (County Captain) and after being 5 down fought hard to eventually loose on the 17^th.

Ellie York (Vice Captain) & Eleanor Parkinson had a great game and won by the biggest margin of all the matches winning 3/2.

There were some very close matches Jo Morris-Bourne & Karen Haynes, Beth Swain & Beth Johnson and Tracy Bourne & Lisa Porter all took their games to the 18^th hole very narrowly missing out on a win.

The final score was 4 – 2 to the L&R Senior Men.

Thank you to Paul Lowe for organising the venue and the meal afterwards. 

LEICESTERSHIRE & RUTLAND LADIES’ COUNTY GOLF ASSOCIATION

2025 Match Sheet

DATE: Sunday 13^th April                   

HOME TEAM: Senior Men                           AWAY TEAM: Ladies

WINNING TEAM:  L&R Senior Men

Leicestershire & Rutland V Northamptonshire Friendly Match 6.4.25

This year we reinstated the friendly match against Northamptonshire County Ladies 1st team. We decided upon a slightly different format in order to establish and experiment with new foursomes partnerships. This proved highly beneficial for both teams as we played foursomes in both the morning and the afternoon sessions, neither team could field the same pairs in the afternoon each player had to be with a different partner.

The match was away at Collingtree Park Golf Club, the weather was beautiful but the wind proved to be very tricky, the course was in superb condition and the greens were rolling nicely. Only a few of our ten players had played the course before and after the morning session we were 3 – 2 down to Northamptonshire. Two of the matches went down to the wire and finished with a friendly half on the 18^th.

In the afternoon our foursomes pairings were strategically formed using the yardage data from Ping and placing pairs together to be able to play the same way as they had in the morning, therefore even though you were with a different partner you were teeing the same holes. That way you could use any knowledge about yardages on Par 3s that was gained in the morning to our advantage.

During the afternoon session we did not loose a match, Ellie York and Beth Johnson along with Lisa Porter and Tracey Bates halved their matches which gave Northamptonshire their 1 point and all the other three matches won securing Leicestershire & Rutland 4 points.

The overall score was 6 – 4 to Leicestershire & Rutland.

All of the matches were played in great spirit and there was a brilliant team atmosphere, this fixture was a huge success for both teams and will continue next year 2026.

DATE: Sunday 6^th April                   

HOME TEAM: Northamptonshire     AWAY TEAM: Leicestershire & Rutland

WINNING TEAM:  Leicestershire & Rutland 6 - 4

On Thursday 20th March, we had our final range night of the winter programme at Cosby Golf Club. 

Once again we had a great turn out of players from the 1st team, 2nd team and the juniors. 

The range nights have been a great vehicle for players to get to know each other better, to practice together and to have some fun competition. 

Charnwood Forest - 1st event of the season 

On Sunday 2nd March we had our start of season get together at Charnwood Forest Golf Cub. The format for the day was a 4ball AM AM 2 scores to count on every hole and each player also recorded how many fairways they hit in regulation on the front 9 and how many greens they hit in regulation on the back 9.

20 players from across the 1st, 2nd and junior squads attended, the weather was beautiful and there was some fantastic golf. 

Congratulations to the winners with 78 points

Emily Wolverson, Henrietta Geedes, Helen Cox and Tracey Bates

2nd place with 77 points was:

Tracy Bourne, Lisa Porter, Megan Grimwood and Mia Ashton

Special mention to Eleanor Parkinson who hit 5 fairways in reg and 6 greens in reg a total of 11. Well done.

Other special mentions

Eleanor Parkinson, Edie Speirs, Sally Jee and Donna Canning got the highest number of points on one hole with 2 birdies with shots, scoring 8 points on the 11th - well done.

Tracy Bourne had back to back birdies on the 7th & 8th

Emily Wolverson, Karen Wiseman, Eleanor Parkinson, Edies Spires & Rachel East all scored a 4 pointer

There was a great atmosphere, beautiful weather and some awesome golf for this early in the season.