June 2015 – OTGS Golf Weekend

Saturday 20th June 2015 – OT Annual Golf Championship

A field of eight players fought for the two cups at Burnham and Berrow GC in a fresh breeze, according to the Beaufort scale, which to golfers with a handicap of more than ten seemed like a hurricane at times.  Fortunately we avoided the thundery showers in the locality.  The players were a mixture of youth and experience, with a 50 year age gap between the oldest, Richard Norris and the youngest, Phil Stickler.  It was also pleasing to be able to welcome along a lady OT golfer in Jeanne Leader, the Head of Geology at school.  She would go on to gain a creditable 22 points.

Given the conditions, low gross scores and high Stableford scores were unexpected and in general most players played the back nine holes better with the wind behind than the front nine holes.  Phil Stickler played some excellent golf to win the scratch championship with a score of 84, four shots ahead of last year’s winner, Tim Blood.  The O50s Stableford competition was a much closer hard fought affair, with David Kinnear on 24 points being tipped by Tim Blood, Terry Davidge and Iain Westwater on 25 points each, with back nines of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen points respectively.  Just as Iain was about to be pronounced the victor, it was brought to everyone’s attention that his 50th birthday was next March and he was therefore ineligible to win.  Consequently Terry won the O50s Stableford cup.

In the evening many of the players were treated to a excellent and much appreciated barbecue dinner chez Richard and Gill Jowett.

Sunday 21st June – Annual OT match versus the school

The  OTs fielded a strong side this year, as they endeavoured to win the match for the first time in six years.   The teams were nine-a-side and the match was played as an aggregated Stableford competition at Oake Manor GC in sunny and calmer conditions than the day before.  The leading pair of OTs, Phil Stickler and Richard Willacy got the OTs team off to a strong start with 40 and 35 points respectively.  Phil played exceptionally well carding a gross 68, two under par for the round.  Although there were some strong performance form some of the younger, Yr10, students, the OT team hung on to score a well-earned victory by 26 points to win the Harold Williams shield.

The scores were as follows:

Old Tauntonians                                          Taunton School

Phil Stickler                            40                   Andy Pring (staff)                39
Max Kelly                                 40                   Patrick Lee                              38
Clive Large                              37                   Stewart Cooper                   37
Terry Davidge                       37                   James Spackman (capt.)  30
Richard Willacy  (capt.)   35                   Mark Chatterton (staff)   29
Tony Howe                             33                   James Gamble                       28
Olly Hyland                            30                   Harry Aziz                               27
Tim Blood                               27                    Henry Lee                               27
Richard Norris                     23                    Dominic Drew                     21

Totals                                    302                                                                        276

Phil Stickler was presented with the G.B.Johnson silver salver for the highest overall score on countback.

 

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