After the deluge of rain that fell over the previous two days, it was hard to believe that Tenby golf course could be playable on Sunday morning. Especially as we arose to more rain. But playable it was, and the sun came out, and with the help of a stiff breeze, it dried up all the rain. Luckily, although some members having seen the forecast cried off, by 10.15 am it was beautiful, and all our visitors had a completely dry round.

Each year, this competition is growing in popularity. Maybe it’s the greensomes format off the ladies’ card, or the fact that we have separate visitors’ prizes. Or maybe it is just that Tenby golf course is an impressive course to try and master. Fourteen different clubs were represented by the visitors, and 21 Tenby pairs battled it out for the beautiful trophy.

Nearest the pin in two on the second were Sophie and her granddad Neil Lovatt. Nearest the pin on the 12th was Julie Tordoff. Julie and her partner, Nigel Ayers, also had a two on the sixth, winning a share of the ball sweep. Also having a share were Pam and Steve Cole and Jacqueline and Kelvin Jones (from Creigiau) on the sixth; and Chris and Carol Beecher and Heather Morgan and Mervyn Tucker on the 17th. Mervyn’s ball hit the flag and was an easy tap-in of six inches. That would have been his ninth hole-in-one, but always another day Mervyn.

Third place in the visitors’ prizes went to Alan and Moyanne Monday from St. Pierre with 35 points (last year’s winners), second, also on 35 but winning on countback, were Steve and Carol Morgan from Fairwood Park; and in first place with 37 points were Eileen and Harley Chessell from South Pembs. Many visitors came to thank me for a lovely day and said they would be back next year.

The battle for the trophy was keenly fought, with Mick Seal and Linda Tordoff Evans just missing out on the prizes with 39 points. In third place were Roger Schooling and Angie Gottwaltz with 40 points (and that was after a handicap cut this week for Angie, so well done). Second were Steve Williams and Vicky Burks with 41 points. Steve was disappointed last year to come in with a winning score, but playing with a visitor he couldn’t win the trophy. Next year Steve?

The winners of the trophy for this year, having come together on the first tee because of people dropping out, and playing together for the first time, were Maura Gunning and Chris Lawrence with 42 points. Great achievement to you both, and thank you for not dropping out too.

This is the only competition run by the mixed committee to raise funds for the club, so every entry is gratefully received.

Many thank yous are needed now. To Tom in the Pro Shop for all his help, to John Hunt for being a super ‘Mr Starter’ for the whole competition, to Iris Davies and her helper Judy Brew for running a great raffle that raised £212, to Leigh and Emma for catering to our needs in the bar and the restaurant, and last but not least to Laura, Idwal and David, who quietly work away in the background making sure everything runs smoothly - I couldn’t do it without you.

Finally, the 125 Greensomes Medal Shield is on Saturday, September 15, so keep an eye on the computer three weeks before to book in. And good luck to the mixed team going to Derllys Court on Wednesday. By the time you read this we will know if they got their revenge for our win in Tenby.

Tenby scrape league win in awful conditions

Last Saturday, Ashburnham GC visited Tenby for a Dyfed League encounter. Tenby had previously won at Ashburnham in the opening match of the season.

Tenby (1888) and Ashburnham (1894) are two of the oldest clubs in Wales. Each year, in addition to Dyfed League matches, they play for The Putter and this fixture is now well over 100 years old.

The weather last Saturday was not conducive to good or enjoyable golf. There was incessant heavy rain and a very strong south-westerly gale throughout. Consequently, although the links was in an excellent condition to include the greens, scoring was difficult.

First out for Tenby were Ben Childs and Neil Thomas. They convincingly beat Ashburnham’s Justin Nicholas and Jason Rees by 6 & 4.

Tenby’s second pair of Andrew Cope and Darren Thomas also enjoyed a handsome win beating Huw Dixon and Julian Ellis 4 & 3.

However, although they played well, Chris Hughes and John Broomhead went down by 3 & 1 to Keith Williams and Gerard McCormack.

Alan Webster and Loz Phillips (a dream pairing - for Loz!) enjoyed a 4 & 3 victory over Leighton Howell and Sam Jones. Tenby now led by 3 games to 1.

Somewhat controversially, after 10 holes, Steve Sutcliffe and Jerry Whitehouse agreed a half with Jim Nugent and Rob Stevens. Luckily for the Tenby pair, this did not affect the match result, albeit it could easily have done so.

Paul Jenkins and Dai Cope fought hard, but lost their game against Dai Jones and Jonathan Lewis by 2 & 1.

Similarly, Tim Davies and Paul Dennehy battled ferociously, but eventually succumbed one down to Martin Gravelle and Josh Westcott.

The match score now stood at 3.5 games each, but it transpired that the Tenby team had nothing to worry about. Gary McNeilly and Chris Beecher hammered Rob Saunders and John Howell 8 & 6 to ensure a Tenby win by 4.5 to 3.5.

The Tenby squad has enjoyed a reasonably successful season so far, winning four of their six matches. However, Machynys are definitely clear favourites for promotion to Division 1 as their victories have been by much bigger margins.

Tenby now have two away matches - at Newport tomorrow and at Glynhir the following Saturday. Realistically, two wins are needed in order to have any chance of the Division 2 title.

Tenby Ladies still on form

On Monday August 6 Senior Ladies played their 14-hole competition. The best score of the day came from Linda Thomas with an excellent 29, with Anne Wilks carding a decent 27.

The Monthly Medal was played on Thursday, 9th in conjunction with the Jane Davies Hughes Bronze and Silver Nett Cups. There was a very good turnout on another beautiful sunny day and there were some good scores in, with more than half the field getting into the 70s (and one managed to get into the 60s!).

The Medal for Division One and the Silver Nett Cup was won by Heather Morgan with a fine 73, one clear of runner-up Denise Edwards, who beat Georgina Ormond on countback, both with nett 74s.

The top three in Division Two all received handicap reductions, with third place going to Sarah Waring with an excellent nett 71, second place going to Irene Gilman with an impressive nett 70, but the ‘best of the day’ score came from clever-clogs Trevayne Keohane who won the Medal and the Bronze Nett Cup after her eye-watering nett 67 (which she kept quiet about in the clubhouse after!), but with this score came a massive handicap reduction of 3.5 to 32!

Denise bagged two birdie twos (on the 6th and 12th), with Mary Lewis also getting in on the act with a two on the 17th and Trevayne gets another mention for her two on the 6th!

There was also a nine-hole stableford contest running on the same day. Half a dozen cards were processed, with third place going to Linda Thomas with her 16 points, one behind runner-up Nesta Hart on 17, who was a further one point behind winner Dinah Reed with 18 points.

On Friday the 10th, Wales Golf organised a ‘National Playing Fields Cup’ which was played at Derllys Court. Ten players from Tenby took part in a field of 49. Vicky Burks came in with a decent score of 37, which was good enough for seventh place, and the cup winner was Tenby’s Denise Edwards (seen above) with a very impressive 41 points playing off seven, which reduced her handicap down 0.8 to 6.5.

On Monday 13th, Wales Golf held a Ladies Team event at Cottrell Park. It was a team of four competition, with 34 teams from across South Wales entering, and some clubs entering more than one team.

Tenby put in three teams and two of them were in the prizes, with the team consisting of Laura McQueen, Heather Morgan, Georgina Ormond and Sarah Waring coming second with 115 and the winning team being Penny Cope, Gill John, Sue Ensor and Carol Beecher, who went one better and came in with 116 points!

Also on Monday, Tenby held the Past Lady Captains’ competition for the ‘Clareston Cup’. After a concerning moist start to the morning, the 1 pm tee-off welcomed us with much better weather and as the game progressed the sun arrived and it became quite warm.

In third place was immediate past captain Linda Thomas, in second place was the 2015/16 captain, Irene Gilman, with the cup winner being Nesta Hart (seen below) - the captain from 2007/08.

After the game, a dozen past captains (including Mel Smith (09/10), Helen Morgan (06/07) and Jean Charnock (04/05), who are no longer current playing members) came together to enjoy a mouth-watering meal (thanks to Lee and the Crew), a catch-up chat and the presentation of the cup. It was a lovely day which everyone seemed to enjoy.

P. C.