The event this year took place between Tuesday 5 April to Sunday 10 April.  Four rounds of golf guaranteed (possibly more) on some of the best courses in England, and if you are lucky decent weather as well thrown in!

Three of us turned up for the Tuesday practice at Royal St George’s and the rest of the team joined us on the Wednesday.  Our first round was against Bedford, which was going to be tough, and we duly lost 4-1.  However, to give this loss some colour Willacy/Westwater lost on the 17th, Pyke/G Whalley agreed a half on the 17th after it was known Taunton had lost 3 of its pairings and Hector/Stickler also agreed a half on the 18th having just got to all square!  So a good effort.

Next the Plate.  We were due to play Framlingham, however, due to an administration error re start times Framlingham never showed and Taunton had a walk-over.  This was good news and we had a very relaxing 18 holes amongst ourselves.   On the Saturday morning we played St Bees and won 2-1, in the afternoon we played Forest and won 2.5-0.5.  So now we were in the semi-finals on the Sunday morning back at Deal.  This has only been achieved about 3 times in the past and naturally we were excited we were there again, although having started playing golf on the Tuesday fatigue was beginning to creep in!  Sunday we played The Leys and lost 2-1.  The Leys continued to eventually win the Plate competition which is some consolation.

So fantastic week and fortunate to experience all three courses, Royal St George’s, Princes and Royal Cinque Ports (Deal), during this golfing week.

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

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

This year’s scratch season started as usual with the Brent Knoll Bowl and we welcomed for the first time Jan Becker to the side.   As we are all a bit rusty after winter, expectations of doing well are low but the practice is excellent timing before the Halford Hewitt, normally a week later.  Unfortunately we lost one of our key players on the Friday practice round, Gary Hector, to a back injury.

Nevertheless excellent weekend with lots of the usual banter that accompanies OT’s golf where ever they go!

First round of the Main competition lost to Epsonians 2-1
First round of the Plate lost to  Wigorns 2-1

Team:  R Willacy, I Westwater, G Hector, P Stickler, P Whalley, T Blood, J Becker, M Jenkins.

Great day at Swinley last Tuesday 1/3/16.  Extract from David Murrell’s report to Richard Jowett.

“……. As regards results,  the nearest the pin prize (a permanent engraved silver tankard bought by his friends)  at the 17th in the morning in memory of the late Matthew Compton was won by Gavin Krombas.

Finishing second on 35 points in the morning singles losing on countback was Mike Denman and the winner on the same number was Iain Westwater.

In the afternoon for the OT’s Iain Westwater and David Morgan finished second on 39 points beaten by Jamie Hunt and Neil Robertson on a great score of 41.

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).