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Longest
Day In Golf Challenge
In aid
of Macmillan Cancer Support - 17th July 2011
"Forest of Galtres finished 57th out of
330 teams - it was an extremely competitive
contest this year so well done!"
Claire
Driscoll - Golf Programme Manager
for The Macmillan Cancer Support
15th September 2011
Team 1
Graeme Elstob
Stewart Dixon
Mark Newton
John Richardson
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Team 2
Simon
Witham
Sam Bagley
Andy Carlton
Callum Ferguson |
2 four balls from Forest of Galtres, lined up on
the first tee at 05:00hrs, bright eyed and
raring to go.
It was a great start, a glorious day
ahead and inch accurate golf shots, nestled on
the fairway with 2 foot dispersion….Ok this was
my fantasy start! The reality was quite
different, 8 blurry eyed golfers, lined up, the
clouds were dark and rain was looming, shot 1,
“its better ball, let’s go for it” said Mark!
Out of bounds! Shot 2 ok, but tight 2nd
in over the tree, shot 3 bunker right, shot 4
woods on the right, they didn’t call it ‘Longest
Day’ for nothing!
The first round turned out to be completely dry
and fair, we were round in 3hrs 5mins and both
teams turned in good scores: team one 91pts, but
team two had 96pts! A welcome 3 birdies and
11pts from Callum boosting their moral! (He also
put a dent in his Dads pocket who said he would
sponsor him £5 for each birdie! 7 in total!!).
Game 2…rain, and lots of it! Both teams came in
with 93pts each!
Lunch time, and porky P would have been proud of
the amount of bacon butties we put away!
Moral was still high despite the
persistent rain and increasing wind, this would
be a testing round, a few blisters had appeared,
calf muscles had tightened over lunch and shoes
were wet through in most cases.
Game 3 produced another 93 from team 1, but an
86 from team 2 put the scores at just 2 points
apart!
We were ahead of schedule and stormed
into the last round without a break, hoping that
sometime soon the rain would stop!
I will take this opportunity to insert a few
stories which we will be sniggering about and
sharing with the rest of the members for a few
months yet…
We have Trick shot Witham who can strike
a ball with a driver and put it back through his
legs!
Mark ‘Exocet missile’ Newton, who can hit
a cart bag 120yds away from a drive…his own bag!
And, maybe I should apologise to my team
for my ‘Billy the Whizz’ antics! (You had to be
there!).
By 19:30hrs we’d stormed round four games of
golf, in adverse conditions with round scores
averaging 92pts, all well under 3hrs 25mins a
round and still walked in smiling, (There’s a
subliminal message in there somewhere!).
It had rained for most of the day, but
did finally clear for the last few holes, and a
grinning team photo!
Round four final scores…Team one came in with
94pts, and team two had 92pts, making the final
totals: Team one 371 & Team two 367: Team one
wins by just 4 points after 72 holes,
congratulations to all.
I’d like to thank a number of people who
contributed towards the success of this event:
The club & Sue Procter, who provided the
venue, our sponsors who gave generously, (by the
way if you haven’t paid yet I will be knocking
at your door soon!), Louise & Lauren who
satisfied the needs of our stomachs! Ian
Sutherland who provided our final coffee & cake
stop at the 63rd hole, (what was in
those sugar lumps!).
Those of you who let us through most
generously, (John Doves group), and finally to
the lads named in the teams above who I will be
calling on to volunteer again next year, once
the blisters have healed!
Graeme Elstob
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