| Date: | 21st June 2010 |
| Venue: | Royal Ashdown Forest G.C. |
After revelling in the glory of winning the inaugural event in 2008 (not to mention suffering the subsequent chagrin of finishing in last place in 2009) the Hon. Secretary played a trump card in selecting a very fine team to fight our way back into the winner's enclosure.
The team consisted of our Hewitt Captain John Spurling (who was on gardening leave before taking up a new mega-appointment), Toby Phelps whose game had been simply magnificent at the Autumn Meeting at Hankley (owing to a similar stint of horticultural endeavour for equally impressive reasons) and Chris Knight (newly graduated from university). Despite being a retired man the fourth team member, the Hon. Secretary, was probably was the only one under stress (entirely due to the excesses of being Hon Secretary of the OTGS).
Each team consisted of two pairs playing stableford foursomes morning and afternoon on each of Royal Ashdown's courses. Spurling and Phelps claimed that they were a pair made in heaven and Chris Knight felt strong enough to carry the Hon. Secretary. Our massively powerful pairs strutted to their respective 1st Tees for the morning round. Each of the four of us played surprisingly indifferently. The team was at its very sharpest during lunch but then played unspectacularly again when playing the other courses in the afternoon. We finished with a cumulative score of 126 points for our four scoring stableford rounds. Not dreadful but not as good as we had hoped. Then the theoretically strong team from Rye came in with 106 points which made us feel surprisingly good. However the winning team then came in with 150 points which put us firmly back in our boxes. The spring went out of our collective step when it eventually transpired that we had finished in mid-table. We had not fulfilled our pre-event billing. Perhaps the Hon. Secretary needed some rest and perhaps the other three needed the stimulation of doing some work!
But we all enjoyed the day!