Four Counties Junior Championship

Clevedon GC 20-21 April 2011

General

The event comprised a practice day, a morning stroke play round for the individual and team stroke play championship, and the three inter-county matches to determine the Inter County Match Play Championship. Clevedon GC is a coastal undulating parkland style of course with fairly small and hard fast greens. The practice day and the two of the tournament were blessed by excellent warm weather with one cold start to the day on the 20th April. The course and greens had much improved since the practice day in late March.


The afternoon practice round was preceded by a PowerPoint presentation of the course produced from the March visit. Martyn Thompson decided that the boys should have a three cornered match-play competition in each of their four-balls. This gave them both a familiarisation round and a touch of match-play practice. Meals except for breakfast were taken in the clubhouse for all three days.
 

Day 1

A lovely day and a light breeze and everyone arrived at the course in good time. After a warm-up the team played in handicap order with the following scores:

Robbie Mabb 70                   Harry Mitchell 74                   Billy-Joe Bugden 85

Dan Haymes 79                    Alex Spencer 83                   Harry Mann 85

Chris Evans NR                     Jordan Howlett 77

Notable amongst these were only three scores: Robbie Mabb’s 70 – three under the eventual CSS – Harry Mitchell’s 74 which included an unfortunate sequence of two bogies and a double – and Chris Evan’s who did the unforgivable by returning an NR. Robbie won the stoke play championship by a single shot from Harrison Greenberry of Devon. The team came in fourth by a single stroke with Devon taking the honours with a 17 stroke margin from us. Devon’s six man score comprised a 71, 72 and 74 and three in the high seventies.

The first afternoon match for the County was against Cornwall with Chris Evans rested. Robbie Mabb, Harry Mann and Jordan Howlett all won with three other matches going to extra holes. Harry Mitchell prevailed as did Alex Spencer and Dan Haymes lost on the 19th. Billy-Joe had a rotten 7&6 defeat against Chris Johnston from Truro. A great team result and win over Cornwall by 5-2. The full details details for all matches are given in an attached record.
 

Day 2

After the evening meal a number of the boys relaxed watching the Tottenham-Arsenal match then had an early night to be ready for the two matches on the 21st. With Billy-Joe taking a rest to recover his swing Chris Evans was brought back into the team against Somerset. Robbie won comfortably by 5&4 against Sam Sloman from Taunton & Pickeridge and Jordan prevailed after going to the 19th against Josh Knight of Burnham & Berrow. Of the losers Chris Evans managed an 8&6 drubbing due in part to a badly behaving driver. This 5-2 loss was a bitter pill to swallow after such a successful start the day before.

The afternoon brought us up against the favourites, Devon. Billy-Joe was brought back into the fold but had the misfortune to be drawn against Harrison Greenberry – an Under 16 England squad member. Billy-Joe duly lost 3&2 – not a bad result against such opposition – with Robbie capping a brilliant tournament with his third win. Harry Mitchell won comfortably with Dan taking his opponent by one hole. Harry Mann was unlucky to lose on the 18th and Jordan showed his fatigue on the 17th to lose 2&1. It was a near thing with the county almost repeating the victory over Devon of the year before at Bude.

Conclusions

Devon not unexpectedly prevailed with their very strong junior side, taking both the team stroke-play and match-play trophies. However with Robbie winning the individual stroke-play title and Harry Mitchell a joint fourth we finished with one trophy at least. Robbie was also one of only five players to win all three of his matches. If the team had played more careful golf in the stroke-play, and focused upon playing the course and not the man in the matches, the result would have been completely different.
 
Congratulations are due to Robbie Mabb for his excellent performance and many in the team showed promise for the future. Thanks are also due to Doug Pratt, Ian Clark and some of the parents for their support over the two days, to Martyn Thompson for his coaching and enthusiasm and especially Ian Hulse, our excellent Secretary, who nobly drove the mini-bus and master-minded the scoring for both days. The team is wished better luck next year at Exeter Golf and Country Club and now must put in some hard work in preparation for the Six Counties at Ferndown in July.

Click here for the full match play results.

Click here for the full stroke play results.

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