Match Report 2015 Whitefield Golf Club
The third Parrots Golf Society day out of 2015 was held at Whitefield Golf Cub yesterday, with 15 competitors making the trip.
Despite the distance, the course was only an hour away owing to its proximity to the M60 near Bury, and it had some spectacular holes, not least the Par 3’s, four of which were very challenging, with many people (including myself) electing to use a driver on a number of them. The difficulty of the course belied its innocent looking Par 68, as all but a few who played on the day were to find.
In the morning, only 14 competitors braved the showers that the BBC promised were unlikely, with Peter Williams opting to sit out the morning to read the book he had brought with him. Was this a little bit of Williams foresight?
The scores so far this year may not have been great but they’re certainly tight (must be something to do with the quality of the handicapping!) and so the morning proved. This was in the shape of joint winners Stuart Weston and Geoff Moyle on 17 points, which actually was very good considering the difficulty of the course. So well done Stuart and Geoff.
During lunch, conversations with members revealed that they thought the back 9 was tougher than the front 9 holes! So, the question was would Peter Williams even bother to go out for the afternoon, or would the lure of his book keep him in the clubhouse for the day?! Eventually though, the offer of a spare seat in Bill Pye’s buggy, and the improving weather picture, threw the balance in favour of playing golf, and so off he went.
The afternoon scores were to prove though that the members were right in their assessment of the course. Across the 15 players, the average front nine score was 15 points compared to the average for the back nine, being just 11 points! Indeed one person only managed 8 points coming back, but I shan’t mention his name, as he’s my club doubles partner, and I need to bolster his confidence for our match on Friday.
Even the buggies found it tough going, as Peter and Bill found out when their buggy packed up at some remote part of the course on the back nine. Luckily they had an amateur buggy mechanic in their group to get it going otherwise we may not have ever seen them again!
So overall, scoring was again on the low side, with 9 of the 15 competitors finishing below the lower limit 27 points of the buffer zone. Cue, yet more handicap revisions!
However, three scores did make it into the 30’s, with Martin Cook leading in the clubhouse on 30 points, and sweating over a potential lynching were he to win his very first two outings with the Parrots society. Luckily for him a pair of 32’s came in from the final group in the shape of Tony Johnson and Jim Clayton.
Tony had an excellent front nine of 19 points, and Jim had the best back nine of the day with 16 points, and so the mathematicians amongst you will realise that Jim won the day on the second card payoff of the year, with Tony, finishing as runner up.
So well done to Jim, playing off 9, he went round a very difficult course in 81, and takes the third win of the season.
Handicap changes from Whitefield are :-
Jim Clayton 9 to 8
Pete Whiteside 12 to 13
Peter Williams 22 to 23
Frank Healey 16 to 17
Stuart Weston 11 to 12
Gareth Lunn 17 to 18
Trevor Middleton 20 to 21
Check the website for the updated standings. Joint leaders at this early stage still are Tony Johnson and Stuart Weston, but only four people have competed in all three rounds.
So get yourselves to Windermere on THURSDAY 4th June, where we had a terrific day last year, and there are no bunkers (hurrah!!). Let’s hope for similar weather this year.......
