November 30th, 2023

With the continuing weather problems the only competitive golf possible at Pannal in recent days was on Saturday November 25th. Men’s Captain Martin Boyle and Chair of Golf Julian Graham-Rack decided to try a different approach by pairing players who would not normally play together. Everyone selected their preferred playing window in one hour segments and the pairs were drawn from everyone entered in that segment. This created a Fourball Better Ball field with some very interesting and competitive pairings.

27 pairs battled it out over 13 holes with the greens once again proving to be in excellent shape despite the prevailing conditions. With everyone hoping at least to make the par standard of 26 points, 70% of the field were able to claim this standard.

Graham Hindmarsh and Derek Christmas were out early and posted what looked like a winning total of 31 points: while no pairs bettered their points score two other pairs had a superior back nine so Graham and Derek had to be content with third place.

There was however a mighty battle for top spot as the contending pairs were playing together. Frank Flaherty and Andrew Asquith were confident that they had edged themselves into a winning position when Frank’s 120 yard 9 iron into a blinding sun finished one foot from the pin to secure three points. But Jon Clayton and Chris Matthewman were not to be outdone: Jon’s 3-wood at 17 finished two feet from the hole for four points. Andrew then holed a 15 footer for par to save a two point swing but in the end it was a back six count-back which secured victory on the day for Jon and Chris with 31 points.