Huntercombe 2017

We returned to Huntercombe on Tuesday 24th May for the Spring Meeting of the ORGS and were blessed with good weather, warm but not too hot. A total of 24 attended with 23 playing in the morning own-ball stableford and 19 in the afternoon foursomes.

The morning round is one of the few rounds at an ORGS event where players score their own ball in a medal/stableford round. There are two simultaneous competitions, a Stableford under handicap for the Spring Cup and, for those electing to enter, a scratch medal for the Duncan Salver. While the course was generally in excellent condition, there had been significant work on the greens making them slower than would have been hoped for in late May and made scoring tricky.

In the scratch competition, both Peter Stanbrook (T 62-67) and Nigel Cadbury (Tu 70-74) scored a gross 80 (which we can be confident would have been lower with less slow greens). Sadly, the trophy can only be given to one player and was awarded to Stanbrook on a count back. Peter and Nigel are both players in our Bernard Darwin team and we must hope this encouraging form is carried ahead to that competition to be held at Woking on 29th/30th June.

An excellent 36 points saw Richard Lloyd (Tu 81-86) win the Spring Cup with Anthony Surtees (St 49-53) runner-up.

The tradition is to play in a more relaxed format after lunch, which is a drawn foursomes stableford. The competition was won by Peter Strother-Smith (SF 60-64) and Peter Stanbrook with an impressive 41.5 points, ahead of Antony Aitken (M 57-62) and Anthony Surtees, equally impressively being just one point behind on 40.5 points.

Any reader wondering how you can score half a point in a stableford competition clearly has not taken part in an ORGS foursomes event and should be encouraged to attend and find out.

Tim Watts
Hon Secretary