2018 Heysham Match Report
The first Parrots Golf Society outing of the year took place last Thursday at Heysham. You would be forgiven for thinking that the Parrots had decided to start the season early, given the Winter we’ve had, as there has been only a couple of days of warm weather to date to suggest the hint of a summer being on the way! So it was a very (very!) breezy and cold, but thankfully dry, Heysham that 15 players made their way to for the first day of the year, with Stuart joining the group for the afternoon 18 holes. At least the course was in reasonable nick, given the recent weather green-keeping staff have had to contend with.
A couple of regulars were absent due to injury. Bill Pye has had a operation to repair a tendon problem and will need a few weeks recovery before he will be able to pick up the clubs again. Worse news from Phil Matthews, who tells me that he has a shoulder injury which may keep him out for the whole season. So our best wishes to those guys for as speedy a recovery as possible. A further injury was to be sustained during the day, but more on that later!
So 13 players in the morning and you could throw a cap over nine of them, scorewise (what an excellent society for good handicapping this is)! Three 14 pointers, two 15 pointers, three 16 pointers, but sneaking the morning with a winning 17 points was Warren Murphy, so well done to Warren.
After an excellent meal, and finally extracting snooker mad pair Trevor and Paul from the snooker room in time to tee off, it was time for the afternoon rounds. Now normally, most people prefer to play in fourballs, not least your genial secretary Mike Barnes, but the times they are a changing.
There was a time when if you asked Mike what his favourite sport to play was, it would be unhesitatingly golf. However, in the last year or so, Mike has found a new love (no, I don’t mean Mitzi), the card game Bridge, which he now plays more than golf. So much is the pull of this new love, he planned to forsake his society mates after the round, to get to his latest Bridge night, leaving the secretarial responsibilities of presentation speeches and prize awards to some other bugger, and so asked to play in the firstgroup out!
The only consolation for his spurned mates was that, with Mike being out first in the only three ball of the afternoon, it meant they were able to just stay ahead of the first four-ball!
But onto the scores. With the windy conditions, anything in the 30’s was going to be good today. So having reached that figure and dashed off, Mike was kept in suspense over whether his score might prevail for the win. Sadly, for him, it didn’t. Also on 30 points and in joint 3rd place was an in form Mel Johnson, who can often be seen these days fleecing the members at Fleetwood Golf Club! These two were just a point ahead of a couple of good 29 pointers from morning winner Warren and myself, my own round including three pleasing birdies.
In my group was little Geoff Moyle, winner at Heysham in 2015. Geoff’s steady 15 point front nine was backed up by an excellent 18 pt back nine for 33 pts, and put him as the clubhouse leader with one group left out on the course.
In the last group were the buggy boys for the day, TJ and Paul. TJ, who it seems may need to look for a new driver to get him to Parrots outings this year due to Phil’s injury woes, and Paul, who had an injury on the course! A slip getting into the buggy on the 8th hole cost Paul a few torn groin muscle fibres. A couple of shots later, Paul was sadly unable to continue and was just a buggy passenger with Tony for the rest of the round.
After a protracted adding up meeting in the corner of the clubhouse by this last group, it was established that there was another 33 pointer in the house. Surely, there was no competition for Geoff’s 18 pt back nine? But yes! With 13 pts out and a stunning 20pt back nine for 33 pts total, it was Simon Gledhill who was in the winners enclosure for the first outing of the year. Well done to Simon.
I did eventually break the news to Mike that he hadn’t won later in the evening!
Handicap changes from Heysham are as follows :-
Simon Gledhill 19 to 18
Geoff Moyle 24 to 23
John Patterson 8 to 9
Stuart Weston 14 to 15
Gareth Lunn 18 to 19
Tony Johnson 20 to 21
Andy Smith 24 to 25
Pete Whiteside 10 to 11
So the 2018 season is under way. The early leaderboard is already posted to the website. If you’ve forgotten the web address over the long winter it is www.parrotsgolf.co.uk
Next up on the tour is Kirkby Lonsdale, which was won last year by Pete Whiteside, and is back to the more usual Wednesday (9th May)
Cheers Glenn
