Wiltshire Golf
Cumberwell Park GC was the venue for this years Foursomes championships and in line with our new integrated policy, adopted this year, we also held the Ladies championship. The format for both was scratch foursomes, for the men over 36 holes whilst the ladies was one round only. The ladies report will appear here soon so I will concentrate on the men's event. The weather was set fair, for the 68 entrants, although slightly chilly and the course was presented in excellent condition for the time of year so our thanks go to all the green staff for their efforts. The two rounds were played over the Red/Blue course and from the furthest back tees so the course was playing just shy of 7000 yards with a par of 71. The players teed off in descending handicap order and after 18 holes the early leading scores were as follows:
1st James Cooper/Ali James 68
2nd Simon Futcher/Dom Seaman 70
=3rd Connor Askey/James Black 72
Jez Tomlinson/Colin Edwards 72
5th Mathew Pritchett/Max Wrixon 74
Only one incident of note occurred which was when a plus 3 handicapper decided, after missing a shortish putt on the 9th, to tap the remaining shorter putt in, thereby incurring a 2 stroke penalty for him and his partner.
The afternoon round commenced with everything to play for, although with a two shot lead over their home course Cooper/James were in the driving seat. The scores were a remarkable 47 strokes better that the mornings total so I surmise that the players had got used to the pace of their putts having managed to find a few more fairways and greens. After 9 holes of the second round however, things had tightened up with Futcher and Seaman 3 under (4 under overall) with Cooper and James 2 over (1 under overall). Others on the move were the Cumberwell pairing of Danny Clayton and Joe Retford who improved their morning 72 to return a 1 under 70 eventually ending as runners-up. The mature pairing of Tomlinson and Edwards rolled back the years and smoothed it round in an excellent 69 to finish overall 4th. The Drayton Brothers, from Wrag Barn, were also under par in the afternoon and came 5th carding a 1 under 70 for a 36 hole total of 149 finishing 5th. However, it was down to the last couple of groups before the winners were known and Simon and Dom played the back nine in 1 over to record a 69 and total 139 whilst James and Ali could only manage a 75 and ended up 3rd. The full results can be found here.
Congratulations to Dom on his second win and Simon who had previously been runner-up twice
In the nett competition with a score of 139, Connor Askey (Bowood) and James Black (Earlstoke) won from Mathew Pritchett and Max Writon (Tidworth Garrison) who returned net 145. Our thanks go to Ali James for making the course available to us for the day and to all his staff for making us feel so welcome.