Greencard golfers completed over 1,300 rounds of golf during the 2016 season! That’s almost 24,000 holes, played on golf courses in 11 countries over 4 continents.
These are some of the facts that came out of our first end of year report. For those of you who like a good “stat” we’ve produced a simple infograph which shows some of the details of our 2016 season.
The Greencard Golf Year in Numbers:
Below are some of the highlights of the 2016 Greencard Golf Tour season
2016 Tour Winners
We had 12 tournament winners over the season at an average 72 hole Stableford score of 130 points. 
Ian Robinson recorded the highest 72 hole total of 140 when he won our Grand Finals event in Spain.
Average Winning Handicaps
The average handicap of our tournament winners was 10 and the average handicap of our Grand Finals qualifiers was 11.
List of 2016 Tournament Winners
| Event | Winner |
| New Year | Claire Howell |
| Thailand | Neil Gillam |
| South Africa | Gary Corbett |
| La Manga | Paul Borrell |
| Turkey | Gavin Wilding |
| Belgium | Zak Rothwell |
| Ireland | John Shearan |
| Harrogate | Glynn Pepper |
| Switzerland | Ian James Bailey |
| USA | Alan Baxter |
| Masters | John Meagher |
| Finals | Ian Robinson |
The highest handicap event winner was Zak Rothwell who was playing off 18 when he won in Belgium and our joint lowest handicap winners were Claire Howell and John Shearan who both played off 5 for their wins in Portugal and Ireland respectively.
John Shearan Triple Winner
John also became our first 3 in 3 winner when he took his third Irish tournament victory in a row when he headed the field in Rosapenna. We are considering making him play without a putter when we arrive in Kinsale on the West coast of Ireland next May!
Notable Golfers of the Year
Champion Golfer: Ian Robinson
Tour Points Leader: Neil Gillam
Order of Merit Winner: Reuben Fielding
Most Frequent Top 10 Placings
For the most consistent players over the season we looked at who appeared most frequently in our top ten over the 2016 tournament series. Reuben Fielding, Neil Gillam, Jeremy Morgan, Neil McGarva and Peter Archer all made it into the points on four separate occasions over the season.
Winning Margins
The biggest winning margin of the year came from Zak Rothwell who beat the field in Belgium by a full 12 points. However, the average winning margin was just 3.5 points showing how competitive some of the tournaments have been this season – in fact two events required countback to determine the winner.
Gentlemen v Ladies
This year it was the men who dominated the tournament wins winning 11 out of the 12 events. However, in 5 events ladies took either first or second place, and with just a few points either way, could have secured at least a couple more wins.
Tour Points & Order of Merit
As far as our Tour Points are concerned Neil Gillam topped the table with 28 points and Reuben Fielding was the Order of Merit winner with 242 points. Across our 10 qualifying events 65 different players managed to score 1 tour point or more showing there is a good mix of players getting into our top ten places.
Some Fun Facts
It can’t all be about the golf so here are a few fun facts to round up our 2016 report:
Number of Carts lost to water hazards: 1 – please click here to read the story of how this happened!
Approximate number of drinks consumed at various hotel bars by Greencarders: Unmeasurable without further research!
Hurricanes avoided by Greencard Storm Chasers during 2016: Click here to read how we beat the worst hurricane to hit the USA in 14 years
Number of Greencarders seen heading to the bar on a Segway: Well done to Jez Morgan (see pic to left), for making it al
l the way into the bar area without incident on his rented Segway in South Africa.
Approximate miles traveled to and from Greencard Golf events during 2016: 87,000
Looking Forward to 2017
Thank you to everyone who took part in our 2016 season it was certainly and eventful year but also one of our most competitive and enjoyable. Congratulations to all our event winners but especially to Ian Robinson for being crowned the 2016 Champion Golfer. The 2017 schedule is already confirmed and you can see the full list of events here.
We tee-off the new season on 29December in Spain, I look forward to seeing you all at some time over the season. In the meantime have a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.