Alumni Golf Society Celebrates 10th Anniversary

The Alumni Golf Society was founded by Rod Alexander (History, 1971) and John Gilbert (Economics, 1972) and has gone from strength to strength since inception. The Alumni Golf Day is one of three annual events and sees University of Exeter alumni play at a leading course before enjoying a lunch and an auction of items generously donated by alumni.

Having jointly led the Society for ten years, this year Rod Alexander announced that he is to step down from his role as Golf Society joint-lead. As a token of the University’s appreciation for all that Rod has done in this time, a new award was inaugurated at this year’s event. The Rod Alexander Trophy will be awarded to successive winners of the Alumni Golf Day. 

Steve Edge (Law, 1972) chairs the University’s Alumni Network Group and has attended a number of Alumni Golf Days. Steve commented “The programme of events that Rod and John have created is great for bringing alumni together and informing them about the University's current activities so that they can get further involved if they wish. The events also provide the perfect opportunity for alumni to catch up with their contemporaries and meet fellow Exeter graduates and current students. They have additionally provided significant funding through golf scholarships to support current students“.

The Society’s events have raised significant sums that have been used to attract 22 Golf Scholars to the University and construct a Golf Centre on Campus (opened in 2014) that has introduced many people of all ages to the sport. The University has climbed the rankings in recent years to become the number one British University for Golf and this year we amassed 202 BUCS points, a record score for a university in golf.

The 2015 event saw alumni from seven decades taking part. Former Golf Scholars Ben Leigh (Philosophy, 2014) and Dave Corben (Maths, 2009) claimed the prizes for the two ‘nearest to the pin’ awards. The winning team overall, and inaugural recipients of the Rod Alexander Trophy were Mark Sawyers (Geology, 1980), Robi Signorelli (Chemical Engineering, 1982), James Henry (Geology, 1980), and Doug Fenwick (Geology, 1980). 

Proceeds from this year’s Alumni Golf Day will be used to create a new state-of-the art student facility that will be dedicated Golf Day participants. The Alumni Golf Society Performance Analysis Suite will open in September 2015 and will enable individual athletes and teams to analyse video footage of training and matches to improve technique and refine tactics. This form of analysis is used extensively by professional athletes and sports teams and will bring huge benefit to current and future cohorts of Exeter students.

The University is extremely grateful to our alumni community for their ongoing support of sport at Exeter. Director of Sport Alison Davidson commented “we simply couldn’t offer the fantastic sporting experience that we do without the generosity of our alumni. Rod and John have established a series of events that are well regarded by our alumni and have grown to be very popular. We are extremely grateful for their efforts over ten years and we look forward to welcoming Rod to future alumni golf events so he can challenge for the Rod Alexander Trophy!”

For more information about our alumni golf programme or if you have any ideas of additional events that you think may be of interest to our alumni community, please contact us at SportsAlumni@exeter.ac.uk.