Tenby's Saturday Swingers embarked on their 12th Annual Tour last weekend. This year they were based in Llandudno and they enjoyed dry weather over the three days.
Arriving early on Friday in North Wales, the party took a trip around Conwy, a wonderful 13th century walled town. One of the group, Phil Goodridge, was adamant that the superb castle was not there when he, Mervyn Tucker and Steve Poole had played golf in Conwy a few weeks ago!
Conwy golf course was the venue for final qualifying to last year's British Open. It is a fantastic links with hundreds of deep bunkers, great greens and a very tight finish. Here, scoring was the lowest of the trip. Gary McKeown with 34 points took a three-shot lead and it transpired he was never caught.
On Saturday, the Swingers moved on to North Wales Golf Club on the west shore in Llandudno. The first seven holes are rather like parkland, but from the eighth onwards they are pure links and include a few memorable par threes in the dunes. McKeown again scored well and Richard Ormond retained second place, but the best rounds of 37 points came from Steve Keating and Goodridge, who was the winner on the day by virtue of a better back six.
The final day saw the party travel down to the delightful Aberdovey links, although some were slightly disappointed with the overall condition of the famous course. Gary McNeilly came in with an excellent 37 points but, despite hooking his drive out of bounds on the last hole, McKeown had a very creditable 32 points to hold on by a single point to become Swingers' Tour Champion for the first time. The leading points scorers were as follows: 1. Gary McKeown 34+35+33=102; 2. Gary McNeilly 30+34+37=101; 3. Steve Keating 23+37+36=96; 4. Phil Goodridge 27+37+32=96; 5. Richard Ormond 31+34+27= 92; 6. Viv John 27+30+31=92; 7. Dai Cope 24+32+29=85; 8. Paul Heywood 25+25+34=84; 9. Mike Anthony 24+15+31=70.
Footnote: A Swingers' meeting will be held soon in order to decide on the venue of the 2008 Tour. Members should check the notice board.