Seniors away to Gog Magog Sept 9 2025

 

Seniors Captain Tony Lloyd and organiser Paul Jones relax with their Gog Magog opponents

Organiser Paul Jones reports

It was quite a shock when my alarm went off at 5:45 and it was still dark outside.  I thought that I had a good chance of winning something today as my 65 mile trip would win me the “longest drive” competition.  Like one or two others I hadn’t taken full account of how bad the traffic can be, especially around Addenbrookes Hospital, and I was quite surprised that despite getting there in an average speed comparable to Stevenson’s Rocket top speed I wasn’t the last JOG player to arrive.  Our opponents were very understanding and a slight change in the batting order meant that all the matches got away pretty much on time.

Due to almost all of JOG players having handicaps under 20 it was always going to be a struggle for me to come up with evenly balanced pairings as Gog Magog had six players with a handicap index of over 20.  The Top match, featuring our in form captain and myself the organiser (who couldn’t get there on time) was the only match were both JOG players were getting a substantial number of shots, so I felt it was important to get us off to a good start.

Tony was most apologetic to our opponents as we both played considerably better than our handicaps and we raced into a 5-hole lead before our opponents won the tenth hole. We were three over par gross for the front nine and out of embarrassment, I conceded a four-foot birdie putt to their match organiser to half the 7th hole as “two shot Tony” had secured a nett birdie.

We closed out our match on the 14^th and I waited to see if my attempts to generate close matches had paid off.  Of the other 7 matches 5 of them went down the 18^th with something to play for so it looked like most players had really enjoyed a close game.

All the JOG players that I spoke to were very complementary about the Wandlebury Course and really enjoyed the hospitality that the Gog Magog players showed to us.

After we had showered and changed, we enjoyed an excellent carvery followed by sticky toffee pudding and coffee.

Sensing that time was passing, Tony suggested that the formalities should take place, but Jonathan Lean who had “gate-crashed” the top table was in no hurry as he wasn’t relishing mowing his lawn.

Tony had the pleasure off announcing that JOG had won 5-3 and some of the guys stayed a little longer chatting such was the friendly atmosphere that out hosts had created.  We then set off to face the Cambridge traffic.

The full results were:

Tony Lloyd	Paul Jones	Won 6&4
Jack Shepherd	Neil Pinnington	Won 1 up
Andy Brown	Peter Wade	Lost 1 down
David Barlow	Roy Brown	Won 5&4
Graham Gadsden	Alban Macdonald	Won 3&2
Paul Life	Chris Dennis	Match halved
Peter Imray	Gerry Degaute	Lost 1 down
Jonathan Lean	Warren Churms	Match halved

 

Peter Wade won the JOG nearest the pin after coming very close to an expensive ace.  

Above and below: scenes from the Wandlebury course

Running tally for JOG seniors with only three matches to go

Won 12

Lost 14

Drawn 1