Hawkstone 2022 Match Report

Owing to the fact that my fragile back broke down the Thursday after we came back from Hawkstone Park (at least it was the first time for three years) not only is this report late but it’s also brief. This is firstly because it’s painful for me to sit at the computer for any length of time at the moment and secondly it’s a further pain to think I’ll be missing golf in this glorious weather for about two weeks!! For those who want to know the grizzly detail, I have a dodgy Sacroiliac joint(s) which every now and then decide that they’re going to collapse on me and put me in a heap of pain! Anyhow on to the weekend away.

The weekend was a fifth visit to the venue of Hawkstone Park in Shropshire. Unlike previous years we were assured of fine dry weather, breezy on Day 1 but perfect weather on Day 2, although you wouldn't have thought it from the scoring.

23 players made the cut for the weekend, which sadly didn't include Mark Thomas who is still plagued by his shoulder problems, but did include his stand-in Steve Fineman and Steve Livesey, making his debut in the Parrots weekend. There was the usual bumper prize pot, with prizes for 1st to 3rd  for each day and 1st to 3rd overall, as well as NTP’s on all Par 3's each day. Both courses were in excellent condition again with the greens on Day 2's Hawkstone course even faster than the day before (if that's possible!)

So down to the golf itself. Two great scores on Day 1, four average scores and the rest were getting handicap back...... oh dear, what's happened to us?!

Only four scores made it past the 30pts notched by me and Frankie. Kev and Derek had nice 32 pointers each, but both were 4pts behind the second place man Andy Nurse on 36pts. I played in Andy’s group and can say it was a pleasure to watch. A 20pt front nine with two birdies was only overshadowed by driving into the pond on the 3rd causing a blob. Only 16pts back, but mainly due to his other blob caused by a rare wedge miscue into a bunker on the 16th. But even this wasn’t good enough to head the leaderboard after Day 1. In the first group out, Alan Watson went to town on the course and amassed an excellent 38pts. Alan scored on every hole including a 4pt birdie on the same 16th that Andy blobbed (turning points in golf eh?!) resulting in a 21pt back nine. Excellent play Alan, well done.

Nearest the pins on Day 1 were Martin Greenaway on the 2nd, Glenn Riches on the 9th, Luke Palmer on the 11th and Ken Dalziel on the 17th.

In the evening there was food, beer, cards (not poker as a couple of clowns forgot the poker chips!), more beer, pool, darts, magic tricks, more beer, golf watching on the telly (well done Rory, Canadian Open champ) and finally bed ….. you know the drill.

On to Day 2 there were seven scores better than 30pts, a huge improvement on the day before, suggesting we’d perhaps got to grips with the slick greens (I’m not including you in that remark Mike!). But let’s not get to them yet, let me tell you about my round! After a silly three-putt blob from 12 foot on the 3rd birdies on both 8 and 9 saw me back to level 2’s by the turn, which I maintained to the 13th hole. But then, inexplicably, I proceeded to score just 4pts for the remaining five holes (this is now called doing a Michael Barnes by the way), to end up with just 30pts. Bugger!

So well done to Pete and Luke with 32 pointers on Day 2, just one behind Matt Murphy on 33, who was in turn one behind Derek and Ken with 34pts apiece. But taking second place on the day was a fella who was in the first group out (and you know what that means!), with 35pts, well done a much improved Steve Livesey. However, a further 4pts up the road with the best score of the weekend was that amiable, chatty, Only Fools and Horses loving taxi driver and mercurial golfer Steve Fineman with an excellent 39pts. Steve birdied no less than 3 holes in his round, again scoring on every hole and amassed 22pts on the tough back nine. So well done to Steve, who would propel himself up the overall leaderboard for the weekend.

Nearest the pins on Day 2 were Andy Nurse on the 2nd, me on the 9th (I have it on good authority from Martin Pierce who was on the 10th tee, that my tee shot lipped the hole for an ace … oh well, one day!) and John Byrne on the 12th.

So to the final scores. As you can see from the full result table below Alan Watson held on to take the overall top spot, with Derek and Steve F making it a close run thing. Well done Alan on a very good weekend’s play and he is your Hawkstone Park champion for 2022. Handicap changes in brackets.

1st Alan Watson 38 & 30 for 68 (18 to 17) Prize for Overall 1st

2nd Derek Abrahams 32 & 34 for 66 (no change) Prize for Overall 2nd

3rd Steve Fineman 26 & 39 for 65 (14 to 13) Prize for Day 2 1st

4th Andy Nurse 36 & 27 for 63 (no change) Prize for Day 1 1st

5th Luke Palmer 29 & 32 for 61 (25 to 26) Prize for Overall 3rd

6th Glenn Wellard 30 & 30 for 60 (no change)

7th Steve Livesey 24 & 35 for 59 (no change) Prize for Day 2 2nd

8th Ken Dalziel 25 & 34 for 59 (20 to 21) Prize for Day 2 3rd

9th Frank Healey 30 & 28 for 58 (no change) Prize for Day 1 3rd

10th Dave Baird 26 & 31 for 57 (17 to 18)

11th Matt Murphy 23 & 33 for 56 (26 to 27)

12th Kev Gerrard 32 & 24 for 56 (no change) Prize for Day 1 2nd

13th Glenn Riches 28 & 27 for 55 (8 to 9)

14th Mike Barnes 26 & 28 for 54 (12 to 13)

15th Warren Murphy 27 & 27 for 54 (17 to 18)

16th Martin Greenaway 28 & 26 for 54 (9 to 10)

17th Martin Pierce 26 & 27 for 53 (27 to 28)

18th Mel Johnson 29 & 24 for 53 (16 to 17)

19th Pete Whiteside 20 & 32 for 52 (18 to 19)

20th Paul Greenaway 26 & 25 for 51 (27 to 28)

21st John Byrne 26 & 20 for 46 (20 to 22)

22nd Geoff Moss 29 & 17 for 46 (17 to 18)

23rd John Cottam 21 & 24 for 45 (19 to 21)

Now, Mike’s prize pot rules at Hawkstone mean that players only collect one prize for their efforts, the one of most value for their achievements, meaning that prizes may be passed down. So for example Al won the overall prize, so the prize for winning Day 1 was passed down to Andy with his 36pts. This process works fine, so long as the fella adding up the aggregate scores after the second round does it properly!! On this occasion I left the task to Michael, as I was just about to tuck into my pizza …. big mistake!

A quirk with the Hawkstone Course scorecard meant that Mike had transposed players scores in a couple of groups. One of those was Matt’s, which was discovered because Matt pointed out that he’d scored 33pts not 34. Shuffle …. Shuffle, out came a new set of results, where Mike concluded I’d won the prize for Overall 3rd on the above principles. What he failed to notice though, was that the score card master, Glenn Riches, had also filled his card in as per the quirky provisions of the card layout and consequently there was another error in Mike's machinations! Guess who lost out?!

Having corrected things it turns out that Luke had 32pts on Day 2 (instead of the 27pts Mike had given him), meaning, yes you guessed it, he should have won the prize for overall 3rd, as you can see in the table. Lukey, when I see you next I owe you £25 mate, making that pizza probably the most expensive I’ll ever have!! It also makes me the highest scoring player not to win a place prize for the second year running. In the words of Mel Johnson …. ‘why always me!’

Talk about insult to injury!!

Glenn