September/October + Grafton Morrish update
Grafton 1st round result – Malvern 2 1/2; Whitgift 1/2
North Norfolk can be the most pleasant of places, even if a little hard to reach. The sun can shine; the sea can sparkle; the birds can sing, and the coastline can be spectacularly beautiful. Or not. Friday morning began – for your correspondent – with the not-so-gentle sound of a 50mph northerly rustling the roof tiles and horizontal rain lashing the window. Several layers of windproof and waterproofs later, and we arrived at the clubhouse of Royal West Norfolk GC, which is sometimes cut off by the highest tides and looks somewhat forbidding as it appears on the coastline in the gloom of an early (7.40am) start. The clubhouse has an automatic door which saves its members from having to open it or close it in the teeth of such a wind; a wise investment. A certain sense of hysteria was noted in those within, everyone amused at the ridiculousness of trying to play golf in such conditions, which, even if the rain relented in time for the start, caused the Brancaster sand dunes to deposit much of their content in the eyes of the players (and of spectators – it stings!) and on the greens, which ended up looking as though they had just been dressed as part of a maintenance programme.
I cannot remember seeing so many provisional balls being hit (by both sides); eventually the custom of the players not teeing off walking down the fairway whilst their partners are teeing off – to save time – fell by the wayside; on too many occasions, those players were needed back on the tee because of an errant drive. It was chaotic. Bags of clubs and trolleys were being blown over time and time again. Another oddity was having to wait for a ball to stop oscillating in the wind before hitting it; on one occasion Malvern putted up to within six inches of the hole, and waited – waited for the ball to be blown backwards into the hole. It did eventually fall in, but only after eleven seconds had elapsed on the watch, when only ten are permitted! That could have got tense, had the players allowed.
The opening drives of both Whitgift and Malvern had to be retaken, both having been aimed left and finishing 100 yards right; Whitgift lost the hole to a seven. I believe one four claimed afterwards that on the first three holes, they took 12 drives (ie two provisional balls on each hole). Apparently, in practice the day before, the short 4th was reachable with a nine-iron; on Friday, they were taking a three. It was brutal, all the more so when the rain reappeared mid-round.
All three of Whitgift’s pairs (above – Harrison Sellers/Jack Raison; Max Stanley (mostly shrouded)/Toby Kemp; and Matt Webster/Nick Baxter-Brand made a shaky start, and the scoreboard (had there been one) would not have looked kind to Whitgift during the outward half. A left-to-right wind does not appeal, apparently, to Nick B-B; however a right-to-left wind does. Small wonder then, that things got better for his pairing at the turn; having been 4 down after 9 holes, he and Matt Webster started a recovery, as did Sellers/Raison, who had been 5 down after 8, and that only because their opponents did not insist on the 3-minute deadline for finding a ball being strictly enforced. They recovered too, and won two holes on the bounce. The middle match however, was closer throughout, and this spectator at least (actually, I was the only one!) thought that Kemp/Stanley had the more solid game and would ultimately emerge winners; but perversely, this went from 1up to Whitgift after 8 holes to 2 down after 13.
Could the mother-of-all-comebacks be on the cards? Unfortunately, no. Sellers/Raison eventually went down to a 3&2 defeat, whilst both matches behind them went down the 18th. Kemp/Stanley got back to level at 16, only for Stanley to be blown off balance during his tee shot to 17, resulting in a topped drive. With that hole lost, they played the last 1 down and did not manage to win the hole. Baxter-Brand/Webster continued their recovery all the way, eventually levelling things up on 18. So, a closer match than the scoreline suggests, and fingers are crossed for a good performance in the Solihull Salver, effectively a plate competition for both first and second round losers.
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The Solihull Salver result was disappointing in that Whitgift scored 85 points (scratch, between the three pairs) which left them about mid-table and 15 points off a terrific 100 points scored by Birkenhead, the winners. But what a difference a day makes! To the weather, in particular. Any team scoring 85 the day before would have been top of the heap. And Malvern, Whitgift’s successful opponents the day before (second round losers also can enter the Salver), only scored 83.
In the main competition, Loretto ended up winning the Grafton Morrish, beating Alan Scovell’s local school Woodbridge in the final. In another example of how fickle our game can be, Charterhouse were losing semi-finalists this year – a year in which they finished a full three places outside the qualifying positions at Royal Wimbledon (four places behind Whitgift). How did that happen? Apparently, there was a late withdrawal, two weeks before the competition, and, after an email to all the non-qualifiers, Charterhouse emerged as the only one who could put a team together in the available time.
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The season meanders to its conclusion, and the final open meeting of the season took place at Cuddington on what was, at first, quite a bright afternoon; it was only in the latter half of our round that the showers started to move in, and we got a little wet. Nothing too bad however, and it certainly did not adversely affect the scoring, which was generally impressive. There were seven scores of 34 points and upwards, but the leading three all came in the first group to go out; former President Dudley Thompson scored a magnificent 40 points, winning the Autumn Cup, edging out his playing partners Mike Berners-Price (38) and Ben Rudall (37). Ironically most people seemed to score better on the second nine (when it was raining) than on the first (when it was not)! Prizes were awarded by Tony Harris over Cuddington’s ‘Golfers’ Grill’, which appeared to be greatly enjoyed.
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The Autumn Tour visited …… Norfolk. Apparently this is the country’s driest county, although that reputation
was not generally enhanced over the three days of the tour. Admittedly the first day’s golf at Bungay was technically in Suffolk, by the slimmest of margins, but the weather was most definitely coming from its neighbour and it was very very wet, testing to the limit the waterproof qualities of the outerwear. So wet that the golf lasted merely the ten holes necessary to get back to the clubhouse, which was a shame because Bungay is a nice course, and a bit of a steal at a £33 green fee. The Imperial Hotel in Great Yarmouth was our respite for two days, and very welcome it was, offering heated towel rails with which to dry out several layers of clothing. Albeit named in a different era, and showing the age of numerous seaside hotels, the food and the service were imperious in quality – no doubt fostered by the 51% ownership by its staff (source: Peter “I talk to people” Kelley).
Gorleston on Wednesday morning was not quite as wet as the previous day, probably because the wind was so strong that it blew most of the rain on to Bungay and beyond. With the previous day’s results rendered null and void, this was the first round to count towards any awards, but stableford scores varied between 17 and 30, indicating the difficulty most of the party found with the conditions. Another nice course, but with its coastal location making it vulnerable to erosion over the years, forcing it to buy an area slightly further inland on which to build more golf holes when necessary. Definitely a test when the wind blows.
Great Yarmouth and Caister GC on Thursday was a different proposition altogether. Built in and around the racecourse, this was most definitely third out of three in terms of quality – ‘by a distance’ in racing parlance. The greens were generally good but, even allowing for the hollow tining being done, some of the fairways resembled Big Side on a bad day in the 60s. The best of the turf was on the racecourse itself, an area which is ironically deemed ‘ground under repair’ for golfers. Scoring however was better, because of the sunny and relatively calm weather, by an average of about four shots compared to the previous day.
Tony Mason was a deserved winner, hoovering up with scores of 30 points and 34 points on the two days, and emerging as overall winner and eclectic winner, as well as leading Cross’s to retention of the ‘house’ trophy. Martin Hayes showed his class in terms of the number of ‘nearest the pins’ that he won. Thanks are due to John Gould and Alan Scovell for the organisation of yet another successful tour, with Tony Harris, Jerry Hamley and Nigel Huxtable helping out with the admin.
