Seniors v Bedford & County March 24 2026

 

Captain David Barlow and organiser Paul Jones with their opponents

Paul Jones reports on JOG Seniors' first match of the year

So, another season of JOG Seniors Matches commences and 16 hardy souls from JOG found their way to Bedford and County Golf Club on time.

On paper, the two teams appeared to be equally matched, and I tried to make sure that most matches had at least a player from either side that was closely matched. However, a late change to our opponent’s team just tipped the shots received slightly in the favour of the JOG team. However, golf isn’t played on paper so read on!

Our team welcomed Jeff Thompson for his first JOG Seniors match and after tea or coffee and the obligatory introductions we were ready to try and play golf.

As the organiser I was paired with our new Captain David Barlow, and we had the honour on the tee for our first match of 2026. David unsurprisingly was the “scratch” player in our group, so our opponents were getting 7 and 11 shots and I had 10.

After four holes every player had won a hole and forgive the old language, we were “all square”.

We lost the fifth, a par 3 (stroke Index 18) as for the second successive par 3, neither David nor I could hit the green off the tee. In my mind I had us down as favourites on those 2 holes, but golf isn’t played in my mind and we were 1 down.

Both our opposing Captain and I birdied the shortened par 5 fifth hole but I was fortunate enough to have a shot so all square again.

We then had a purple patch winning 3 holes in a row thanks to a birdie on the 8^th from David and 2 pars from me.

The body blow was struck on the next hole as I had gone missing, and David was in the greenside bunker in three and our opponents both had shots. David managed an excellent sand save or scruffy bogey (work out who called it what) which stopped Bedford & County pulling a hole back.

We then turned the screw winning 12 & 13, (despite Dave and I again failing to hit the green on the nearest the pin 12th)  

We then found ourselves dormie 5 up, but our opponents rallied and won the next 2 holes.

We stood on the 16^th tee and realised that only Mike had a shot, was this going to be a collapse of Medinah magnitude? Mike could only manage a bogey and Dave and I both made par to get us over the line 3&2.

A special mention goes to Richard Cobb who earlier had expressed his appreciation to me (not) of making sure he was the scratch player in his fourball. He rose to the challenge and ably assisted by Oz came from 2 down after four holes to win 2&1.

After our golf we enjoyed a meal of steak pie, mashed potatoes and veg followed by trifle. I have to say that some Golf Clubs are notorious for serving substandard pies, but the pie served up by the catering team at B&C was excellent and the trifle was also very good.

 The JOG nearest the pin was won by Martyn Graham after the Bedford & County Captain got the hopes of Geoff Elcome up by reading out his name as the first JOG player to have hit that green.

It then fell to our Captain to announce the result which was a 6 – 2 win for JOG.

The individual match results were:

David Barlow	Won 3&2
Paul Jones
Jed Isbell	Won 3&2
Geoff Elcome
Paul R Hammond	Won 4&3
Graham Gadsden
Gerry Degaute	Tied
Algy Grimes
Mehmet Osman	Won 2&1
Richard Cobb
Jeff Thompson	Tied
Michael Newstead
Richard Westergreen - Thorne	Won 4&2
Martyn Graham
Gavin Little	Lost 4&3
Tony Walters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left home in a light drizzle, often called "wet rain," curious about what the day would bring.  After driving through a few mini climate changes, I arrived and it was a lovely morning with the mercury reading 19 degrees, which is surely warm enough for shorts.

There were no noticeable latecomers, so once introductions concluded, everyone was raring to go.

During the round we experienced some unsettled weather and although the rain was never particularly heavy there were some incidents of RSI reported.  Allegedly Gavin Little put his shoulder out by having to deploy his umbrella so much and every time one of our opponents in the first match took his jacket off, the rain resumed.

Captain Tony was paired with the blog's author, and we watched our opponents tee off on the first hole at Carthagena.  Their acting captain hit his shot well left, and it flew over the white stakes.  I was just starting to think about changing from my driver to a “safer” club when the ball hit a tree and bounced back onto the fairway.  From there he managed to get his team a half after I three putted the first and Tony visited the first of many bunkers. Was it going to be one of those days I thought to myself.

On the second tee Tony put his ball on the green and won that hole. We lost the third, Tony didn’t have a shot so he thought that he would lose his ball on the left to save time and put some pressure on his partner who duly capitulated.

We edged back in front on the fourth, halved the fifth and lost the sixth as their acting Captain Tim, put his ball to about 4 feet from the hole thus winning the Gog Magog nearest the pin prize.

The seventh hole was halved by the two players who didn’t have shots and then the JOG pair won the eight hole.

After the eight hole we were one up and there followed six holes that were halved included a couple of extremely rare sand saves from the author.

Tony won the fifteenth hole, and I was able to win the 16^th so we closed out our match 3 and 2.

The second match went down the final hole but one of the JOG players had the dreaded three puts to lose that match one down.

After six results were known the score stood at 3 -3 and I looked at the final groups trying to predict the outcome

One group contained a recent golfer of the year and the reigning Reg Batson winner, surely Barry Donovan ably assisted by a relative newcomer Roy Brown would deliver a point.

The other group contained Chris Saunders freshly back from a golf trip where he played progressively worse rounds probably due to late nights and copious amounts of liquid refreshment consumed.  The resultant slight handicap (20% increase) adjustment for Chris meant that, for a change, one of his opponents was playing off the same handicap so providing his partner Paul Dobson could match the other Gog Magog player we could get the all-important final point.  Paul was taking it very seriously and pulled out a brand-new ball on their first hole (the 17^th) which disappeared he duly dispatched into the rough on the lefthand side never to be seen again.

After we enjoyed a splendid meal of Beef bourguignon followed by pavlova

Captain Tim revealed the result which was a 5 – 3 win for the hosts and Tony and the JOG players wished our opponents a safe journey and expressed our anticipation for return fixture in September.

 

The full results were;

Tony Lloyd	Paul Jones	Won 3&2
Jack Shepherd	Derek Page	Lost 1 down
Peter Imray	Paul Life	Lost 3&2
Gavin Little	Richard Cobb	Lost 4&3
Barry Donovan	Roy Brown	Won 1 up
Paul R Hammond	Kevin Barbour	Won 5&4
Stephen Mathers	David Trotter	Won 2 up
Chris Saunders	Paul Dobson	Won 4&3

 

It was quite a shock when my alarm went off at 5:45 and it was still dark outside.  I think that I would be winning something today as I thought 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 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. 

Good morning,

Following a family court order I have been instructed to transfer the house that I jointly owned with my ex-wife solely to her.  I have completed the ID1 form up to the point of signature and would like a quote for a solicitor or conveyancer to verify my identity.

Kind regards