GOLFERS will toast a club stalwart tonight for her sterling work helping young players develop in the game.

Despite being unable to play in recent years due to ill health, 82-year-old Mary Vine remains an active member of Durham City Golf Club.

Her work supporting grassroots players was recognised recently when she was presented with the Golf Foundation's Sir Henry Cotton Award for "40 years outstanding services to junior golf" at the Belfry course in the Midlands.

Back at her own club, members are staging a celebration in her honour at the clubhouse, in Littleburn, Langley Moor, near Durham, tonight.

Ladies' captain Ann Baxter said: "She has given so much of her life to achieving and helping other people achieve in the game.

"She has been our ladies' secretary for more than four decades, and was an excellent player in her own right in her younger days.

"But she has done so much to help young players progress in the game."

Mrs Vine is also a former ladies' captain, county captain, county president, chairwoman of the Northern Division of the English Ladies' golf Association, and president of the Captain's Society of Durham County.

Mrs Baxter said Mrs Vine has also been a keen fundraiser for St Cuthbert's Hospice, in Durham, while caring for her sick mother and husband.

She has also found time to visit sick club members.

Mrs Baxter described Mrs Vine as "a true matriarch" - still better known to juniors simply as "Auntie Mary".