2018 Morecambe Match Report
The final outing of the Parrots golf society took place at the usual venue of Morecambe on Friday 28th September. There’s usually one very obvious question heading up to a golf society outing, what will the weather be like? But on this occasion there were two.
Since the start of August our Society Secretary and spiritual leader, Michael Barnes has been unable to play because of injury, but this was the final outing of the year with the end of season presentation dinner to follow. Surely Mike would be there to give his customary end of season speech? Even as everyone gathered for tea/coffee and bacon barms, I was continually asked by new arrivals ‘is Mike coming?’. But no, there was no Michael. Everyone seemed disappointed. Something needed to be done!
By the way, the question of the weather was emphatically answered by the blue skies over Morecambe from 1st tee to final green. In fact, as one of the pictures Phil took for the website shows, we could have been in Portugal! There were 14 players for the final morning outing with Stuart arriving at lunch to make 15 for the afternoon.
As ever, there were many mediocre scores posted in the morning (including four scores that didn’t make it past 10!). As it happened my own group, playing with JC, JP and Warren, had 4 of the best 6 morning scores with myself sneaking the best score of the group with 16pts. However, this was only good enough for second place as Mel’s resurgent form had continued by posting the best score of the morning with 18pts. So well done to Mel, who wins the morning prize.
So then it was time for a soup and sandwich lunch whilst catching up with progress in the Ryder Cup, and also to welcome a new arrival. No not Stuart, but since he couldn’t make it in the flesh, a virtual Michael Barnes made an appearance, in the form of a cardboard cut-out presiding over the group from under the TV!! Phew, karma was restored!
As is the tradition, the afternoon round groupings for the last outing are determined by current position in the table, in reverse order. Who would have thought then that last year’s champion, Frank Healey, would have been in that first group? But so it was. Frank can console himself though,with the fact that he had already won the Thornton Golf Society title for the second year running. Best score from the first group was a 28pts from John Cottam.
Second out were myself, Warren, Mel and Tom. A back nine collapse by me and Tom put us out of contention, but although an 18pt back nine from Warren brought his score up to 31pts it was one shy of Mel’s score of 32pts representing the leader in the clubhouse. Consolations for Warren and myself were that we both picked up one of the Par 3 NTP prizes each. Mine on the 10th and Warren on the 16th.
Next out were Pete, Bill, Stuart and Phil. Phil and Stuart played together in their four-ball doubles and having scored 17pts each on the front nine, found themselves 8 up on the other pair, at the halfway stage! Is that some kind of record? Sadly Phil couldn’t continue his form through the back nine and finished with 29pts. However, Stuart did. An even better back nine of 19pts gave Stuart a total of 36pts, an excellent score at Morecambe, surely tough to beat. But last out were the elite of the season John P, Gareth, TJ and Jim.
Sadly for John, his season came to an early end as he was forced off the course halfway with an injury (yet another to add to the catalogue this season!). Of the rest the best score was a 32pts from Jim, although it could (should?) have been 33pts had he not three-putted the last green from 10 feet! ‘Unbelievable’ was followed by Jim saying ‘That’s going to cost me money!’. How right he was!
There were three prizes on offer for the places this afternoon. Stuart’s excellent 36pts took first place for £50, so well done Stuart on winning the final outing of the year. But second’s £20 and 3rd’s £10 prizes had to be decided on a card playoff between Mel and Jim’s 32pts each. Needless to say, Jim’s 3 putt finish cost him a tenner, with Mel taking 2nd place. Jim could console himself by being the winner of the NTP prize for the 3rd hole, with the remaining two greens on offer not won (so we gave that money to Kev Gerrard, well who wouldn’t!!)
So it was time for me to do a furious adjustment to the overall table (on my own!), do some kind of end of season speech (on my own!!) and do all the prize presentations (on my own!!). Despite his smiling dominance at the head of the table, Mike’s cardboard cut-out was useless at any of these tasks! So what was the season outcome?
Well, as is often usual at Morecambe there was not much movement at the head of the table. Stuart excellent final score propelled him up to 5th, a great finish. But the top four positions remained the same. Just outside the money again, was Jimmy Clayton in fourth place. On 169pts (for best 5) was Tony Johnson (Johnston, Johnstone.... take your pick!!) in third place. Second place went to Gareth Lunn, on171pts, a great result in his first season completing five or more rounds with the Parrots.
But out in front, and Champion Golfer for the 2108 season was John Patterson, with a total of 178pts. So congratulations to John, who claims his second Parrots title, having previously won in 2011. John also won the prize for best score of the season with his magnificent 42pts at Bentham this year, setting him well on the way to his title.
All that remained was a ritual defamation of Mike’s cardboard cut-out and trying to eat the nuclearly hot apple crumble (most people had left by the time I’d managed to finish mine!) before the Parrots season for 2018 was over.
Handicap changes from Morecambe were :-
Stuart Weston 14 to 13
John Patterson 8 to 7 (due to the one shot deduction for winning the season, ouch!)
Mel Johnson 19 to 18
Tom Rowles 20 to 21
Thanks to everyone who took part in the Parrots Golf Society for 2018. 20 players played in five rounds or more this year, and an average of 14.5 players attended each event, which is a record for the society (who was the 0.5 though, could it have been the little FFFF?!). Enjoy the Winter break, and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2019.
Glenn
