The forecast snow started before many of Tuesday’s participants left home and must have been heavy enough to deter some elderly gentlemen from leaving their warm beds. The fall must have been heavier in Narberth, since none of the gang from there had made the trip to Tenby. However, it did not deter Brian Morgan from driving down from Gorseinon to improve his eclectic score; he managed 27 this week.

As it was, 21 flakes set off and all but one completed their round. Last week’s winner, Mick Seal, drove fiercely from the seventh tee and managed to tweak a muscle or ligament in his back. While he managed to complete the hole, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and walked in, saving his body for an upcoming holiday.

An invasion of five Trefloyne members boosted the attendance figure and the smoke signal, rising from a fire adjacent to the first green, indicated to them, and the Tenby members, where to aim their first drive.

While the snow was falling gently for most of the front nine holes, the air was still and calm so there was no excuse for low scores. The temperature may have been low but it did not feel cold.

Discounting Mick Seal’s early departure, no-one scored less than 25 points this week. Bart Youll and Charles Mcfee, on 25, were just one shot behind Derek Cole and John Voysey. Morgie, Lamby and Whaley achieved a magnificent 27 and John Richards only just missed out on a score of 30.

Richard Davies, Derek Jones, Des Stone and Adrian Palmer crept in on 30, just three points behind Stan Hudson, the only senior to score a two this week, (on the 17th). Jim Martin, Idwal David and John Stevenson were two points ahead of him on 35.

Idwal would have improved on his score had he played the 18th with a bit more finesse. Conscious of his handicap, he skied his drive on this par three and watched his ball sail over the fence. It bounced high on the road and somehow spun back over the fence to remain in play. With a degree of skill, he salvaged a four to finish his round.

That left the top three for this week. Holding third place on his own on 36 points was Keith Hubbard. First and second place shared the same total of 37 points. With a better back nine, this week’s winner was Jim Moffatt holding off the challenge of fellow officer David Henry.

The prize draw this week went to Charles McFee.

All were able to get home for that afternoon nap and dream about next week and what the weather and the course might throw at them.

Shaun a cut above

The welcoming society that is the ‘Tenby Rabbits’ opened its arms for new players again this weekend as Gareth Davies (1) (see the Chickens report for the reason!) played his first game and new club member Jonathan Goldsmith ventured onto the Tenby course as a ‘guest’ (his 11 handicap precludes his participation as a Rabbit, but he seemed to enjoy his Rabbit adventure - despite a couple of visits to those pesky bunkers - and he ended up with 27 points, a decent effort), writes our links reporter, Warren Hacker.

Guest Jonathan was drawn in the first group alongside vice-captain Steve W and Omelette Boy Robin with Mr. Bradbury assuming the position of ‘Leader in the Clubhouse’ with his 34 points, with Steve having something of an off day.

Secretary Peter, Steve C and Mike hit away next and they were the winners in the ‘Best threeball score’ contest, with them all getting scores in the 30s, but the order changing over the last few holes until Mike’s par on the 18th meant he hit the top spot over Steve on the back nine when they both come in on 36.

The third group had John B, Money-Man Mark and long-distance Ian W (who suffered some ‘jet-lag’ issues), with Big Hitting John having varied success with his putter but failing to hit 30 in his eighth score and Mark not able to repeat his winning exploits of 40 points last week.

Rabbit captain Paul was in the next group with Dave B (his fifth outing this winter) and Newbie Gareth (1), with the middle one blobbing half the par 3s, but finishing on 32 and (1) failing to repeat his Chicken score, losing out to the captain on countback ‘down the field’.

The penultimate group contained Rees, Kieron, and Shaun (with his freshly-inflated handicap) and they did their best to grab the best ‘threeball team score’ as they all made it to the 30s (but their total of 105 fell one short of the second group’s 106) and, although Kieron’s three putts cost him a podium place, one of the group got there.

There was a fourball at the end containing Bill (his fifth game), Phil (only his fourth), no-longer-hirsute Grant (Our Leader) and Adrian (the Seniors eclectic leader in his sixth Rabbit venture) and two of them would appear in the prize-giving at the end, with only 10 points between their best and their worst.

Top Rabbit this week was Shaun following his fine blob-less 39 points (Kieron getting the only other fault-free round, but who ended up fifth on back one with 36), with Bill getting his entry fee back for his silver place after his 37 points and bronze going to Mike. Twos were achieved by Steve C on the sixth, with both Mark and Adrian doing likewise on the 17th, to all take a third of the pot.

Eclectic improvers included Grant, Shaun, Phil, Adrian, Bill, Steve C, John B, Peter, Kieron, Rees, Dave and Ian and things are getting close at the top.

The ‘Best Eight Scores’ Winter League is getting complicated now as nine players have eight or more cards in, so they start to ‘drop’ their lesser scores and things get harder, and the defending champion Shorn (no, sorry, Grant) holds a seven-point advantage over Mark in second, but Mike is looking menacing, 17 behind with a card in hand.

What will happen next Sunday?

The top 17...

‘Virgins and nickers’

Well, aren’t those Chicken Trotters a burgeoning flock? Last Friday we had a couple of ‘first-timers’ taking out the blue Trotters card on their virgin outing and ‘Triennial Tim’ making his first appearance since November 28, 2014 - those new three this winter bringing the number of different Chickens this season to a ‘high’ of 37 already (well, a ‘high’ since the book records got a computerised back-up in 2011). Not including the new boys, eight of the 11 other Trotters were sin-binned.

Leading the first-timers round in the first group was ‘Cousin Derek’ (he’s from the golfing-side of the Cole family) alongside new club members, Paul Hannah and Gareth Davies (the second such-named as a member, so he’s known as Gareth (1)!) and they all acquitted themselves admirably with scores of 24, 25 and 26, respectively - despite 10 blobs between them.

The next group out contained the Chicken Arranger with Stan Hudson and Tim Davies - who was rather surprised to see that the Chicken card waiting for him still showed him in the sin-bin to lose a shot for coming third over 38 months ago. Terrific Tim had a ‘best of the day’ outward nine of 20, but then started reading his own headlines (and had a few unlucky bounces) to blob the 10th, but still managed a decent 28 points from the 15-hole course - his moment of the day being his 10-foot putt on the sixth for his two. Stan had three blobs, but pipped Steve C by one point with his 23 to finish in 10th place.

Next off were the ‘D Team’ - all in the sin-bin after previous outings. Des Stone (off a handicap of five less) had rather a ‘slow’ start, but only blobbed holes two, three and four and, although he bettered a point a hole, he got his entry fee back for the booby this week, and will be off 20 next time; David Lamb (three less in the handicap department!) ended up with 24 (but enjoyed his bacon and egg roll afterwards) and David Rees (also reduced by one) had a strong finish of 13 in the last five holes to just fall one point short of Tim.

The final fourball were the only ones able to prevent the headlines of ‘Terrific Tim’s Top Trotter’ and how did they get on? Meurig Jones had rather too many one point holes for his 21, Charlie McFee grabbed seventh place with two-dozen points, one point and two places behind Bart Youll, but it was The Editor what did it - his blob-free round of 31 points nicked the title of ‘Chicken of the Week’ from Tim and he pocketed £1.20 for his efforts, although he gets cut five to 20 as a result.

Tim got the runner-up prize of 90p to soften the blow of having victory snatched from him and he also nicked all the twos pot - 65 whole p - which will be there waiting for him in three years time when he next turns up. David R ended up 60p better off for bronze place and will play off 17 on his next outing, and Newbie Gareth (1) has an envelope containing 30p with his name on it for his fourth place.

Neil’s score increases his lead in the Booker Prize ‘Best Five Scores’ contest and he now stands on 146, seven clear of the Chicken Arranger, but there are still a few Trotters with less than five cards in who could sneak up on the blind-side unnoticed. Watch this space.