Tenby retain Ashburnham Putter - again

Last Wednesday, stalwarts of Tenby GC (1888) embarked on their biennial pilgrimage to Ashburnham GC (1892) for the latest edition of the oldest inter-club fixture in Welsh golf. Apparently it was first played in 1893.

Tenby have claimed the Ashburnham Putter in most recent years. Although the match was highly competitive, 2017 was no exception.

The weather was awful - a very strong south-westerly wind coupled with heavy rain throughout. Despite the conditions, all eight games were played out and none was conceded.

First into battle were Tenby’s new captain, Mike Anthony, and Viv John, who were up against Ashburnham’s captain, ‘Jolly’ John Jenkins, and Ian Thomas. The Tenby pair performed well, their putting in particular, and ran out winners by two up.

The steady Roger Schooling and the not so consistent Terry Davies enjoyed a fine victory against the experienced Huw Dixon and Simon Gravelle by two and one.

Ian Thomas and John Stenson were not so fortunate in their game against Martin Timbrell and Rob Saunders, losing three and one.

Despite being four up at the turn, Chris Beecher and Dai Cope halved their game against Jeff Bird and Nigel Stimson.

Jerry Whitehouse and Huw Roberts suffered the heaviest defeat of the day, losing five and four to Leighton Morgan and Rob Stevens.

Steve Cole and Richard Ormond dove-tailed well to beat Steff Jenkins and Ian Binnie by two and one.

John Gilman and Barrie Frayne were unlucky to succumb on the last green to Glyn John and debutant Trevor Roberts.

Consequently, the match now stood at three-and-a-half points each, with just one game still out on the course.

David Morgan and Tim Poole did Tenby proud with their three and two win over former Ashburnham captains, Martin Hale and Peter Evans.

There is always wonderful camaraderie when Tenby meet Ashburnham. The two famous clubs have so much in common. Next year, they will meet three times - twice in the Dyfed League and once for the Ashburnham Putter, which will be held in Tenby.

Revenge is sweet for Tenby GC

When Tenby GC travelled to Swansea last May for the club’s annual outing, they lost at Langland Bay GC by seven games to five.

However, in the reverse fixture at Tenby last Saturday, the home side were convincing winners by nine games to two.

First out for Tenby were club captain Mike Anthony playing with Scratch Cup champion John Morris. They hammered Langland Bay captain and vice-captain, Peter Williams and Leigh Jones, by six and five.

Spencer Harries and Neil Thomas were not so fortunate against the experienced Richie Evans and former Welsh rugby international, Stuart Davies. They went down by three and two.

Loz Phillips and Paul Jenkins were two and one winners over Dick Pothecary and Steve Bond.

Martin Morris and Gary McNeilly had an identical win against Tim Lillicrap and his big hitting son, Gethin.

Paul Dennehy and Tim Davies were always ahead against Paul Wade and Ashley Issaccs, winning three and two.

Chris Beecher and Dave Hancock were also convincing when beating Ian Gladwin and Alex Kamil by four and two.

Jerry Whitehouse and Roger Schooling fought hard for their one-up victory against Owen Price and Nick Donald.

Dai Cope and Nick Allen were Tenby’s other losers, falling two and one to John Davies and Mike Gardener.

Craig Thomas and Phil Goodridge dovetailed well to beat Mike Allchurch and Jeff Evans by three and two.

John Stenson and Barrie Frayne enjoyed a final green win against John Bowden and Steve Benham.

A two and one win by Steve Maytum and Richard Ormond over Tim Hawkes and Salah Kamil sealed Tenby’s triumph.

Mike Anthony and his Tenby team are now looking forward to their visit to Langland next year, by which time Leigh Jones, a former international gymnast, will be captain of the club on The Gower.

Footnote - Many of the Langland Bay side enjoyed a practice round at Tenby on Friday. Unfortunately, one of the team, Jonnie Kapec, suffered a heart attack on the course. Thanks to some of his team members who administered CPR and the rapid actions of Tenby’s secretary Dave Hancock, and Tim Edwards from the Pro Shop, Jonnie was kept alive until the NHS ambulance arrived. Eventually he was taken to Singleton Hospital by Wales Air Ambulance, where he underwent an operation and is apparently now stable. All members and staff at Tenby GC wish Jonnie a speedy recovery.

The first shall be first

Thirteen eager Rabbits awaited the draw for the Gwyn Tibbs Trophy last Sunday, writes our links reporter, Warren Hacker. The trophy is a small silver Rabbit that had been bought on the Isle of Wight and was donated in memory of the 1981/82 Rabbits captain Gwyn Tibbs by his partner Dorothy in the year he passed away - 2003 - for the Tenby Rabbits’ 40th anniversary.

First group on the tee consisted of some of the pre-match favourites - last year’s Winter League winner Grant Watkins and William Billy Beynon, who had been in scintillating form in his last few Summer League contests, along with David Blackmore (recent Finals Day competitor/winner).

Second group away were Kieron Plested (another past Winter League champion), log-throwing Ian Jarvis and another Finals Day player Chris Smith.

Third group off were Mark Edwards, Wyndham Collins (treasurer and deputy) along with yet another club finalist/winner Steve Watkins, who obviously was trying to get plenty of wear from his shorts before he puts them away for the winter.

Last group to play consisted of the vice-but-acting captain Paul Crawford, Phil Carpenter (in a last outing before his foot op and a golf-less few months, good luck on Wednesday), Adrian Palmer (looking forward to his first Seniors outing on Tuesday) and Steve Cole (another one to have succeeded in the Winter League - one victory in the last century!).

Just over 24 hours before the arrival of ex-Hurricane Ophelia and her 70 mph-plus winds,. the players only had a slight 2.5 club breeze to cope with, but the course provided a stern challenge with no-one managing a blob-less round - in fact, they notched up 45 ‘no score holes’ between them - and three holes were not even parred.

After the computer had calculated the results, Paul, the man in charge, read out the names in time-honoured reverse order, accepting from himself the prize for being the furtherest from the top - a natty little yellow golf cap. The top eight managed to get a score starting with ‘3’ - Bill (30), Steve W, Ian and Steve C (all 31) - but getting fourth prize was Phil with 32, third place went to Grant on 33, runner-up was previous double-winner of the trophy Chris on 34, but getting his name engraved on the trophy for the first time for future generations to see will be David Blackmore with a score of 35 - despite getting into the ditch on the 16th (again) and not scoring on the 17th.

So David had had the honour of teeing-off first and he ended up coming first. It just shows the early starters had the best of the weather as two of their group of three were in the top three!

The outward nine was into the wind and saw six of the hardest nine holes on the front nine, with no birdies and there were four birdies on the back nine, three on the par 5s and the most important on the 17th, where a six-iron tee shot to about four feet left a cross-green putt, which was slotted for a two, the only one of the day, to allow the slotter - Steve C- to walk off with the twos Ppt.

This competition was the first of the Winter League 2017/18 (best eight scores over the winter count) as well as the first of the Winter Eclectic competition (viewable on Masterscoreboard) and will be followed by the B & H on the 22nd which is open to all Summer League players (with the 54th AGM after the match). Turn up, tee off and take a prize (maybe...).

They came, they saw, they soaked!

I didn’t used to be superstitious - but I’m beginning to think that there is some credibility in the reputation of Friday 13th! The weather forecaster - not our Carol I’m afraid - indicated that while the morning would be cloudy and windy, no rain would fall until the PM - not true!

Believing the BBC’s blurb, nine hardy Chicken Trotters reported for action, and the well known game of ‘Shall we? - Shan’t we?’ started. In a burst of madness, the ‘We Shall’ contingent carried the day, and nine apprehensive Trotters teed-up.

At this point, roughly 08.15, the rain which was due to start at midday, arrived a tad early! One sensible Trotter peeled off and fled back to the clubhouse before his second shot - eight to go! Five more foolish fowl paddled their way to the third fairway (waterway?) in a genuine gale, before common sense penetrated their rain-lashed skulls and they waded back to the bar. Some concern was raised over the absence of the leading trio - but all was well - the ever alert Coastguard saw that they were having difficulties over the line, and in no time at all they were returned to the club by the Tenby inshore lifeboat!

Sad, soaked and storm damaged, the defeated Trotters placed wet bums on dry chairs, had a brief post-mortem and a drink - and then had their spirits raised by the sight of two visiting societies, staring apprehensively out of the flexing windows and muttering words like ‘ridiculous’ and ‘call it off’.

Ah well!, ‘It’s an ill wind’ etc. - on the bright side, this popular newspaper has an unexpectedly wide circulation in the Calais/Dunkirk region of France, and when some of the potential illegal immigrants gathered there read about the weather conditions in this article - I confidently predict a large decrease in ‘Truck Invasions’.

The things we do for Britain!

M.F.

Moffatt makes a profit

After the really strong winds on Monday, Tuesday turned out to be a balmy day - ideal for golf on the picturesque Tenby links - so 38 intrepid Seniors set out to master the course and lower their scores in the second eclectic competition of the Winter season.

There was a broad spectrum of skill - and good fortune - on display, the scoring ranged from 22 to 41 Stableford points, but the pleasure of being out there on such a lovely Autumn day was shared by all the players.

As the Seniors tapped in their scores on screen, David Rees - one of three Seniors on the match and handicap sub-committee - was busy transforming strokes into statistics in the office, while Derek Cole, our secretary and vice-captain, collected the cards and did an ‘eyebal’ check for inaccuracies. The rest of us waited with bated breath for the results - which looked like this:-

In third place with a well earned 39 points, playing off a 13 handicap, Mick Seal. Peter Hart, a 24 handicapper, stormed into second place with a splendid 40 points - but it was the consistent Jim Moffat, labouring under a tiny handicap of six, who topped the bill with a three under CSS score of 41.

Stan Hudson, guardian of the Seniors’ riches, rewarded these three chaps with all the ‘old’ £1 coins that he has collected over the years, thus doing his duty while saving himself a trip to the bank! I should point out that nothing escapes the beady eye of the computer, so that Mick, Peter and Jim have all had a reduction in handicap of one stroke - you win some, you lose some!

Stan went on to unload some more obsolete coinage onto the Moffatt man - because he also scored the only two of the day on hole six - a little greedy? - perhaps…

The little Bingo ball with the charity raffle winning number on it was picked out of the bag by last week’s winner, Michael Whale - and Ross James was delighted to pocket the £10 prize.

And finally, the photograph. Captain Idwal was a teeny bit miffed about his lack of coverage in last week’s article - which you will recall showed departing Senior Martin Neilan missing his last putt at Tenby. Fortunately, ace photographer Des Stone digitally captured Idwal slotting his putt on the 18th - apparently one of many!

M.F.