My Age of Seniors

Simone Thion de la Chaume Trophy

European Team Championships

After a rather long hiatus (1982-1999), I returned to the world of golf.

First I started playing the Spanish Seniors Championship in La Manga. It was a disaster because I had lost the habit of playing championships and was getting in front of the ball and had no idea what was going to happen! A sock, a top, a 3 putts very close. I made a card of 100! I had to decide if I would give up the competition for good or if I tried to find a game that would allow me to eventually play the European Team Championships for France. I made the right decision: to continue!

Because a few years later, we managed to win this Championship with several former members of the French Team and even of the 1964 World Championship Team like Claudine. It was something very moving for us!

A few years earlier, I had decided to organize a Championship which would recognize the golf course of the great champion that my mother had been, Simone Thion de la Chaume, winner of the Girls (1924) and the British Ladies Amateur (1927 ), outside of Worplesdon Foursomes, the UK Doubles Championship. She was able to take advantage of it for several years. to my great joy, seeing great players win the Simone Thion de la Chaume Trophy. This Championship was enriched and developed in 2007 by my daughter Véronique and her friend Vaea de Soultrait until 2019, that is to say 20 years!

The formula was 54 holes in medal-play and open to all amateur and professional players from the age of 50. PREMIER FIRST tournament with this formula in the World, allowing players who had become professional to be able to play a Championship again.

Initially, we gathered in Chantaco, the club where Mom had been President for 40 years, about 35 players up to a hdcp of 18 and 2 professionals! But in the end the maximum hdcp was about 6 and a dozen professionals!

On the other hand, to fix the 1ST^er Professional prize, I made the connection with the US Open that I had won in 1967 and where I would have won, if I had been professional, the sum of $ 5,000 and therefore after having transformed it into Euros, it was the prize for the next 20 years.