April 23-25 1999 at Southampton

The competition was held on the middle day (24th) of the three day golfing weekend. The course we were planning on playing on the Friday was closed due to heavy rain when we arrived, so we had to rearrange to an alternative venue. This turned out to be Paulton's Golf Centre (the course for the following day - and the competition!).

Friday
Paulton's Golf Centre at Ower is an 'American Golf' owned course. It is a fairly new course with new saplings growing and mainly wide open fairways. There are a few holes with mature trees and wooded areas towards the bottom end of the course, but generally not too much to get into trouble with. A par 3 over a pond (the 15th) proved interesting for a couple of people!

Conditions on the Friday started out quite bright for the first 12 holes, but then the wind and rain started, slowly at first, but by the end it was a downpour and we all got thoroughly drenched.

See Friday's scores :-
Rob, Mick, Mark
Bipin, Andy, Ken

Saturday
Saturday, the competition day, was beautiful weather, warm and mostly sunny with not much wind. A certain amount of betting was confirmed from the previous evening's 'banter', as is usually the case before the competition, and then the tournament began.

The competition was based on singles stableford, off a full handicap. The results were as follows.

RankPlayerHandicapGross ScoreStableford Points 1Rob Akroyd118039 2Mick Parkin149032 3Andy Thurston2710431 4Bipin Patel219930 5Ken Scott3611430 6Mark Casson3511527 7Gary Farrow3412626

See the scores :-
Mick, Bipin, Andy
Rob, Gary, Mark, Ken

Sunday
Sunday was played at Cams Hall Estate Golf Club at Fareham. Again this is an 'American Golf' owned course. The course is designed around three 9 hole sections, of which two are designated for play. We got the 'long' 9 and the 'wet' 9 (Park and Creek A). Conditions started out quite nicely with a bit of wind. Unfortuneately the wind picked up for the 'wet' 9 and made it quite tricky. A number of lakes and ponds accounted for several balls.
Bipin had a storming first 9 (level after 7 holes) and finished with an 84.

See Sunday's scores :-
Rob, Mick, Bipin
Mark, Andy, Ken