We also had a lost ball sweepstake. The range of selections for the 32 players for the Saturday ranged from 53 to 174. Surprisingly it was about an average of over 20 per group with a total of 166 lost. No-one got it bang on, so it was rolled over to Sunday. 

We all retreated back to the Premier Inn for a refresh and returned to the club for dinner and an interesting quiz by regular quizmaster, Andy Hickson. Somehow, it ended up in a draw. 

Back to Sunday and the morning’s draw was announced over breakfast. We had some regular partnerships in place as well as an intriguing first group that saw Kemp father and son against each other. Felix drove the green on first only to be matched by John Hunter’s up and down to start with a half in birdies and we were off. That match went only one way, with Matt Davies playing a round of his life to win 6&5. 

The conditions for golf was perfect and the links course did not have the opportunity to put up a challenge and some good scoring ensued.

Only one of the rest of the matches ended up at the 18th hole with three more convincing wins.

However,  the seniors fought back only allowing 1.5 points from the remaining 7 matches to take this years trophy 9-7 and defend last year’s win.

This puts the overall standings at 6-6 over the 12 years the competition has taken place. 

The lost ball count was considerably lower than the previous day with a total of 138 which was won by Dave Hopwood. 

Other notable happenings saw a last minute switch of the Wilkie’s after the draw was announced to give Josh more time to recover from the previous night (allegedly) and Paul Godfrey smash a ball over the 4th green, over the back, over the fence and made a sickening sound as it hit a car passing along the road. 

Sandy Atkinson had a similar situation when playing out of the 4th bunker. However, his ball cleared the green, fence, road and is gone forever.

On the 2nd hole, Al Martin chipped from off the green and his ball slam dunked plum into the hole only for it to bounce right out. Unlucky. 

This year most of us bought a red or blue golf shirt, complete with logo and I think we can all agree that it looked great around the course. This is a tradition we can continue as we move forward.