History
In 1951, the then Captain, W.S. McIntosh Reid, expressed his concern about the increasingly large number of no returns in the outings during the year. He duly presented a small silver cup to the club to be awarded to the member returning the single highest net score in any outing. Quite recently, the criteria for awarding the cup has changed. The recipient is now the member recording the lowest stableford score of the year at an outing.
In 1952, its inaugural season, it is probably kinder to say the Consolation Cup was first awarded to Peter McDonald, rather than he competed for it. It was his first silverware in over 20 years of membership, and was to prove to be his only award. He was, however, to gain further consolation when awarded Honorary Membership of the club in 1963, the year he was knighted.
Most recipients are, at best, philosophical, at worst piqued, about winning the Cup. However, the Cup is, “exactly what it says on the tin”, a consolation. No member tees off determined to win the Consolation. It is the award that best sums up what Blackford members have known throughout history, i.e. that the game, so much enjoyed, can nevertheless be cruel. Top of the world one round, depths of despair the next. One Secretary succinctly described one winner’s performance as, “won in a gallant manner, if with protracted golf”. The list of engraved names, shows the Consolation Cup casts it net wide for its “winners”. Since 1952 only nine members have won it more than once. Of those nine only three have won it more than twice. The same three are the only members to have ever retained the cup. Thirteen Captains’ names adorn the cup, but only Hugh McMichael,in 1977, has had to present it to himself. The “curse of the Consolation Cup”, whereby the Club Secretary has had to record his own name in the A.G.M. report as the winner of the Consolation Cup, has affected four of the last six Secretaries. Frank Robson, the current Secretary, seems immune…for the moment!
A study of the lists shows that several winners of the Consolation Cup have also won other trophies, with the exception of the Calder. Eleven have won the Majority Cup. The passage of time can be seen in the results, for good or bad. Take Alec Steele for example: winner of the Consolation Cup in 1960 who eleven years later won the Majority Cup three years in a row. On the other hand, in 1970, Ian Miller won the Majority Cup, followed sixteen years later with the Consolation. The vagaries of golf are most obvious in the records of the two members who won the Consolation the year after winning the Majority. At this point, readers are challenged to find their names. One was pre Centenary and the other a recent Captain.
Three Consolation winners have also won the Centenary Trophy. One of those is, as yet, the only member who has won the Consolation Cup and another trophy in the same year. 2003 is a year Bill Hannay will remember with mixed emotions !
Winners:
1952 P G Macdonald
2012 J A Matheson
2013 C F Y Lawson
2014 T D Straton
2015 J C Williams