2018 Bentham Match Report
The 8th round of the Parrots 2018 season took place at Bentham Golf Club last Wednesday. A perennial favourite on the society’s calendar, Bentham has traditionally been a course where some big scores have been recorded, and with the current spell of dry weather leading to a running course, could that be set to continue? Conditions were very pleasant throughout the day with light winds, although, as we were to find out, the greens were quite slow.
A nice round 12 players made it to the day, with a number of regulars missing due to their prior weekend away at Hollins Hall. Although we were nearly 10. As time ticked on towards the morning tee time, there was no sign of Mike who was bringing Jim to the day. It turns out that Mike had had a puncture not far from the course and was stranded. Step in that super hero of Parrots transport rescue services Stuart Weston, who stopped to lend a hand to the hapless Mike and Jim. These guys obviously hadn’t changed a wheel for a long time and seemed unable to get the wheel off the axle! However, with Stuart help, the wheel was changed and Mike and Jim were able to continue and just make the tee off.
In the morning there were some good scores posted, but none better than my own 23pts, which sound amazing for a Parrots morning round until you realise we play 11 holes in the morning at Bentham and so I was just 1 better than handicap! So I took the morning honours prior to yet another al fresco lunch at Bentham.
First out in the afternoon were Mike, Gareth, JC and Tony. Sadly for him, after scoring 38pts last year (and still not being in the top 2 btw!) Tony slumped to just 16 pts. No dice for Mike either with 26, but John and Gareth made it into the 30’s with 30 and 31pts respectively.
Next out were Jim, Bill, JP and Geoff Moyle (you remember him don’t you, the feisty former firefighter of reknown from Mike’s last report at Accrington!). Lowest score here was Bill with a respectable 29pts, then Jim, who completed his fifth round of the year with 33pts and propelled himself up the leaderboard. Just pipping Jim on 34pts was Geoff. And then we come to John Pat!! I had played with John in the morning, and like the rest of us was bemoaning the pace of the greens as he struggled to something like 18pts (although his experience was better than last year, when he lasted just two shots of the morning round before a faulty trolley saw him head back to the clubhouse in frustration). So how did this happen?
John had five birdies in the afternoon, including four in the first five holes of the back nine, amassing 42pts in total and going round in a gross 74 shots. A fantastic round from John and destined to take the win. Except the players in group 3, of course, didn’t know that at the time!
Last out were myself, Mel, Pete and Stuart, and what a ding dong tussle we had! Mel took the front nine with an excellent 19pts, whilst I failed to follow up my morning score trailing with 16pts. After 15 holes I was still in last place, but a birdie then a par on 16/17 meant I was leading going down the last, with the other three each one point behind! Sadly, Mel failed to score on the last leaving him on 31pts. Pete and Stuart had two-pointers each meaning they finished with 33pts apiece. But a par for myself gave me a finishing score of 35pts, and maybe a chance of the overall?!
That dream was short-lived, of course, as I learned of John’s superb round, but it was good enough for second place. So congratulations to John on a magnificent round of golf, winning the day at Bentham, and in the process has pushed up the bar for the best score of the season, beating Tommo's previous best of 39pts at Hart Common.
Handicap changes from Bentham are as follows :-
John Patterson 9 to 8
Mike Barnes 12 to 13
Tony Johnson 20 to 21
The updated leaderboard has already been posted to the website by Phil. Not only did John's round win the day for him, it has also propelled him into first place in the current standings, just one point ahead of second place Gareth, with Jim 4pts behind in 3rd. Things are hotting up (if they hadn’t been hot for long enough as it is!)
The next outing for the Parrots is a change to the scheduled day. Mike has cancelled the day at Rossendale (see previous newsletter) and so the next day out will be Knott End on Friday 20th July, tee off 9.30am
Glenn
