Finally the Bob Shepherd re-arranged Jurassic Challenge got underway in splendid weather which ended up with us drinking Doom Bar in the warm sunshine and thanks to a Long Sutton Player, Keith Lancey, getting a hole-in one, there was a plentiful supply of free wine up at the bar.
Each Club enters Four pairs for a 4BBB and you add up all the totals to see who wins the magnificent Frank Martin Designed Built trophy.
After coming last in Mondays Qualifier, JKP was nervous about playing with Farmer Bob ..but his calming influence made me to at least make a valid contribution to our score. Mind you he was not so calm as we came over the hill on a Par 5 looking for his ball after hitting his 2nd straight over the marker post and smelling a valuable birdy 4 (with a shot)- but it was never found and hard to understand where it could of gone apart from to another player....
It was a massive 'Shotgun' Start at 08:45 with Teams from Enmore, Honiton, Long Sutton, Weymouth, Wheathill, Sidmouth & Vivary - with several doubled-up.
Beautiful views of course all the way round and well worth a visit with lots of work going on by greens staff in some of the more wild areas. Course is criss-crossed with paths, so if you just want a stroll you can access the area.
If you look by the Cob you can see Mike Burt swimming and Sue with a '99', holding his wallet.
Lots of Prizes with Jim Sinclair of Weymouth winning Longest Drive, P Harper of Weymouth NTP 3rd, Bob Jennings of the same Town doing the same on 8th. Then on 13th Pat Fewtrell got NTP followed by the piece de resistance of Keith Lancey of Long Sutton getting the Ace on the 11th.
There were 7 '2's' which of course included Farmer Bob.
Individual Scores were quite high with 4th top being 42 from Wheathill, a 43 from one of the Sidmouth teams, then Long Sutton grabbed the top 2 places with 44 & 46. Of course Keith Lancey was in one of them and his partner...Phil Bowditch of course !
Seeing the scores above 40, we feared coming in rather a long way down the order and had a sweepstake guessing the winning total, ranging from 157 to 170.
Our Teams all scored within 2 of each other between 37 &39 so it was good but not 'spectacular' ...until Bob Shepherd announced 'In Third place with 152 was Cricket St Thomas'...and you could see each of our Teams realising what that one missed shot, like Stuart touching sand in bunker incurring penalty....we just needed 2 more points from 8 players over 144 Holes...that was close....
Second was Weymouth on 153 and of course it was our arch-enemy Long Sutton just 1 more ahead on 154 that won the Jurassic Challenge.
Lovely Meal of Duck Liver Parfait with Red Onion Marmalade and Olive Oil Crostini , followed by Roast Loin of Pork with roasted vegetables , Meat Jus & Cider Apple Sauce, except for Bert as Veg bowl was near empty by the time it went around the table. It was all finished off by Lemon Posset with Shortbread and Fresh Raspberries, plus Coffee & Invisible Mints.
Very good Day out, thanks for our organisers . Lesson for you all out there...if you have a really bad day at golf, just keep the faith and a much better day will come along very soon...
JKP 06/04
