The Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club played host to a special guest last week, when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited for dinner.<\/p>\n
Merkel and her family were on a private holiday to Niagara and the German embassy had arranged in advance with NOTL\u2019s Klaus Reif for her to visit the Reif Estate Winery for a tour and tasting.<\/p>\n
She arrived at the winery right after a visit to Niagara Falls, said club co-owner Eva Kessel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith her hair still damp from the mist, she was gracious, genuine and completely unconcerned about appearances,\u201d Kessel said in the club newsletter.<\/p>\n
At the golf club, \u201cshe was captivated by the beauty of the property.\u201d<\/p>\n
During her political career, Merkel was known for shunning a lavish lifestyle, living in a small apartment and doing her own grocery shopping.<\/p>\n
Because Merkel, 72, was on a family vacation (along with a security detail), her visit wasn\u2019t publicized in advance, Kessel said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on the course this past week, not much golf was played. Flooding due to the heavy weekend rains kept the course closed from Sunday through Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Only last Thursday\u2019s men\u2019s league managed to complete play and it featured a stellar round by Mark Derbyshire.<\/p>\n
The 70-year-old, who won 30 club championships in a row starting in 1976, carded a 2-under 34, with birdies on holes 2, 3 and 8, and a bogey on #5.<\/p>\n
While he won\u2019t be playing in the annual club championship tournament this weekend, he will be there Sunday to hand out some of the hardware.<\/p>\n
Jim Meszaros also had a great round, winning second low gross with 37 and closest to the pin on #9, while Greg Fedoryn and Derbyshire both had low net scores of 30.<\/p>\n
Other top shooters were: Matt Hurlburt (longest drive on #1), Paul Loucks (closest to the pin on #4) and John Reynolds (longest putt made on #8).<\/p>\n
Jeff Jacques eagled the par-5 fifth hole, cashing in big time as her earned a $110 gross skin and $285 net skin. Other gross skins: Al Kavanagh (birdie #1) and Ricky Watson (birdie #4). Net skin: Derek Merza (#3).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club played host to a special guest last week, when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,86198,82],"class_list":["post-847684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-placed","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}