In this year’s tournament, we were drawn again at Royal St Georges against the multiple time champions Charterhouse. Having been battered by 30mph winds and heavy showers the day before, we turned up on another sunny and slightly less windy day to try and find our games again and do battle. With Josh Taylor (05-16) unavailable this year, Iain Pratt (83-93) teamed up again with Lee Dinmore (86-89) who promptly nailed his drive down the first and celebrated with a chest pump and some port. A nip and tuck game went down the last, but was lost 1 down.
Sadly, the games which followed – Adam Wilkinson (87-92) & Henry Wilson (04-11), George Wilson (03-10) & Tim Martin (11-17) and Colin Beesley (90-98) & Ben Dunlop (12-14) – all suffered the same fate, with the best result a 3&2 loss.
With the result confirmed, a 1up Tom Langley-Poole (96-06) & Simon Blundell (84-89) shook hands for a half on the 16th tee and headed to the bar for consolation drinks. The post-mortem concluded a familiar tale; we didn’t play badly, but we just didn’t hole as many putts as the opposition.
If we can sort this out we will be a very dangerous side. In a real fillip to us, and whilst it might have been the beer talking, Charterhouse revealed that when the draw had been done they were worried about playing us and very much viewed us as a potential banana-skin, underlining the progress that continues to be made and the reputation we continue to build.
This led us to the Prince’s Plate and, after eventually closing down Bishop’s Stortford in the first round, we made it through to Saturday golf again; pleasingly a regular fixture nowadays. We were drawn against Wellington, another very good side, and lost 3-0. The matches were much closer than the result, but as we all know, there are no pictures on a scorecard. Thanks as always go to our loyal team of supporters, chef Blundell and the President for the fillets of beef!
Tom Langley-Poole (96-06)
OBGS Secretary