Hawkstone Match Report 2024
Well, it’s been a busy week in the Parrots Golf Society! Last Thursday, we had the fifth day event at Stand and that was followed at the weekend by the annual 2-day trip to Hawkstone Park. Both events were met by excellent weather …. but of course!
At Stand, just 13 players made the trip. This could have been due to a few ardent England fans who couldn’t bear to miss the full glory of our football manager’s inability to get the most out of its national team, as per usual.
Those that did go would have heard Mike rave about Pete Corsby’s new found length off the tee (has he been having a few sneaky lessons from his son?!). Pete scored an excellent 36pts on a course where most people found the front nine a little too tricky (me included!). However, it wasn’t quite enough to get himself into the prize places, finishing third on the day.
I played with two of my Fleetwood golfing buddies at Stand (I use the term loosely!) and going into the day, I can tell you that Jimmy Clayton has been in hot form of late, matching the weather. Just one blob on that tricky front nine from Jim, but a stunning 21pt back nine, beating my own 20pts which included three birdies (just thought you’d like to know!), gave him 37pts overall and a rare showing from this thoroughbred golfer in the prize enclosure.
But, again, it wasn’t enough to win. That accolade was reserved for a stunning 40pts from a lad who has struggled with injury in recent years, but is currently pain free, and it showed! An excellent round from Marky T nearly doubled his score of last time out at Knott End and he was the worthy winner at Stand (cue a three shot reduction in handicap!). Well played Mark!
Alan Watson took the only NTP prize on the 13th as no-one managed to hit the long 6th !
Then it was on to Hawkstone Park for twenty of us, on a super weekend of weather which required that rarely used commodity in Britain, suntan lotion!
It was a late tee off on Sunday, the first group was away at 2.15pm on the Championship course, which meant my group, who were last out finally made it to the clubhouse at 7.45pm, with just half an hour to get checked-in, showered, changed and make it down to dinner at 8.15pm ….. somehow we managed it!
The day’s undoubted highlight was Derek’s front nine of 25pts ….. yes that’s not a typo! This score was backed up just enough on the back nine to give him 39pts overall and (spoiler alert!) this was the Day 1 winning score. All in all there were six people who played to their handicap or better (I had to stay up until midnight to work out all the handicap adjustments, and still got one wrong!). Conversely, only six people didn’t managed to score 30pts or more, so good golf across the board really.
After a welcome meal there was the usual poker tournament which was won by the ‘Croupier’ Marty Pierce (don’t get talking to Mike about his game, you’ll get a boring monologue about being ‘rivered’!). However, there was greater entertainment to be had on the adjacent table where The Great Glendini was in attendance. Andy is still probably wondering how his King of Diamonds kept coming back to the top of the deck upon command!
After a very brief time spent in our beds, it was an early breakfast in order to be on the tee again at 8.15am on the Hawkstone course, some a little worse for wear than others.
If we thought Day 1 scores were good, unbelievably Day 2 outshone them. Spoiler alert 2, Derek’s winning score of Day 1 would have been only good for 5th place on Day 2! There were three 40 pointers which fought it out on countback for 2nd place, but the day was won by a magnificent 41pts from the long hitting Stuart Weston. Now sometimes that long hitting doesn’t go where he wants it too, but I’m reliably informed by those there that yesterday, it did! The 40 pointers came from Matt (who nearly matched Derek’s 9 hole score haul with 24pts of his own on the back nine), Frank and Luke, which led to the top two for the weekend coming from further down the Day 1 pack.
The winner of the weekend, pocketing £100 winnings was …… Frankie Healey, whose 40pts added to his 37 from Day 1 gave him the best combined score of 77pts. Well done Frank. Stuart’s Day 2 stunner pulled him up from 10th to take second place with 74pts pushing Derek into 3rd place overall with 73pts following his second round 34pts.
Here’s the full results table with prizes awarded :-
1st Frank Healey 77pts (39 & 40) Prize for 1st overall
2nd Stuart Weston 74pts (33 & 41) Prize for 2nd overall
3rd Derek Abrahams 73pts (39 & 34) Prize for Day 1 1st , 2 x NTP Day 1
4th Andy Nurse 71pts (35 & 36) Prize for 3rd overall
5th Matt Murphy 70pts (30 & 40) Prize for Day 2 1st
6th Luke Palmer 68pts (28 & 40) Prize for Day 2 2nd
7th Glenn Riches 68pts (33 & 35) Prize for 4th overall, NTP Day 2
8th Paul Fineman 68pts (36 & 32) NTP Day 2
9th Mark Thomas 67pts (36 & 31)
10th Warren Murphy 67pts (37 & 30) Prize for Day 1 2nd
11th Bob Summers 66pts (31 & 35)
12th Glenn Wellard 66pts (35 & 31)
13th Steve Ingham 65pts (28 & 37) Prize for Day 2 3rd
14th Mel Johnson 63pts (36 & 27) Prize for Day 1 3rd , NTP Day 1, NTP Day 2
15th Mike Barnes 62pts (34 & 28)
16th Ian Bradshaw 61pts (32 & 29)
17th Andy Smith 59pts (25 & 34)
18th Steve Fineman 58pts (23 & 35)
19th Ian Benson 55pts (27 & 28) NTP Day 2
20th Martin Pierce 52pts (20 & 32)
The leaderboard and all the handicap changes resulting from Stand and Hawkstone Park are now incorporated in the handicap tables, so please check before you next play. It’s getting very tight at the top!
I won’t personally see you at Rossendale, as I will be on holiday, but I hope the sun shines for those that go and I’ll see you the following event.
Glenn
PS - A plea from ‘The Management’. The above scores include a couple of corrections due to handicaps, adding up etc. Please, please when you play can you make sure at least two people score all the players in your group and then at the end make sure these two cards match each other. That way we should be able to eradicate most of the possible errors. Many thanks!
