By Keith Field

ST MELLION GOLF CLUB SENIORS – ‘THE FOSSILS’

ST ENODOC came to St Mellion on Monday, June 17, ans played on the Nicklaus course.

The home had shaded the first contest by just a single point, and as is usual in these matches the visitors brought a very strong team intent on victory. St Mellion on the other hand had been struck with a number of withdrawals due to illness and injury right up to the morning of the match.

Trees are alien to St Enodoc and also the density of the rough which did cause a little trouble at times, but in all but any advantage one team might gain was soon negated by the opposition and it was only close to the end of the rounds did a result became clear. 

That is in all but the second match out wherein both St Mellion members had been drafted in late and included Tony Hurley who was peacefully unaware at 8am that he would be playing golf on that Monday morning. 

Together with partner Guy Pennington, they inflicted a grievous 6&5 victory on their opponents. 

In match six, Peter Lee and Ian Edwards and were even more impressive as they recoded a dog licence victory, 7&6. 

Looking across the results as they came in, St Mellion took the first two matches then lost the next two, won again the next two failed to take match seven and so it was left to match eight to ensure that St Mellion would take the day and aggregate victory by sweeping home with a 4&3 victory. 

By securing a 5-3 victory, the Fossils took the aggregate score to 8.5 to 7.5 in their favour.

The eighth hole was chosen for ‘Nearest the Pin’ for both teams and although it is index 18, it proved a worthy challenge. Allan Evans took the prize for St Mellion as did Jeremy Taylor for St Enodoc.

Thursday, June 20 saw another excellent day for golf, hot, sunny and little wind. 

Together with hard fairways, slick greens and tricky pin positions which all together presented a stiff challenge for the players competing for the Founders Trophy. 

At the start of proceedings, it is doubtful if any imagined just how difficult it was going to be, but nobody was even hitting 36 stableford points, yet alone approaching the now mythical 40. 

Early starter, Tony Prout sat at the top of the leaderboard with 35 points and left for home long before the final scores were in the expectation that his score would not feature. How wrong was he?

Colin Hatton later also matched Prout’s 35 but lost out on countback but that was the top score on the day. 

Derek Baldwin, Allan Evans and Guy Pennington came close on 34 but in the end Prout was declared the winner. 

Due to Prout’s absence, captain Chris de Beaufort was left holding the magnificent trophies while presiding over the presentation and the announcement by vice-captain Rob Parsonage of his selection of Will Carslaw to serve as his deputy next year.

Friday saw the first round match in the Summer 4BBB Knockout get underway as Keith Field and Bruce Sobey faced up to the challenge of Ian Edwards and Lawrence Rowley. 

Edwards and Rowley immediately took advantage of some uncharacteristic play by their opponents and took the first two holes.

But Field and Sobey soon clicked into gear and Edwards and Rowley’s lead swiftly disappeared.

Eventually the 14th proved to be the climax of the match as Field and Sobey took an unassailable lead to take the match 6&4.