Club Champs..........

In many ways the finals day of the club champs is one of the highlights of the season and it was good to see a number of members out and about on the course following the games despite the chilly wind.

The Plate sections were competed for over 18 holes but that did not lessen the level of competition. In the Seniors Tracy Tatom did battle with Peter Sim in a match that went down to the 16th before Tracy secured a 3/2 win. Steve Ellis had played steady golf to reach the final against David Barley but this was not be his day and he fell to David at the conclusion of the 14th. An interesting game between Jim Glass and Grant Borrie developed in the Juniors which saw Jim the emerge the victor where he continued to find fairways and greens.

With the championship matches played over 36 holes the first round saw them all evenly poised after18. Having started the round with 5 straight birdies Richard Reed lead John Sanders by two at the break after JB had fought back over the next 12 holes only to be one down before losing 18 to a birdie. William Wotton was 1 up against Jim Paulsen while in the Juniors Don Forbes and Graham Purkis were all square.

In the afternoon each of the matches seemed to take a different course. Don Forbes quickly found his "A" game and built up a healthy lead over the road that Graham was unable to pin back so Don was successful in defending his title. Don would say he was lucky to be in the final after Stephen Boyd took him to the 19th on the previous day with Don winning 18 to extend the match.

The Intermediates developed into a ding dong battle but ever so slowly Jim Paulsen started to exert control belying the fact he had come off night shift straight to the course. In a strong display of stamina Jim was good enough to close out the game at the 33rd hole.

Meanwhile in the Seniors Richard Reed had once again started quickly to extend his lead. JB was forced into playing catch up as they traded holes during the mid part of the round and was quickly facing the requirement of having to win a string of holes if he was to stay in the match. Although playing well JB was not quite able to match Richard and the championship was decided on the 34th hole when Richard played a superb approach putt that then required JB to hole out from the greenside bunker a task that he just failed to achieve. It was a great win for Richard who had played some sparkling golf throughout the day and emerged as a deserved champion.

It is interesting to note that both Richard and Jim hold dual memberships also playing at Avondale, it may well be that the discipline of playing on a tighter course served them well in their quest for the club titles!!