Match Report 2014 Clitheroe Golf Club
The fourth Parrots Golf Society day of 2014 was held at Clitheroe Golf Club yesterday. Only eight hopeful souls, given the weather forecast for the day, arrived at the course for the morning round (they were joined by Warren Murphy who was as popular as the proverbial ‘fart in a spacesuit’ by making the eight up to nine in the afternoon! Only joking Warren!) Despite warnings of impending torrential downpours from notable local weathercasters Dave Bamber and yours truly, four tourists were steadfast in the view that 27 holes should be played instead of 18, and in the face of such resolve 27 holes it was. True to form the weather didn’t do what it was expected to and although there was a fair amount of rain through the day, most of it was fine and light, which coupled with almost no wind, made the golf very playable indeed. An excellent decision as it turned out.
The morning four-balls seemed to represent a Championship and Premier League level of scoring as the best score in the first four-ball was 15 and the worst in the second was 16. Despite a fine effort by your handicap secretary to reach 18 points (playing off 7, which as you know by now, is not easy) this was only good enough for second place as Dave Bamber powered his way to a fine 19 point winning morning score. Well done Dave, historical morning specialist!
The only other notable event of the morning was witnessing the sight of Phil Matthews getting in a bit of mischief, in true Jimmy Clitheroe style, by indulging in a bit of tree pruning on the second hole in front of the onlooking greens staff! No doubt his Grandad would have ‘spanked him for what he had done’ (do some research!)
The afternoon became three three-balls with Warrens arrival and on a very nice golf course some good golf was being played. Previous winner Pete Whiteside though, found it hard to repeat his form at Windermere and had to recover from a poor front nine to card 23 (personally I think he was just trying to resurrect his handicap loss, no joy there though Pete!) But at the half way stage two players were joint leading on 17 points, myself (nearly notching a second eagle in as many outings on the first...... but didn’t!) and Mike Barnes, who has collapsed from more winning positions than an England cricket team.
On this occasion though, the Barnes machine powered on through the back nine to record a spectacular 37 points and take first place, whilst I battled with most of the courses greenside bunkers on the back nine holes. Mike’s round included nine pars, and even more remarkable, no errors on his scorecard! So well done to Mike.
In second place was Warren Murphy, who found himself in scorecard controversy again (having benefited from a previous score-check at Bury last year) when the handicap secretary got home and found Warren had scored himself off one too many handicap. This meant that although there was now a tie between himself and Dave Bamber on 31 points (Warren was awarded his second place prize with 32 points on the day) Warren still took second place on the card playoff ruling.
So congratulations to Mike, the fourth winner out of four for 2014 and by a mighty six shots (perhaps I should have cut his handicap by an extra shot for general play!).
Handicap changes from Clitheroe were :-
Mike Barnes 13 to 12
Tony Johnson 25 to 26
Bill Pye 19 to 20
Geoff Moyle 26 to 27
The new leaderboard will be posted to the new website very soon by Phil, even quicker if his mate Tony has anything to do with it!
Next up will be Bentham on 18th June, and so please all say your prayers for some decent weather on that day, after all it is supposed to be summer!
Bye for now, Glenn
