Match Report Heysham Golf Club 2017
So, it’s that time of year again, the start of the Parrots Golf Society season. The traditional curtain raiser was held at Heysham Golf Club on Wednesday, which presented the opportunity for many of the attendees to use the new by-pass to get there without the usual struggle through Lancaster city centre. Ah motoring bliss!! Sadly, the opening of the by-pass has reduced the selection of courses that Mike Barnes can now drive to, on account of his aversion to Motorway driving, but at least that allows the rest of the motoring public to breathe a little bit easier!
The first day out is usually well attended with optimistic golfers relishing the new upcoming season. But this year, we had a bumper attendance of 19 players, making it the best attended opening day in the Society’s history and the best attendance of any Parrots day since Morecambe 2014. However, we weren’t the only large group at Heysham that day. There was another party of around 100 playing after us in the morning, which we ended up following for our afternoon round, unfortunately making it a very slow round of around four and a half hours.
Oh, hang on, I haven’t written three paragraphs on the weather yet! So far, the Spring has been decidedly cool, and so it was for the first society day. But at least it was dry throughout with some intermittent sunshine, and the winds were cool but fairly light. Actually, it was quite warm when the sun was out but cool when it went in, leading to many people’s jumpers being on and off like a brides nightie. All except Phil and Tony J, who seemed to play in coats and woolly hats all day, leading to them being referred to as the Big Issue fourball by some others!
I should mention also, that the course was in excellent condition for the time of year. So you would think that with that many golfers playing , a nice course and good weather some good scores would result. Well, read on folks!
In the morning there should have been only one winner, namely me! I had 14 points after 6 holes including a birdie on the tough Stroke 2, 6th. But as is typical in golf, when you think you’re playing well, the gods strike and I finished with only two further points for 16 altogether. This was score matched by quite a few others including Geoff Moyle and John Cottam (after a stewards enquiry on his correct handicap at lunchtime). But, sharing the morning win, with just one point more were John Patterson and Pete Whiteside on 17pts. So well done to them both!
After a sterling effort by the kitchen staff to get all 19 of us fed in the hour and a bit we had for lunch, it was time for the main event.
Heysham is a tough course. However, in all the years the society has played there the winning score has been 36 pts at the lowest with a high of 41 pts in 2014 by Frank Healey. So the three individuals who came home with 32 points probably thought that that was not a bad score but would have no chance of winning. And yet, believe it or not, 32 pts was the winning score today, but who by?
The best half way score was a very good 19 pts by a certain ex-fireman. This fella was making a mockery of his 23 handicap, and he continued this form into the back 9, until disaster struck. An easy missed putt on the 12th for Par unsettled him. Then, further errors, a shot into the water before the 14th green, and chipping into, instead of over, a bunker before the 15th led to a promising round being severely curtailed to ...... 32 pts and not enough to make an impact in a card play-off.
The two other 32 pointers were Frank Healey and Phil Matthews. They had the same back 9 score of 17 pts. They had the same back 6 score of 10 pts! So it took a best back 3 score of 6 pts to 5 for Phil to snatch the narrowest of wins from Frank who took second place.
So congratulations to Phil who is the first winner of the 2017 Parrots campaign. This is the same Phil Matthews incidentally, who had to pull out of the last game in Portugal due to an elbow injury, and who has been recuperating with physio treatment ever since, making his win even the more impressive!
Look out for Phil on the next cover of Big Issue, where inside there will be an in depth interview with him on how he was able to win a golf competition whilst wrapped up like he was out walking a dog in December, with tips on how to stay warm!!
Despite the general low scoring at Heysham, there were not as many handicap revisions as might be expected by some, but these are :-
Phil Matthews 19 to 18
John Cottam 16 to 17
Stuart Weston 14 to 15
Jim Clayton 6 to 7
Mike Bamber 18 to 19
I should also point out that Mike forgot to mention in his ‘Some societies....’ speech, that a minor handicap system change has been introduced this year, whereby, each event winner will be ineligible for handicap increase as a result of his next round score. This is to introduce a little more stability into handicap movements. On looking at previous years statistics, this change will only come into play on average in 10% of occasions in any case.
So the 2017 season is well and truly underway. The early leaderboard has been posted to the website
Next up on the tour is Rossendale, which was won last year by Franky. Please note this day out is a Tuesday (9th May) in order to suit Mike’s personal golfing calendar, which see’s him (and others) going on a short trip to Chepstow and Wincanton the following day.
That’s it, see you in two weeks time at Rossendale, when hopefully Spring will have finally sprung!
Cheers Glenn
