Despite broken trolleys and late arrivals home plus being down in two of the matches against Cardigan Seniors 'B' team, Tenby Seniors 'B' team staged terrific fightbacks on Tuesday of this week. In lovely sunny conditions, Tenby were playing Cardigan for a quarter-final place in the South Wales Bowl competition. For Tenby, leading the way off the first tee was the combination of Geoffrey Aston and Alan Yates. Even before their game started, the Tenby pair had problems when Alan's electric trolley broke down and he went scurrying off to the pro shop to hire a replacement, arriving just in time on the first to make the 11 am tee-off. All seemed well when Geoff won the first hole to establish an early lead for Tenby, but on the next hole disaster struck again, as Alan's replacement trolley went belly up and he had to leave Geoff to fend for himself as once more he scurried back to the pro shop. Having won the second, the Cardigan pair was relishing their numerical advantage, but our Geoffrey is made of stern stuff and held them to a half on the third. Unfortunately, he lost his ball on the Bell hole and Cardigan went one up. At this point, on the fifth, Geoff was rejoined by his breathless partner. The disruption to the start of their round had caused the Tenby pair to lose concentration over the next few holes, but they hung on to reach the turn just one down. Into the back nine with Geoff and Alan playing steadier, the lead constantly changed hands and they arrived on the 18th tee all-square. This how it remained when par fours from both sides meant a half point apiece. When vice-captain Brian Waters selected Peter Williams to partner Richard Davies prior to Peter's trip to Morocco, Peter pointed out that he did not think he would arrive back home until late, but Brian was not perturbed. In fact, Peter, having spent the previous day at nearly 14,000 feet on Mount Toukbal, did not arrive back in Tenby until the early hours of the day of the match! The effect of coming down from those heady heights obviously helped Peter. He and Richard positively sparkled as, despite them having to give the Cardigan pair four and five shots, they went three up after five holes. The Cardie pair halved the sixth and with both having shots on seven and eight won three holes in a row to bring Richard and Peter back all-square at the turn. Into the back nine, the Tenby pair upped their game and went across the line two up. At this juncture, with the Cardigan pair having shots on 16, it was important that Richard and Peter held 15, which they did. To the delight of Richard, Peter scored a fine gross four to put the game dormie. When both Richard and Peter struck their tee shots to the heart of the 17th green, the pressure proved too much for Cardigan and Tenby took the second game 3 and 1 and a 1.5 - 0.5 overall lead in the match. Talking of arriving late, in the last match, a much bronzed Glyn Williams had only arrived back home late the previous evening from France. He was partnered with that always bronzed Adonis, namely Mike Nesbitt-Hawes, and he too was off to Spain the next day. My how these seniors travel! Like the Tenby pair before them, Glyn and Mike quickly established a three-hole lead by the fifth. One can only imagine that Glyn and Mike were still in their holiday mood as by the time they reached the 16th tee they found themselves two down to the tenacious Cardigan pair. However, like that old adage, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going!' Mike struck first by winning the 16th to reduce the deficit to one; the next hole was halved. Standing on the 18th tee, Tenby needed to win the hole to stop a sudden death play-off. Glyn duly responded with a magnificent par four to square their game and the valuable half point gave Tenby a 2-1 win in the match over Cardigan. A quarter-final place now awaits Tenby. As a final tailpiece, this is my first report after my silly accident just over two weeks ago and it has been an excellent fillip to me to report such a fine and well deserved win.

J.D.M.

Ladies' Section

welsh team championships

In Nefyn on Wednesday, June 17, it was cold, wet and windy, in fact it was very cold, extremely wet and with wind approaching gale force and this was the day the draw in the Welsh Ladies' Team Championship decreed the Tenby team should play their first match against Holyhead at 8 am. It was raining when the match began and they were fortunate that during the next few hours the rain eased and the wind began to reach gale force, but compared with later matches which were played in torrential rain and gale force winds, they had the best of an awful day. Beside the team of Holly Watkins, Georgia Thomas, Emma Guerreiro, Heather Morgan, Gillian Roberts and Anita Davies, there were six caddies and 14 other Tenby members prepared to brave the weather in support of the captain, Nesta Hart, and her team. Having watched the first drives, I confess to beating a hasty retreat to the clubhouse and it was some time before I had reports of how the team were faring. Caddies and spectators were all impressed with the standard of play of both teams in very difficult conditions and it was only the odd putt here and there which eventually decided the result in Holyhead's favour by 3-2. All the players were satisfied with their efforts, but understandably saddened by their losses, realising they had played a team who were in a slightly higher league from their own and who had greater knowledge of the course. Holyhead reached the semi-finals where they were beaten by Cradoc, the eventual runners-up to Vale of Glamorgan in the final. Nesta and the team are most grateful to all the Tenby ladies and the five gentlemen members who supported them at Nefyn. Heather Morgan has already booked accommodation for next year's championship at Cradoc, so no doubt we will all be making our way up the A40 in June 2009.

B.M.S.