Category Archives: Results

Results

Marriott St Pierre Golf & Country Club Chepstow – Sept 2025

Saturday 13th September 2025 saw a new event for the OTGS calendar, a Golf Day at the Marriott St Pierre Golf & Country Club in Chepstow, which proved to be a success and enjoyed by all involved and will hopefully become a permanent annual fixture.  A big thank you to all that came along and made it such a great day.  A special thanks needs to go out to Phil Stickler, for hosting us and helping arrange such a great weekend.

We had 20 players on the day, a mix of old faces and new, which was great!  A number of different things to play for including the historic Fairwater Cup, the Scratch Cup and a fantastic array of prizes.

Winner (Titleist Golf Bag) and Winner of the Fairwater Cup – Rob Wickes – 36 Points
2nd (Footjoy Golf Shoes) – David Higginson – 35 Points
3rd (Ping Sweater) – Simon Avison – 34 points
4th (Under Armour Polo Top) – Graham Wickes – 32 Points
5th (Titleist Cap) – Phil Stickler 30 Points

Scratch Cup Winner (Dozen Titleist ProV1 Golf Balls) – Phil Stickler – 29 PointsTeam Winners (Sleeve of Titleist ProV1 Golf Balls and a OTGS Beanie Hat) – 81 Points
Rob Wickes
Graham Wickes
Will Penny
Ben Tarr

Nearest the Pins and Longest Drive (Sleeve of Titleist ProV1 Golf Balls and a Titleist Water Bottle)
3rd – Pete Whalley
6th – Richard Willacy
14th – David Higginson
18th – Tim Blood
Longest Drive (17th) – Richard Willacy

A group of us were fortunate enough to be invited to play the Twenty Ten course at Celtic Manor the following morning, which was a real treat.  We all stayed locally and enjoyed a fabulous evening at a nearby pub for an excellent meal and a fun night of catching up.
A brilliant time amongst great company and looking forward to doing it again next year.

Grafton Morrish Finals – Oct 2025

Successful qualification now three years on the bounce saw us drawn at Hunstanton GC for this year’s Grafton Morrish Finals in Norfolk.  A practice round on Thursday in favourable conditions before Storm Amy paid us an unwelcome visit.

Friday saw some miraculous scenes from Taunton, with not only a 1st Round victory against Sutton Valence, but going on in the afternoon to beat St Edward’s Oxford to make history of a 3rd Round appearance on the Saturday, an amazing achievement by the boys and 36 holes in very testing wet and windy conditions.

Having just about dried out, we were greeted by a very windy Saturday morning, gusting at 50+ mph made for interesting playing conditions, especially around the greens.  We unfortunately lost to strong opposition in Glasgow Academy, who went on to beat this year’s Halford Hewitt winners Bradfield in the Quarter Finals, but lost in the Semi’s to overall winners Radley.  Our official score was a loss of 3-0, however Pete and Greg were 2 down with 3 to play when the other games were already over and match lost, but they wouldn’t accept a friendly half, so we conceded our match to get ourselves back in out of the weather.  Of course they would have won the last 3 holes if they needed to! 😉  Seeing the Quarter Finalists teeing off in horizontal rain on Saturday afternoon certainly made the disappointment of defeat very short lived!!

1st Round – Sutton Valence – Won 2-1
Gary Hector & Phil Stickler – won 5&4
Simon Hewitt-Avison & Mark Banham – won 1 up
Greg Whalley & Pete Whalley – lost 3&2

2nd Round – St Edward’s Oxford – Won 2-1
Gary Hector & Phil Stickler – won 3&2
Simon Hewitt-Avison & Mark Banham – won 3&2
Greg Whalley & Pete Whalley – lost 4&3

3rd Round – Glasgow Academy – Lost 3-0
Gary Hector & Phil Stickler – lost 3&2
Simon Hewitt-Avison & Mark Banham – lost 4&3
Greg Whalley & Pete Whalley – lost 3&2

Fantastic for Mark to get his first points under his belt for Taunton, a formidable pairing with Simon Avison continuing their solid form from last year.  Also yet another outstanding performance from Gary and Phil, with Saturday’s defeat sadly ending their 10 match unbeaten streak in all Scratch Competitions, truly remarkable.

A great effort all round!  Well done Team!

Grafton Morrish Qualifier 2025 – Worplesdon

Once again on a beautiful Sunday afternoon OTGS gathered to qualify for the Grafton Morrish Finals in Norfolk beginning of October.

Under the wonderful leadership of Pete W the team pairings were,
Richard Willacy & Mark Banham
Gary Hector & Greg Whalley
Tim Blood & Pete Whalley

After a slow start on the front nine we pulled our socks up and improved on the back nine such that the team scored 85 points in total and came third out of the field of eleven schools.  The top five qualify for the finals…….we did it again!!

Finals are due to take place at Hunstanton and Brancaster on 3-5 Oct 2025.

GM Qual Results 2025

GM Finals Draw 2025

Halford Hewitt 2025

  AND SO IT BEGINS.

Once again the troops head down to sunny Kent, RCPGC, to compete in one of the most prestigious golf tournaments organised by the Public Schools Golfing Society.  This is hot off the heals of having played at the Brent Knoll Bowl over the previous weekend!

This year’s team consisted of:  Pete Whalley (C), Richard Willacy, Andrew Ford, Dave Higginson, Ed Bradnock, Gary Hector, Phil Stickler, Greg Whalley, Henry Lee and Patrick Lee (welcome back).

The draw took place at the East India Sports Club and Taunton were drawn to play Felsted in the 1st round.  According to the statistics the match was looking to be close one.

However, before the main competition started we had two fabulous practice days at Deal on both the Tuesday and Wednesday.  Unbelievably the rain stayed away although the wind and cold surprised us on the Wednesday and Thursday.

Other than that we could not have wished for glorious sunny weather, normally a rare occurrence.

So 1st round against Felsted, pairings were:  Richard W & Greg W, Pete W & Dave H, Phil S & G Hector, Ed B & Andy F, Patrick L & Henry L.  Unfortunately Felsted had the upper hand and beat us 3 1/2 – 1 1/2, Gary & Phil won, Pete & Dave agreed a half and the other three pairs all lost their games.  Next stop the plate on Friday.

Unfortunately, for the plate we have to reduce the team from 5 pairs to 3 pairs.  Tough decision for the Captain.  So first round of the plate was to be Gary & Phil, Richard & Greg and Pete & Dave against Downside in the morning.  Taunton won 2 1/2 – 1/2.  Second round that afternoon against Highgate saw the Lee twins with Andy replacing Richard, Pete and Dave.  Taunton won 3 – 0.  Excellent!

Saturday we only had one game to play and it was against our old friends Ampleforth whom we knocked out in the 1st round of the main competition in 2022.  The team this time was Gary & Phil, Richard & Pete and Greg & Andy.  What a game!  Taunton capture the win again 2 – 1 to proceed to the Semi-Finals against Eton and back to Deal on Sunday morning.

Another glorious day on Sunday.

Pairings slightly juggled again with Gary & Phil, Richard & Pete and Greg & Ed to do battle with Eton.  Unfortunately, when you get to Sunday you’ve played a lot of golf and the body gets weary!  Alas we didn’t perform as well on Sunday as the previous days and lost 2 – 1 to Eton.  However, what a great run for the team and Taunton.

A huge thank you goes to our team captain, Pete W, who organised all the accommodation and team selection.  Also to the purveyors of take-away food over the week!  To the whole team for sticking around for the whole week, it’s a tough call not to be selected when numbers have to be culled but the support and encouragement goes a long way.   Well played Gary and Phil who retained a 100% win record over the two competitions, BNB and HH!

ROLL-ON NEXT YEAR!!

 

 

Thone Cup & School Match – April 2025

We have been blessed with some wonderful golfing weather this April 2025.  It was once again a glorious day at T&P Golf Club where the OTGS, pupils from TS and masters gathered to play for cups and the annual match against the school.

The results were as follows: Thone Cup 1st Simon Nicholson 34pts, 2nd Lee Corfield 30pts (on back 9), 3rd Terry Davidge 30 pts (on back 6) .

The OTs won the match versus the School for the second year in a row with an average of 27.8 pts against the Schools average of 25.3 pts.

Bertie Bilson (Yr9, old 3rd Form) won the GB Salver for the pupils competition with 27 pts.

Brent Knoll Bowl – April 2025

This year’s BNB was looking promising with some excellent weather.   The team this year under Pete’s captaincy was:

Pete Whalley, Tim Blood, Phil Stickler, Gary Hector, Mark Banham and Richard Willacy.

Pete, Tim, Richard and Mark went down for the practice round on Friday only to be joined by Andy Ford (for practice only) and Gary (because the weather was soooo good).

1st round was drawn against the Warwickshire Bears (tough ex county players).   Unfortunately Taunton lost a close 1st round by 2-1.  Pairings were:  Richard W & Mark B (Lost), Gary H & Phil S (Won), Pete W & Tim Blood (Lost)

1st round (Plate competition) we were up against the Royal Navy, same team pairings, which we won 2-1.  A great win.  Gary & Phil won, Tim & Pete won, Richard & Mark lost.

Semi-Finals (Plate competition) we were up against Epsom.  Same team pairings as Saturday but unfortunately Epsom beat us 2-1.  Once again Phil and Gary won their match to retain a 100% win record over the weekend.

Fantastic weekend, well organised and captained Pete.  As per last year the BNB proceeded the Halford Hewitt leaving only Monday to re-group before heading down to sunny Kent!