Castletown Golf Club
CASTLETOWN CAPTAIN SCRAMBLES TO SUCCESS
The first few 4-balls sought sanctuary in the clubhouse after deciding not to participate in the October Scramble at Castletown Golf Club on Saturday. Later, with the driving rain abating to angry squalls, some intrepid groups took on the team challenge. Despite the weather, there were some surprisingly satisfactory scores. Two teams tied at the top at 13 under par.
Winning on countback, club captain Rich Dunn -shown above during his drive-in-, ably assisted by Alex Holt, Mark Reynolds and Jon Wild, started with back-to-back birdies then incurred their only bogey. A procession of pars led to an outward 36. Six beautiful birdies for a bountiful back-nine of 29 equated to an unbeatable 65, nett 59 after handicap.
Coming a close second, Jimmy Kelly, David Laughlin, Iain Quine and Richard Wild were bogey free although, just two of their five birdies landed on the homeward leg. Consequently, even with a healthy team handicap, their 67/59 was insufficiently back-nine biased.
The next three teams all netted 61s and a back-six countback determined the final podium place. David Bowen, Steve Glynn, Peter Thomas and Chris Westerman got the nod as their level par gross score included a one under par final third.
By a minuscule margin of 0.334 - just over a farthing* in old money - Trevor Boyles, Dan Laughlin, Simon Murray and Chris Till failed to cash in. Mark Beresford, Ben Smaller, Jon Wagstaffe and Dan Williams signed for a superb 66/61 in fifth place. * A farthing was worth 0.25 of an old penny of which there were 240 to the £1.
However, that gross score was eclipsed by the elite team of Matthew Ascroft, Gez Bradley, Michael Charmer and Tommy Doherty. Their nifty nine under par 63 was only reduced by (1) so they had to settle for sixth on nett 62.
22 players took part in the midweek mixed Stableford which was won on countback by Colin C. Magee -shown above- with 35 points. His better back-nine included a four-pointer birdie on the 11th. The aforementioned Boyles popped in two nett birdies on his back-nine but was drained by a slippery six on the 17th.
Andrew Gerrard, Simon Murray and Ross Mulligan all carded 32 points and finished in that order. Former captain Gerrard -shown above- got the goods for third place as he only dropped one point on his run-in.
This coming Saturday we face a 4-club challenge in a pairs competition although several groups currently are seeking a fourth player.
MALCOLM LAMBERTCreated by intelligentgolf version 10.1.2.
