The 12 TOFS that ventured out to Badgemore were warmly welcomed by the resident course manager and given a quick briefing on course conditions and rules. We then had our customary tea, coffee and excellent bacon rolls served to us prior to getting our golfing gear and gathering at the first tee. Again we were joined by the course manager who kindly took our group photo of us enjoying our “Tipple on the Tee”, kindly provided this time by Brian Monnery. The tipple being, if I’m not wrong, an excellent Remy Martin Cognac.
After a few practise swings, under “starters orders” , we then set out in 3 groups of 4 to explore the Badgemore course. Despite all the recent rain the whole course was in excellent condition although by the end of the round our shoes and trolley wheels had a thick layer of mud on them. Overall a great course in my view with fairly generous fairways and a great layout (although our group did get lost once after the 5th ?).We all gathered back in the 19th to recite our tales of woe, and occasional success, before being served our ham egg and chips (best pair of eggs I’ve seen in a while !) and totting up the scores.
The results were generally remarkably close with most being around the high twenties - low thirties for the stableford and mid thirties for the number of putts.
The winner of the stableford on the day was Brian Monnery with an excellent 38 points, turning the table on his previous outings lowest score. Brian won £8 and a 3 pack of shiny embossed TOFS golf balls.
The winner of the lowest number of putts , with only a very credible 30 , was Graham Harding, For this Graham won £8. Remarkably Graham also had the lowest stableford score ( how does that happen ?) so the honour of receiving the “Special Prize” also went to him, kindly presented by Brian Monnery.
For the “Nearest the Pin” competition, as all the par 3’s were quite long, hole number 17 was chosen as being the lowest SI on the back 9 and where everyone would be warmed up and have their eye in. Surprisingly no one managed to achieve getting the ball on the green off the tee, although Brian White did try to convince everybody that the fringe did count as the green. ( I guess Brian’s ball must have wandered onto the fringe !). Hence the NTP pot will have a further £8 added to it as a rollover for the next away day at Caversham Heath in November.The coveted “TOFS Trophy” was keenly contested. With Brian Monnery (38) and in 2nd place Dave Leak (32) being previous winners it came down to a countback between Dave Bolus and Clifford Bosley , both with 31 points, with Clifford emerging as the delighted winner.
I bet Clifford was over the moon with the trophy!
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