Saturday 20^th June 2015 – OT Annual Golf Championship

A field of eight players fought for the two cups at Burnham and Berrow GC in a fresh breeze, according to the Beaufort scale, which to golfers with a handicap of more than ten seemed like a hurricane at times.  Fortunately we avoided the thundery showers in the locality.  The players were a mixture of youth and experience, with a 50 year age gap between the oldest, Richard Norris and the youngest, Phil Stickler.  It was also pleasing to be able to welcome along a lady OT golfer in Jeanne Leader, the Head of Geology at school.  She would go on to gain a creditable 22 points.

Given the conditions, low gross scores and high Stableford scores were unexpected and in general most players played the back nine holes better with the wind behind than the front nine holes.  Phil Stickler played some excellent golf to win the scratch championship with a score of 84, four shots ahead of last year’s winner, Tim Blood.  The O50s Stableford competition was a much closer hard fought affair, with David Kinnear on 24 points being tipped by Tim Blood, Terry Davidge and Iain Westwater on 25 points each, with back nines of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen points respectively.  Just as Iain was about to be pronounced the victor, it was brought to everyone’s attention that his 50^th birthday was next March and he was therefore ineligible to win.  Consequently Terry won the O50s Stableford cup.

In the evening many of the players were treated to a excellent and much appreciated barbecue dinner chez Richard and Gill Jowett.

Sunday 21^st June – Annual OT match versus the school

The  OTs fielded a strong side this year, as they endeavoured to win the match for the first time in six years.   The teams were nine-a-side and the match was played as an aggregated Stableford competition at Oake Manor GC in sunny and calmer conditions than the day before.  The leading pair of OTs, Phil Stickler and Richard Willacy got the OTs team off to a strong start with 40 and 35 points respectively.  Phil played exceptionally well carding a gross 68, two under par for the round.  Although there were some strong performance form some of the younger, Yr10, students, the OT team hung on to score a well-earned victory by 26 points to win the Harold Williams shield.

The scores were as follows:

Old Tauntonians                                          Taunton School

Phil Stickler                            40                   Andy Pring (staff)                39
Max Kelly                                 40                   Patrick Lee                              38
Clive Large                              37                   Stewart Cooper                   37
Terry Davidge                       37                   James Spackman (capt.)  30
Richard Willacy  (capt.)   35                   Mark Chatterton (staff)   29
Tony Howe                             33                   James Gamble                       28
Olly Hyland                            30                   Harry Aziz                               27
Tim Blood                               27                    Henry Lee                               27
Richard Norris                     23                    Dominic Drew                     21

Totals                                    302                                                                        276

Phil Stickler was presented with the G.B.Johnson silver salver for the highest overall score on countback.

Team: R Willacy, I Westwater, P Stickler, P Whalley, G Whalley, G Hector.

Once again a slow start by the team for the 2015 Grafton qualifier.  After 9 holes are pairings total points were looking a bit sad!  However, the second 9 proved better once we all relaxed and got on with scoring.  For whatever reason history has shown that Denham GC does not seem to favour Taunton.  This year was not an exception.  Overall the team scored 70 points, we needed at least 74 to qualify so just missed out again.

As in previous years we will now look to arrange a golf trip over the same weekend as the Grafton Finals.

Pairings scores were,

I Westwater/R Willacy – 22 Points
P Whalley/P Stickler – 22 Points
G Hector/G Whalley – 26 Points

This year we gathered at St George’s Hill Golf Club on 10 May for a decent lunch and afternoon golf playing for the Fairwater Cup 18 holes stableford (holder Greg Whalley 2014).  In total we had nine for lunch and thirteen for golf in the afternoon.  It was a great day, the weather held good and the golf itself was a mixed bag!  We say congratulations to Iain Westwater for his score of 38 points (must be the new clubs!), Phil Stickler 36 points and Gary Hector 34 points.  Once again it was a great effort to those who travelled from Taunton and beyond.

Those attended and results are, I Westwater (38), P Stickler (36), G Hector (34), P Stickler (29), P Whalley (28), R Norris (28), T Davidge (28), R Willacy (27), G Whalley (26), A Horne (25), O Hyland (24), D Murrell (21), G Morgan (13).

Team:
R Willacy, I Westwater, G Hector, G Whalley, T Blood, P Stickler, P Whalley, D Higginson, M Jenkins, D Morgan

Results:
1st Round HH, Lost to Uppingham 3 1/2 – 1 1/2
1st Round Plate, Win against Merchant Taylor’s 2-1
2nd Round Plate, Lost to Epsom 3-0

What another fantastic week where the sun shone all week until Saturday morning.  It was a pleasure to have new blood in the team with Phil Stickler, who has a wonderful swing that can compete with the best of Halford Hewitt players.  Four of us started this week of golf on the Tuesday practice day at Royal St Georges, where we haven’t been drawn at for some years so good to be back.

The rest of the team joined us for the Wednesday practice day.  This year we were drawn to start our first round against Uppingham on the Friday which meant we had the luxury of an extra practice day on the Thursday where we arranged a match against The Leys at Rye golf club.  Unfortunately Matthew Pyke had to pull out last minute due to family sickness and we called upon David Morgan to step in, who wanted to retire as a past member of the team, to which I’m truly grateful for.

As per the last three years our first round against Uppingham was close in practice even though the results say otherwise (lost 3 1/2 – 1 1/2).  One match continued down the 19th and a half was agreed on confirmation that Uppingham had secured the 3 points needed, but this could have gone either way.  Of the three lost matches the other two went down the 18th and one was lost on the 17th.

1st round of the Plate was against Merchant Taylor’s, who were runner-ups in 2009, whom we beat 2-1 at Princes.  On Saturday we were drawn against Epsom in the 2nd round of the Plate, who again are a formidable team, whom we lost to 3-0 and Epsom continued to the finals only to lose to  Sherborne.

Despite the end results it was a successful week and friendships grew and new ones were made.

Team:
R Willacy, I Westwater, G Hector, P Whalley, M Jenkins, T Blood

Results:
Main competition 1st Round: lost to Leatherjackets 2-1
Plate competition 1st Round: lost to Old Cranleighans 2-1
Stableford competition on Sunday cancelled due to unplayable weather conditions.

Most of the team turned up for a practice round on the Friday.  This is the first scratch competition of the season and is ideal as a warm up for the Halford Hewitt.  Weather for the Friday and Saturday was good, which was a complete contrast to last year.  First  round was drawn against local side Leatherjackets.  First round of the Plate was against Old Cranleighans.  Overall the golf was ok but reflected the rustiness of early season golf.  The result was disappointing but good competitive matches were had.  On Sunday the weather was atrocious which resulted in abandonment of the stableford competition.