Senior Golf Chair’s Blog
Despite it being the holiday season, participation in senior events in August has been good with around 30 players taking part on the last two Wednesdays.
On 2nd August we played a team Stableford using the format of step up/waltz. Teams of three competed counting one score, then two scores and then three scores on successive hole. On a day of sporadic rain and wind, scoring was difficult. Most players struggled into and out of waterproofs at least twice during the round. Congratulations must go to a team of Ev Schenk, Bill Phelan, and Stephen Jones, who won on countback with a total of 71 points. The runners up were Michael Godfrey, John Fooks and Stephen Branton-Speak on the same points total.
Yesterday we played a team Stableford competition, the best two scores for each group counting on each hole. Conditions were much more benign than in the previous week and polo shirts and shorts were the order of the day. The winning group of four with an adjusted total of 85 points was Ev Schenk, Nigel Brown, Gordon Fox, and Peter Ryan-Bell. The runners up were Brian Hall, David Paterson, and Andrew Hine, who scored 80 points. Well played to them all.
As we went out, a number of vehicles began to go onto the course to do essential work to drill and fill some of the greens to ensure they remain as playable as possible over the winter. This work on six greens – 1, 4, 7, 8, 10 and 15 will be completed this week and should allow the greens affected to be back in good playing condition by the beginning of September. We should have confidence in our greenkeepers as it was reported that one of the Senior Pros who played in Monday’s Pro Am described our greens as the best he had played on all year.
I report from time to time about the progress of our senior team in our recent fixtures. In the past two weeks we lost away to Wimbledon Common, drew away at Highgate and won away at Coombe Hill. That leaves us with a favourable balance of wins over losses by one!
Our John Ling Trophy Team is advancing in the Salver competition. The team beat the visitors from Banstead Downs by three matches to two. This does not tell the full story however as the winning point was won at the twenty-first hole by Paul Taylor and John Randel after a titanic battle. In Ryder Cup style, many of their fellow team members were out on the course watching the decisive match. Their reward is to play The Drift in the next round.