The old adage ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover‘ can rarely have been more apt than at Stoke Rochford Golf Club. Situated immediately alongside the A1, a range of unprepossessing modern buildings form the clubhouse and pro shop behind which is this gem of a course. There is a variety of eye catching holes with lush undulating fairways and equally undulating greens, which proved a challenge for most of us.

In perfect golfing weather and after numerous changes on the run up to the day, we ended up with 47 players (19 guests) and a ghost – of which more later!

The best score by a member of 36 points by Ben Storey (off 23) equalled the lowest winning tally of the season. Stephen Rose (off 24) came 2nd with 35 points ahead of 3rd placed Craig Salisbury (off 20) on countback.

John Altomonte’s guest, Pete Milton had the round of the day with 38 points playing off 7.

Geoff Davies won nearest the pin on the daunting 190 yard 7th, making it a hat-trick of NTP at consecutive events. Guests Lee Fraser won NTP on the 12th and Nat Matthews NTP in 2 on the 15th.

Forget Liverpool’s disallowed goal at the weekend, the Team prize has ended in controversy. 1st on the day was Team Hopalong comprising Andy Turpin, Stephen Rose, Peter Fielder and guest Lee Fraser with a pretty modest 108 points. After the superb prizes were awarded our treasurer, Richard Darler, questioned his teams’ total of 104 points given he scored 33 points, Ben Storey 36 points, John Lawes 26 points and the ghost (apparently the Captain!) 34 points. For some inexplicable reason, the scoring system converted my handicap from 13 to 0 meaning Team Money Men lost 10 points and should have had a total of 114 points ! Competition Golf will provide some prizes to be awarded retrospectively to all except the ghost sadly!

The wooden spoon was again hard fought between Jeremy Farrant, Paul A Smith and Gary Hanson. On this occasion it was awarded to Paul due to scoring 22 points despite playing a practice round a few days earlier. It is for note that Paul won the first event at Woburn in March – the highs and lows of golf!

Our President, Peter Glynn, paid tribute to long time member, Mark Bamforth, who sadly lost his courageous battle with cancer. An outstanding golfer and even better human being.

Special thanks goes to Martin Guildford of Sun Street Travel who sponsored the event and generously provided a range of excellent liquid prizes – not to mention bags of Percy Pigs to keep us going.

The Anthony Barnes Award

Nine players are in contention to be the Champion Golfer of the Year and win the inaugural Anthony Barnes Award going into the final event at the Gogs.

1st Dave Clark – 37
2nd Karl Gjertsen – 28
3rd Craig Salisbury – 27
4th Geoff Davies, Paul A Smith & the Captain – 26
7th Mark Winchester – 24
8th Tim Thomson – 23
9th George Ralph – 23

Dave remains the hot favourite needing to finish in the top 8 to guarantee winning overall. However, Karl and Craig have leapt up the leaderboard and with 15 points on offer for 1st place at the Gogs, it’s still all to play for. There is even the slight chance of a sudden death playoff.