Seniors at home to Harpenden Common May 16, 2023

Organiser Jed Isbell reports

On what turned out to be a warm sunny day and with the courses looking in near perfect condition JoG Seniors took on Harpenden Common in its annual inter-club match.

Being a ‘Newbie’ I thought it would be good to put my name down as a Seniors match organisor and it was with some trepidation that I approached the match that I had chosen to organise. I should not however have worried, with the committee and section members helping me out with advice when ever it was required.

One of the playing issues that had been brought to my attention was the number of shots that we seemed to always give to our opponents. It was with this in mind that I played around with the pairings, eventually ending up with a situation where there were only 10 shots between the teams and hoping that it would bode well as to the matches being played. Especially as the only match that I could not change was that of the Captains, where the home team had to give a total of 18 shots to their opposition. 

The Captains’ match started off well with our Captain parring the first to put the home team into an early lead. This soon changed with the visitors taking the 2nd and making it all square again. The match stayed this way until the Captains’ team managed to take a 2 hole lead but were then promptly turned over on holes 15, 16 & 17 where the visitors using their shots managed to win all 3 holes putting them 1 up for the first time in the match going into the last hole. Both teams managed to make the green in 4 with the Captain’s team having a 10’ par putt and the visitors with a putt that on previous holes would probably would have been given. The Captain’s team went first managing to sink their putt for a par consequently placing the pressure back onto the visitors who promptly then missed their putt resulting in a halved match. Who says there is no pressure in match-play!! Although 4 of the matches were decided on the 18th green, disappointingly the overall match was a win to Harpenden Common with a final match result of 6&2. 

Pairings and results for the home team were as follows: 

Jonathan Lean & Jed Isbell - Halved

Nick Schumann & Trevor Darrington - Lost 4&3

David Streatfield & Ken Brewer - Lost 2&1

Rob Ebsworth & Keith Howlett - Halved

Rafe Bateson & Gerry Degaute - Lost 1 Down

Nick Seeley & Richard Westergreen-Thorne - Lost 1 Down

Nigel Underwood & Andrew Lawrence - WON 4&3

Terry Domagala & Barry Donovan - Lost 1 Down

Andrew Lawrence also won a bottle of wine for nearest the pin on the 8th for the home team.

As always Amy and the kitchen staff did us proud serving up Pork Loin Chops followed by Apple Crumble, finishing off what had been a perfect day of golf.