Roy Edwards wins Cobb Cup in dramatic playoff at Tenby Golf Club

ON Saturday, August 22, Tenby Golf Club members battled it out for most prestigious events of the season, The Cobb Cup and The Regimental Bowl.

The Cobb Cup is a 36-hole scratch medal event, and was first played for in 1969. The trophy was donated by Peggy Cobb in memory of her husband Stuart, a previous club Captain. The Regimental Bowl, donated by The Essex Regiment in 1933, is for the best net score, again over 36 holes.

The competitions started with the highest handicap players going out first and the 7.30 tee time saw Vice Captain Wyndham Collins send Steve Watkins, Gus Graham, and Josh Bevan on their way. For quite a few of the 45 players who started with hope of glory, that hope was dashed in round one. Rhys Jones set the pace with an excellent 72, closely followed by Gavin Scother on 73, and there were seven other scores in the 70s. Many players found predicting club selection on the hard fairways difficult, and at the end of round 1 the eclectic scores included every thing from 2 to 13.

The leader after round 1 in the Regimental Bowl was Colin Murphy (69) with Adam Thorne (70) 2nd and Rhys Jones (71) in 3rd place. Colin’s challenge fell away early in round 2, but Cai Jenkins ‘shot the lights out’ with a blistering 65 to move him into 3rd place. This was an outstanding performance from the youngest player in the field. Nick Goode played two solid rounds of 72 and 68 to take 2nd place, but Adam Thorne’s 69 in the afternoon was good enough to win the Bowl by one shot.

The real drama was in the Cobb Cup, with several players looking like they could lift the trophy. Rhys TG Jones produced a solid 73 in the afternoon, Gavin Scotcher made an impressive three birdies on the front 9 but a 7 on the par 5 16th stopped his charge. Unfortunately for Rhys Jones a 3 putt on 18 gave him a 2 round total of 149, which proved to be one shot behind the leaders. So tied for first place, both scoring 76 and then 72 were Richard Morton and Roy Edwards with a total of 148. This meant a sudden-death play off.

The quality of golf in the play off was outstanding, both players birdied the first hole, and pars on 2 meant they moved onto the difficult 3rd hole. The drives were only yards apart, and Richard played first, his ball landing 5 yards on the green, after what seemed like minutes, it slowly trickled into the valley on the left of the green. Roy’s second shot was arrowing at the pin, which was on the back of the green, but it rolled up the mound behind the flag and incredulously it didn’t roll back. Richard played an exquisite chip from the valley to 8 feet. Roy decided to putt the tricky shot off the mound and when it looked like he had overhit the shot it hit the flag and dropped in the hole for a birdie. Both players deserve huge credit for their golf and the way they conducted themselves.

The presentation took place immediately afterwards with Adam Thorne picking up the Regimental Bowl, and last year’s runner up Roy Edwards being crowned the Cobb Cup winner and ‘Champion Golfer of the Year’. Well done to both winners.

This competition, like so many others, wouldn’t take place without the club staff and numerous volunteers. Thanks go to Jaime Acton and the greens staff for producing such a good test of golf, despite the weather they have battled this year. Thanks also to the catering staff for providing packed lunches in between rounds, and to Dan Jakeway in the Proshop for getting the players to the 1st tee on time.

Further thanks go to Wyndham Collins and the ever present Gethin Evans for acting as starters, to members of the C&H committee for all the hard work behind the scenes, and a special mention for Irene Gilman and Jerry Whitehouse for setting up the scorecards and again to Jerry for collating and publishing the results.

Report by Brian Jones.