The Club's Results

The first match began well for BPBC, but ended with a well-deserved point for FaT.

Summers' successful par putt on the first was brilliantly captured by our one-armed paparazzo, and by the fourth we had built on that start to lead by two.

Jim played a great tee shot on five, finishing in the heart of the green. His par there began a FaT winning sequence which lasted for four straight holes and earned them a 2&1 victory.

Thankfully for BPBC, our other fourball showed rather more promise and delivered the goods. (Graham Fisher)

Off the first tee I thinned it into the lake, setting a trend of poor tee shots which luckily only let up whenever Mike got into difficulties. This fortuitous coincidence, rather than the consistency that the result might suggest, saw us take the first five holes and a comfortable win. Luckily, the match was over before my subsequent 8 on the 6th. (Jon)

Lest you think that BPBC is packed with super-golfers, I would like to point out that this result is rather flattering for Jon and me, and rather harsh on Bryn and Henry.

Jon and I (rather by luck than design) managed to put together a perfect bit of fourballs play, dovetailing our successes and cock-ups beautifully for the first five holes. Bryn and Henry showed later in the round (and later in the day) that they were of comparable skill to us - we were just a bit faster out of the blocks. (Mike)

Both players made significant improvements from their earlier rounds. After I had won two of the first three holes, things became a good deal more interesting when Bryn pulled a hole back at the fourth - his chip hitting the pin and being unlucky not to drop in.

By the time we had played the seventh, scores had held steady without being spectacular (no bad thing - at least they weren't spectacularly bad!). A couple of pars on my part, plus a couple of (narrowly) missed puts from Bryn had concluded the tie 3&2 in BPBC's favour.

By the end, we had racked up 32 and 40 strokes respectively... hopefully a standard allowing the lead singles match to hold its head up high against most of what was to follow. (Graham Fisher)

This scoreline could have been significantly closer; I'm glad my putting was on form.

I hit one or two of the tee-shots right of the green. The ones I hit straight, I had to watch in disgust as they sailed through the back of the green, my sand-iron tee shot on the 5th hole almost finishing in the ditch about 20 yards beyond the back of the green. I did manage in stopping it on two of the greens, well below what I'd expect from a maximum of 140 yards out. Sadly, my chipping wasn't that great either, and, although I was generally getting it in the vicinity of the hole, I was often leaving 8-12 foot putts to save par. Thankfully, the greens at the Lakes are surprisingly good (better and quicker than my home course greens for example), and my putting was good enough to make some of those putts.

It could have been much closer, Jim missed a 3-ish footer for par at the 6th which would have halved the hole, and you can't help thinking if some of my mid-range putts hadn't dropped, it could have been close all the way to the end. (Richard)