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