Match Report Morecambe Golf Club 2017
The final outing of the Parrots golf society took place at the usual venue of Morecambe last Friday. A few days before the day, the weather forecast was somewhat dour. However, thankfully, this forecast improved steadily such that on the day itself, although there was some rain in the morning, the afternoon round was played in virtually rain free conditions. Although, the ground itself was very heavy, leading to various forms of preferred lie rules being in operation on the day, depending on who you spoke to!
The conditions certainly didn’t deter the Parrots faithful as 21 players competed in the afternoon round, including a familiar couple of lunchtime arrives! Making their first appearances of the year were Rob White and Tony Duncan. Incidentally, 21 makes this year’s Morecambe event the most attended Parrots society day in history, or at least since records began. With the organiser flush with cash from the season’s proceeds, like last year, there were again additional prizes in the afternoon of £10 for Nearest the Pin on each of the five Par 3’s, and a longest drive prize on the 18th.
Scoring is always difficult at Morecambe, and so it proved in the morning. Best of the crowd were 15 pts by Pete Whiteside, beaten into second place by one point by Franky with 16 pts.
After a soup and sandwich lunch, it was time for the final round of the season. In time honoured fashion, players went out in reverse position order on the leaderboard, which made the final group of leaders out together last, Frank, Mike, TJ and Phil. With a six shot lead, Frank was modesty itself, safe in the knowledge that no leader going into the final round at Morecambe has been overhauled, due to the difficulty of the course.
True to form then, only 7 scores made it to 30 points or better this final day. The first of these came in the second group out, with Warren scoring exactly 30 pts for his second best score of the year. The next came from Trevor in the third group out, who bettered this by one point for 31 pts for his best score of the year.
The next high score came from the sleeping giant of society golf that is Jimmy Clayton. A 31 pointer from him also, Jim would have parred all five of Morecambe’s challenging Par 3’s had he not three putted the last of these. It was unsurprising then that following groups were to see his name on 4 of the 5 nearest the pin markers during the course of the day, but sadly for poor Jimmy, he was destined to win none of these!
Jim’s group did however contain the winner of the longest drive prize. This was won by an absolute monster from the windmill swing of Stuart Weston, who fired his 18th tee shot into a stiff breeze to roughly 40 yards from the green. Well done Stu!
As it happens, the fifth group out of the day (comprising myself, John Pat, John Cottam and Pete Whiteside) were close to taking all the Nearest the Pin prizes between them. I secured the prizes for both the 10th and 16th holes, John C had also secured a double on the 5th and 13th holes, but Pete W’s close effort on the third, which he went on to birdie, was beaten in the last group by Mike to take the final prize, we later discovered.
Three of the remaining 30+ scores were also to come from this penultimate group. JP notched a round 30 pts, but both myself and Pete W scored 33 pts each, with Pete holding the overall lead until the last hole when a Par from myself, to Pete’s bogey, tied it up.
But despite these scores from the challenging group, who would face controversy later in the clubhouse, these three were too far adrift from the leading four to make an impact. So, unlike the Thornton Golf Society, whose season winner on the following Sunday did come from that penultimate group (!), the Parrots season winner was all in the last four-balls hands.
On the day, Tony and Phil struggled in Morecambe’s soggy ground and could only manage 25 and 26pts respectively, meaning their title hopes were over. But in their personal battle for third place in the table, the victory went to Tony, as neither improved their best five scores.
So the only challenger left to Franky was Mike. After nine holes Mike had accumulated 19pts, an excellent score, and more than halfway to the 37 pts he would need for overall victory if Frank didn’t improve. Sadly though for Mike, a back nine score of just 14 pts, and 33 pts in total left him 4pts short of that target, but securing 2nd place overall.
Meaning that the Champion Golfer for the Parrot’s Golf Society for 2017 is Frank Healey. Congratulations Franky.
Frank also took the prize for the seasons highest individual score of the year, with his 40 pointer that won the day at Bentham. Well done again Frank.
But what of todays winner? Well, the count-back demons went to work again on Mike. His 14pt back-nine was beaten by both myself and Pete W who had had 17pts each. So it took a last 6 holes score of 14pts to 11 to hand the days win to me, with Pete taking the money for second place.
But it wouldn’t be a Parrots day out without a bit of rules controversy! Having arrived at lunchtime, and hearing accounts of the heavy ground, I had no reason to doubt one of my playing partners giving me the ruling that had been made that preferred lies applied to all cut grass on the course. However, it seemed that there had been a misunderstanding here and our group was the only one that had played on this basis. It was an honest mistake, and magnanimously, the society organiser allowed the result to stand, even though it was to his own personal cost.
Handicap changes from Morecambe were :-
Frank Healey 9 to 10 to 9 again (due to the one shot deduction for winning the season)
Glenn Wellard 7 to 6
Simon Gledhill 18 to 19
Tony Duncan 26 to 27
Due to the general low scoring this year (for those that had completed five rounds or more, the average score of the ‘best five’ this year was 30.0 compared to 32.2 last year) and in response to views expressed that the handicap buffer zone is perhaps set too low, from next season, there will be a change to the handicap percentage adjustment rules. Please see the handicaps page for the details on this.
In the meantime, thanks to everyone who took part in the Parrots Golf Society for 2017, a whopping 22 players played in five rounds or more, another Parrots record. Enjoy the Winter break whilst dreaming of the sort of golfing weather in 2018 that only certain societies can guarantee!!
Glenn
