Tenby Golf Club’s Scratch Cup Final was contested this year by two of the older generation –Andy Pounton who is 59 and 53 year old Paul Haley.
Indeed, the two losing semi-finalists, Dave Morris and Gavin Scotcher, are both in their 50s. Where are the younger golfers?
Although there was no heavy rain during the morning, a very stiff north easterly wind made it hard to score.
Furthermore, the rough on the Tenby links has thickened in recent weeks. Andy seemed to start the morning round rather nervously and, after chipping in for a birdie on the short 6th, Paul was four up.
Following double bogeys on both the 8th and 9th, Andy found himself five down at the turn. However, as Gavin is well aware, Andy does not go away. Andy began to get his act together on the back nine. He birdied the 13th, 15th and 16th. Paul countered with a two on the 17th and was therefore three up at lunch having played steadily in difficult conditions.
By the time the afternoon round commenced, it was raining extremely heavily and the wind had further strengthened. Paul won the 1st to go four up again.
However, after that it was pretty much all Andy. From the 2nd, he won four holes on the trot and the match was then all square.
Paul did win the 8th but Andy took the 10th, 11th and 12th to go two ahead.Paul won the 13th to reduce the deficit to one.
The pair halved the 14th and 15th but Andy took the 16th after Paul’s drive found the rough. Andy was now two up with two to play. He hit a fine six iron to the middle of the 17th green and the match was all but over. He won 2 & 1. Andy coped better than Paul during the horrible afternoon weather.
The adverse conditions were certainly not conducive to good golf but Andy dropped just two shots to par in the last 14 holes played – a magnificent achievement.
Andy has been a member at Tenby GC for some time. He is a Director of Planning at the Valero Refinery. However, he hails from Hartlepool where there must be a lot of wind and rain off the North Sea!
Paul has previously won the Scratch Cup on five occasions. However, this is Andy’s first win and, at 59 years of age, he is possiblythe oldest ever winner.
Tenby Golf Club recently hosted Langland Bay GC in the return fixture having lost the first match on The Gower back in May.
Tenby Captain Mick Seal together with Glen Smith convincingly beat his counterpart Steve Meredith and Steve Davies by 5 & 4.
Dave Morris and Steve Cole also had a resounding win against Alex Kamil and Paul Wade by 4 & 3.
Ben Childs and Rob Hall were always ahead of Stuart Henderson and Gethin Lillicrap winning 3 & 2.
Consequently, Tenby won the first three games. However, John Morris and Dave Evans went down 4 & 2 against Ashley Issacs and Owen Price.
Then Jerry Whitehouse and Richard Prout lost to Richie Evans and Dave Logden by 2 & 1. Darren Thomas & Chris Smith steadied the ship by beating Kevin Barry and Rich Morgan by 4 & 2.
In the seventh game, Phil Goodridge was unfortunately attacked by a swarm of wasps and had to retire.
He was partnered by Nick Allen and theirgame against James Gwyther and Tim Lillicrapwas declared a half.
Neil Thomas and Richard Ormond were always in control against the two Johns, Kamil & Bowen, winning 3 & 1. In the final game, Allan Sayers and John Richards fell 3 & 2 to Mark Gardiner and Owen Cullen.
Thus, Tenby were victorious in the match by 5.5 games to 3.5 games.
However, Langland Bay won their home match by 5 games to 1 and consequently retained the Steve Bond Cup on aggregate for another year.