After many cancellations, re-schedulings and shoe-horning, the Ladies section and the Seniors finally managed to meet for their annual match on Tuesday, September 20.

The weather was uncharacteristically kind; mostly sunshine, a little wind and temperatures in the high teens - quite tropical compared to a lot of our summer. The course was in really excellent condition; Chris and his lads genuinely deserve the high regard in which they are held.

The Ladies' captain, Vicky Burks, fielded a team of 12 players, matched by Captain Jim's dozen, and the form of the competition was an Ambrose Texas Scramble. "What is that?" I hear you ask - well I'm still not completely sure - and I played!

Actually it is a match play event, where each team of two uses the Texas Scramble format and the player with the lowest net score wins the hole. In this event the handicap allocation is, as you can imagine, critical - and the intricate calculation required to adjust the figures is actually only known to Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius, Steven Hawkins and - apparently - Captain Jim! The other 23 just accepted - un-questioningly - the figure that was written on the start sheet.

The first fourball tee'd off at 13.00, and 40 minutes later the six matches were making their deliberate, if not slightly tardy, way around the links. What a very pleasant match this was; an almost total lack of bad language, good manners exhibited all round and a very high level of courtesy upheld. Beneath this friendly veneer I suspect that there bubbled a burning desire to trounce the opposition - albeit with a friendly smile on one's face.

There is just one teeny little problem associated with a Texas Scramble - it is exceedingly time consuming! The last match was still playing the last hole as the sun sank slowly in the west, which meant that the post-match gathering in the clubhouse clashed with the Tuesday evening Salsa class. No problem, both teams huddled in the bar while the nubile dancers performed on the dance floor and we eagerly awaited the result of this popular fixture.

Captains Vicky and Jim thanked their teams and the ground staff, then after a carefully selected, non offensive, yet humorous joke from Jim, the result was announced to the players. And that, dear reader, is where the result will stay; I feel it would be churlish to name the winners and losers of this friendly match. Suffice to say that both teams departed for home feeling that they had had a pleasant day's golf.

M.F.