Report

TThis year we returned to the 18 hole format over a “normal” sized course and visited Southwick Park Golf Course, a picturesque course set around a large lake and one we hadn’t played before. 17 members and 3 guests signed up for the event but on the day one of our members unfortunately couldn’t play for personal reasons and one of the guests got the wrong day, so we ended with a small but respectable field of 18.

The day started out cloudy with a bit of rain in the air but by the time we teed off we were into glorious sunshine. The course, at only 5,472 yards off the yellow, looked quite easy on paper but even with additional shots being added to WHS Indices the scores showed that this was not the case.

On the course the trophy was won by Alan Eastwood with 36 points, winning by one from John Sheehan (35 points) with Phil Burridge coming third on 34 points.  Malcolm Gough took the best guest prize with 37 points from Paul Seaman (32 points).  Richard Gallacher won Nearest the Pin on the 7th, Alan Green won Nearest the Pin on the 15th, Stuart Marks won the Longest Drive on the 13th and John Sheehan won Nearest the Pin in 2 on the 10th hole. Paul Baker didn’t give himself the best chance of doing well having arrived at the course on the back of 3 hours sleep and this proved to be the case by taking the wooden spoon with 15 points.  It must be said that this was a controversial award (in Paul’s opinion) as he came off after 10 holes, but was greeted with relief by JP and Prycey who both finished on 19 points.

Shot of the day went to Tony Fawcett who smashed his drive on the 1st one inch forward and one foot to the left, easily beating the Captain’s opening drive at Rushmore.

As alluded to at the start the day got hotter and hotter as it went on and after his sterling efforts on the course unfortunately Big Al had a bit of a turn after he finished. Fortunately the Southwick staff were on hand to help him, and after a couple of orange juices he was back with us and able to collect his trophy.

Overall a really enjoyable day, great company and played at a club that couldn’t do enough for us, we were greeted with a hearty bacon roll on arrival and the chips and sandwiches after were splendid, a big thank you to Jayne and her team!