Thursday, 4 May 2023

Seniors at home to St Neots, May 3, 2023

 Organiser Ian Riches reports

After the wettest March in 40 years and a pretty horrible April to boot, nature had yet again cast its magic spell and the John O’Gaunt course that greeted the visiting St. Neots team on the morning of Wednesday 3rd May looked magnificent. The growth of the JOG greens has been a few weeks behind Carthagena, but on Wednesday they were running very true and quite quick, drawing lots of praise from the visitors. The 7th green in particular is looking very fine considering its condition two years ago.

Given the proximity of St Neots there is always a lot of camaraderie between the two teams and this was very evident even before the match had begun. It was difficult to hold a conversation due to the noise level of 32 old men yacking whilst enjoying tea, coffee and biscuits.

Normally we give a lot of shots away to the opposition, but due to a few late withdrawals in the St Neots team they had obviously had to draft in some lower handicap players. What started out as a 40-shot advantage to St Neots one week ago when the two teams were finalised was only 13 shots on the day. Even Andy Brown was receiving a shot.

Shot of the day undoubtedly goes to Andy. Having put a 6 iron into the water on the 4th, he promptly reloaded and put it in the hole, walking away with a quite remarkable par.

The overall result was a well-fought win for John O’Gaunt of 4½ to 3½. Having enjoyed a very nice lunch of chicken wrapped in bacon followed by lemon tart, we all departed wishing each other well and looking forward to the rematch in August at St Neots.

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