Being Captain for Northumberland ladies golf is a high point in my life. I’m looking forward to the year ahead working closely with our president Viv Younger and my Vice-Captain Debbie Reape alongside a resolute executive committee. They work extremely hard behind the scenes to make sure everything runs like clockwork and give up a huge amount of time to support women’s and girls’ Golf in Northumberland. Angela Rumney and Julie Sampson will continue to steer me in the right direction as Team Manager and both as selectors.

The County championships 2026 will be held at City Of Newcastle golf club 24th – 26th of May 2026. The format will be 36 hole stroke play from which there will be eight finalists who will qualify for the match play and compete to be 2026 champion. The junior championship will run concurrently along with the extremely popular Jenny Lee Smith competition which is an 18 hole Stableford competition for players with a handicap up to 29. I’m delighted that City Of Newcastle will be hosting this event as this will be My Home club for 2026. I’m extremely impressed with the course and the clubhouse.

County Match week will take place 7-10 Jun at Eaglescliffe, just a stone’s throw from Northumberland, so we would love to see a sea of Red cheering our team of Champions on. I will give all my energy into having another successful year and hopefully gaining a place in the National Championship. We have a pool of talented players that have the ability to flourish. If we are successful then national match week will be held at Betchworth Park Golf Club near Dorking on 28-31 Jul 26.

Matfen, which is my spiritual home of Golf has also pledged their course for the autumn meeting which will be an exciting experience with some amazing course architecture to be checked out.

I’m absolutely thrilled that Bamburgh has offered to give up their course for the entire day for my charity. I have broken from the norm this year and chosen two charities, the first being Friends of Priory which is a special school in Hexham that caters for Northumberland wide children with severe, profound and multiple learning disabilities. The second charity is the People’s kitchen which is very close to my heart, as I was a member of the armed forces and I’ve seen many fall on hard times and turn to places like this for their daily assistance. As well as this charity day I will also be running in a 25 km trail run. I can honestly say I haven’t ran further than 15 miles since I was 30 years old, so this will be a challenge. I will also run various initiatives throughout the year to make sure that the charities are well gifted. Donations can be made at any time of the year please contact me if you would like to do so.

I look forward to the role and I’m bursting with enthusiasm to get to see you all at the various competitions and hopefully welcome some new golfers to the fold

Helen McChlery

Captain 2026