Club Championship Final Round

The final round of Freshwater Bay’s Championship was played in somewhat testing conditions with the early players missing out on the rain and only having to contend strong winds which raised the CSS from 68 to 71. All credit goes to two Juniors who not only managed to hang onto their leads from the first round but to extend them significantly.

In the scratch Brandon Thompson had carded a first round 72 to lead by a shot from Derek Wright and a further shot from Nat Riddett. Both Nat and Derek shot high seventies to finish in 3^rd and 4^th places respectively on 152 while Brandon returned an excellent 70, considering the conditions, to win by a 10 shot margin and a 36 hole score of 142. Second place unexpectedly went to 13 handicapper Ryan Harmer returning scores of 79 and 73 for a 152 total and holding off the opposition on last round count back.

Not surprisingly 14 year old Ryan also featured in the Afton Down Handicap Trophy winning that by 8 shots with what must be one of the lowest 36 hole totals of 126 aided by an excellent final round net 60. Brandon, two years Ryan’s senior, came second on 134 playing off of 4, with the two of them cleaning up the prizes for the best second round 18 holes as well. Third place went to John Burke (12) finishing on 138, while fourth place went to Gary Cooke (14) on 141 – Gary was one of the hardy band of travelers who flew in in the early hours of the morning from The Open to make their tee off. Prize for the furthest traveled however goes to Steve Sargeant who got back on the Island at 8 am following a 13 hour flight from Singapore to return a very creditable net 72.

The 36 hole AT Smith Trophy for the over 60’s was a close run thing with Tony Black (15) finishing first on 145, two shots ahead of Dennis Smith (19) on 147.

Staying with Senior Golf the Percy Newberry Cup was played for on Friday 17^th with Jim Payne (23) coming away the winner over the 16 hole course with 32 points. Losing out to take 2^nd place was Ray Cooke (19) on count back with Brian Whelan (28) on 31 pushing Bob Godden out of the prizes on the back eight.

Wednesday’s Par competition saw only five entries with Nigel Cooke (10) running out the winner on -4 and Kevin Jones (22) on -7.