Organiser Andy Shilton reports
Another beautiful day in the paradise that is NE Bedforshire’s golfing idyll of John O’Gaunt as the club’s seniors took on the mighty Leighton Buzzard. The teams were well matched with the home team unusually receiving 4 points overall. This was because the visitors recruited one of the BEDS County Scratch team’s best Senior Golfers with a handicap of 4 (having gone up from scratch this time last year). Although the star player only made it to the first tee with seconds to spare having failed to factor in the daily traffic jam at Girtford Bridge at Sandy. This caused all sorts of confusion on the tee as the two teams tried to rustle up a second pairing to get the match underway.
Eventually, because such turmoil caused senior confusion, we went off in the planned order. Your blogger was playing with our in-form captain Jonathon and things started well. After a couple of gentle halves in gross par the Captain holed his 3rd from the bunker on 3. He then birdied 4. With your blogger winning holes 5 and 6 with a par and a net par, the Jog team had cruised to 4 up after 6 and gross one over. But things weren’t going to be all a stroll in sunshine as a combination of good play, and slightly poorer scoring from the home team, saw us lose the next 3 holes. From there on the match was tight and high quality with halves being made in par or net par. A fabulous net birdie on 15 from your correspondent (having hit the flag with the second shot), wasn’t required as our Captain had already holed out for 5 (net 4 and the hole). So, two up and 3 to play. We managed to mess up 16 and lose it to a par. And on 17 the star player was asked to finish from 3 ft and for the hole. Incredibly, he missed. Going up 18 your correspondent was on in 2 and left a 3-footer for a 4. But from fully 50 feet the Leighton Buzzard Captain holed out for a 4 net 3 to win the hole and halve the match overall. Great golf.
We retired to the clubhouse to await the results. Richard Westergreen-Thorne and Phil Armstrong were in sparkling form winning 4 & 3, Peter Imray and Ian Maddison came in with a half. Terry Sweeney and Ken Brewer lost 3:2 while Andy Lawrence and Jim Kerr romped home 5:4. Paul Hammond and Rob Ebsworth came home 3:1 as did Jed Isbell and Rafe Bateson. So, with JOG ahead 5:2 we were secure in the victory and our anchor team of Algy Grimes and Terry Domagala’s loss of 4:2 was a consolation result for the visitors. Overall, another fine win 5:3, what is happening this season?
To wrap things up the food and service as always was lovely. Ken Brewer edged out Richard W-T for the nearest the pin on 16. Peter Imray gets a special mention for taking the Captain’s relaxed dress code a bit too far (shorts and a uncollared shirt), despite the Captain’s many missives on the topic of ‘what Smart Casual should be’. I can’t comment on the quality of the joke as your correspondent had to shoot-off for a golf club meeting as we had all obviously strolled round in the beautiful weather and maybe spent a little too long looking for balls in rough.
Another lovely interclub match played in fine spirit on our great golf course. Happy Days.
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