HARGA Public

Harrogate Area

Rabbit Golf Association

Mission

To stimulate, promote and encourage competitive golf for players with a WHS Handicap Index of 15 and higher who are:

Subscribing / Playing members of the constituent member clubs of the Harrogate Area (YRGA)
Members of their own Rabbit Sections

To have its own Officers and Council responsible for arranging Rabbit golf competitions, inter-club and inter-area matches, and social functions.

To operate within the constitution and rules of the Yorkshire Rabbit Golf Association.

Link to HARGA Officers & Council Workspace (Restricted Access)

The HARGA Council consists of: Elected Officers (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Competitions Secretary, Press Officer); YRGA Representative; HARGA Club Rabbit Captains & HARGA Club Rabbit Secretaries (or nominee) and the active past HARGA Presidents. HARGA Club Rabbit Vice Captains are invited to join meetings in a non-voting capacity.

The restricted workspace includes the online version of the HARGA Directory, an online calendar of events, meetings and fixtures, recent meeting agendas and minutes, index of past meeting minutes and the latest version of the HARGA Constitution .

2025 HARGA President's Message

Welcome to HARGA 2025

It is a great honour and privilege to be nominated to be President of the Harrogate Area Rabbit Golf Association for 2025. I would like to thank my home Club Ripon City Golf Club for having the faith to nominate myself for this position. Ripon City Golf Club will support my term in office. I will strive to maintain the traditions and standards required for the position.

Having been Vice President in 2024 I now appreciate how much effort goes into the role of President and the work quietly carried out by the full Committee. I also thank Geoff Fitchett my predecessor for carrying out the duties of President to a high standard.

I have been involved in Rabbits Golf since 1994 when I played my first friendly and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was nominated as Rabbits Captain during 2009 the took up the post as Rabbits Secretary in 2010 to present date. Since being the Rabbits Captain I have been involved in HARGA since then.

My hopes for my year in office, is that we all continue to play golf in the true Rabbits tradition. That our members continue to support HARGA and the YRGA competitions with enthusiasm that they have done in the past, and lastly to play with as many HARGA Rabbits as possible this season.

Enjoy your year with the Harrogate Area Rabbit Golf Association playing golf and supporting your Committee.

Bill Barnett

Ripon City GC

2025 HARGA President

2025 HARGA Officers

Vice President

Nigel Jones

Pike Hills GC

Secretary

Keith Lewis

Thirsk and Northallerton GC

Competition Secretary

Andy Robinson

Rudding Park GC

Treasurer

Ian Jeal

Ripon City GC

Communications & Press Officer

Jeff Loveday

Masham GC

HARGA News

Most of the 2024 HARGA News Articles and Photos Have Been Saved to the History Section - Click Here for a Link

2025 HARGA Past Presidents Trophy

Results, Knaresborough GC, Thursday May 8th

Yesterday's Past President's Trophy at Knaresborough GC was a great success. Big thanks to Past President Geoff and the supporting team at Knaresbporough for organising and supporting this.

The Team winners were Rudding Park with Kevin Simmonds and John Noble having a combined score of 67 Stableford Points. The highest individual score on the day was and excellent 37 points from Steven Hartley of Skipton. See table below of all the team scores:

Ex Presidents Trophy Winners.xlsx - Winners.pdf

2025 HARGA SPRING INVITATIONAL RESULTS

Easingwold GC, Sunday April 27th

Huge thanks to HARGA Competition Secretary Andy Robinson and Easingwold Rabbits Captain Mark Shillito and his team of volunteers for the excellent organisation of the Spring Invitational. The weather was glorious and the Easingwold course was in excellent condition especially for so early in the season.

There were some outstanding scores on the day - congratulations to the top pairs.

See the full results below. It is all still to play for at the Autumn Invitational at Skipton GC.

2025 HARGA Spring Invitational - Results.pdf

Report of the 2025 HARGA Spring Quarterly Meeting

Ripon City GC, Tuesday April 15th

Although this was the second quarterly of the year, January being the first, it was the first opportunity for the HARGA committee and members to get together for a game of golf. The competition, as always, on the day of the 2nd quarterly, was the Brian Parker Trophy, a stableford 4 bbb, played in pairs that are drawn on the day by our competition secretary, Andy Robinson.

This meant that 29 players set off in cloudy but dry conditions, (although rain had been forecast, it remained dry throughout the afternoon,) after a very nice bacon butty and coffee, a good hint of what was to come later!

For those with eagle eyes, you will have spotted 29 players and not a round figure of 30. Due to a very late drop out, one member was asked to play with two partners, his score counting for his partners if needed, thus giving him the opportunity to have two chances of collecting the Brian Parker Trophy (which did not happen, just!).

The course at Ripon played well with firm fairways, and quite a bit of run. The greens were slick-ish but still good for this time of year.

After the game, the highlight of the afternoon was awaiting in the club house, a buffet with eight choices of main course! (memories of Margaret’s catering at Flaxby, sprang to mind for some longer standing HARGANS)

With three choices of pudding, our meal at Ripon will be a hard act to follow!

As the tables were cleared, making way for the meeting, our President, Bill Barnett, called for a show of appreciation for the caterers, Dave and Emma Butteril, which was responded to with loud applause.

As folks settled down in their chairs, President Bill opened the meeting, which will be fully reported in the form of minutes to be read on the web site at a later date, however, there is the matter of reporting the results of the Brian Parker Trophy.

Andy Robinson presided over announcing them by starting off by thanking everybody for marking their cards clearly, it made his job a lot easier than it did last year!

He reported some close scores, with 2 prs on 39pts, 3 prs on 40pts but a very clear margin for 1st place on a score of 43pts for the winners, HARGA Vice President, Nigel Jones (Pike Hills) and his partner, Neil Barker (Otley). They take the Brian Parker Trophy for 2025

With it being the Spring meeting there was little else to be reported or discussed so Bill closed the meeting in almost record time.

So, in conclusion, the next HARGA event will be the Spring Invitational at Easingwold on Sunday 27th April, which was reported as being fully supported by all HARGA clubs, so good luck to all.

Jeff Loveday