Stan Hudson took his A team to Haverfordwest last Friday to compete for a place in the next round of the South Wales Seniors Classic competition. As with the B team, they found that playing away from home makes the job much harder. The Haverfordwest course is a familiar one to all the Tenby players and the seniors group had already played there in April. As it is a course that most enjoy playing, they travelled with some hopes of making a fight of it.
Stan and Bob Howse led the charge as they tee-ed of against Clive Frankton and Alun Lloyd. Conceding a couple of early holes did not help the cause as the home partnership scored gross par between them on the front nine. They followed that with two birdies to leave Stan and Bob trailing by five holes.
With determined spirit, they clawed this back to a two-hole deficit after 15 holes. Stan had a chance to improve on this, but missed a three-foot putt on the 16th. It only needed a half on the 17th for the Haverfordwest pair to notch up their first victory.
The second match was competed by two Robins and two Martins. There must have been a few birdies in that match! Robin Potter and Martin Charles were the winners over Robin Hagley and Martin Neilan easing their way to a three and two victory.
Peter Williams and Paul Nixon, as with the previous matches, found themselves playing catch-up against Dick Cross and Gerald Evans. They reached the 16h green and were two down with two to play. Dick and Gerald conceded the final two holes to save the long walk down the 17th, only to climb back up the 18th.
It is the Haverfordwest name that goes into the draw for the next round and both Tenby teams can only dream of next year's competition; there will be no quarter-final this year.