The CUGC Men’s team were back in league action over the weekend as they travelled east to take on Durham City Golf Club.
The match was set up to be a great battle with both teams coming off excellent results in the first round of league matches.
Cumbria having claimed a tremendous draw against Yorkshire, and Durham doing the same at Lancashire.
Captain Simon Young had some enforced changes to make to the team that had performed so well against Yorkshire.
Kerry Morrow was working on another continent, Martin Hand was competing in the European Seniors Championship, where he went on to achieve a top 25 finish, and Will Coxon was preparing to take part in the Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool which gets underway on Monday.
Such is the strength of the current squad that the three players coming into the team were all top quality players who would fit seamlessly into the team.
Captain Simon responded to peer pressure and picked himself to play, as the squad had been urging him to do for a while after he had taken their money at most of the off-season get togethers.
With Simon playing, lead coach and Men’s vice captain Andrew Pickering took charge of the team for the day.
Rob Spence returned to the team after holidays seemingly long enough to rival Phileas Fogg’s travels, having missed the previous match.
The third incomer wasn’t an old hand like the other two.
Bradley Quayle from Seascale GC, who had been impressing all season with some good results in the scratch events, was called up to make his debut in the Men’s team just a couple of days after his 17th birthday.
A tremendous achievement, and an opportunity that Brad had been chomping at the bit for.
The lads had prepared well for the match, but they couldn’t have prepared for the gale force winds that greeted the teams on Saturday.
The gusts, coupled with extremely quick, sloping greens meant that the opposition wouldn’t be the only challenge for the Cumbrians.
In the morning foursomes the guys came out of the blocks quickly and got ahead in many of the matches through the first few holes.
The par three second hole became a popular spot for supporters to gather for some entertainment.
Around 160 yards, uphill with a green sloped from back to front, playing into the wind, there wasn’t a lot to encourage the players when stood on the tee.
In the practise round, it was felt that the best way to play the hole would be to land the tee shot beyond the flag and let gravity take effect. Nobody got the memo quite like the old stalwart Will Bowe.
His six iron was sent up through the breeze and over the flag to around 40 feet behind the hole, where it settled for a few seconds before the weight of the ball set it off trickling back down the slope towards the cup eventually ending its journey and stopping only inches from the hole.
Rumour has it Will smiled, but the rumour was not confirmed. Putt conceded and the pairing of Bowe & Wolstencroft had their noses in front.
There were further gains from the other pairings and coming towards the turn the scoreboard had a fair bit of Cumbrian red on it.
Like the winds that were swirling among the trees that lined the tight fairways, there were plenty of holes changing hands and the Durham side had a good run going into the back nine to change that red to blue on the board.
The first point of the morning went to Durham in match four as Lee Sturrock (Brampton) & Ian Robinson (Kirkby Lonsdale) went down four and three.
However, the remaining matches at that moment were all in the balance with Cumbria up in the lead match and the rest all square with four or less holes to go.
The next 40 minutes or so were to prove vital in the outcome of the overall match.
Heading up the 18th, now pegged back to all square, the lead pairing of County Champion Rory Thompson (Carlisle) and his regular partner Paul Jenkinson (Keswick) looked as though a half might be all they could hope for after their approach shot to the final green lay twice as far from the hole as their opponents.
As Thompson sized up his 50ft putt those watching alongside the 18th green felt that he had to roll it up hole side to have any chance of securing half a point.
Rory had other ideas, his long range birdie effort seemed to take an age to reach the target, but it was perfectly read and matched for speed as it fell into the hole on its final revolution. When the Durham putt slipped by the scores were level.
Sadly, it seemed that was the point that Cumbria’s luck changed. Bowe & Boom Boom succumbed on the 17th green, going down two and one.
Captain Young, who had paired himself with the young debutant Quayle went down by the same margin, and Spence and Craig Morrow who had battled all the way to the 18th just couldn’t find a bit of magic to grab a half, the duo getting beaten on the final green.
With Durham certain to go into the afternoon singles with a lead it was up to the anchor pairing of Kieran Waters and Jack Hunter to try to salvage something for the team as they stood on the last tee still deadlocked.
As if to sum up the final stages of the foursomes series, Durham seemed to have handed Cumbria a way back when their tee shot sailed into the trees on the left hand side.
Their ball ricocheted fully 30 yards back into the fairway from where they made a par four to halve the hole and the match leaving the home side 4.5-1.5 ahead going into lunch.
Although the deficit mirrored what had been seen a lot in last seasons foursomes sessions this had been a much better performance than last year and the lads could feel that on another day, it could have easily been them ahead going into the singles.
Thompson, who defends his County Champion title this weekend seemed to revel in heading out at the top of the order as he came out a very worthy winner by two and one against a very experienced campaigner.
Bowe would rue some missed putts on the treacherous greens but as usual proved a hard nut to crack as he secured half a point for the team.
Long hitting Andrew Wolstencroft probably got the draw nobody wanted when he came up against the head greenkeeper of the host club. 4 down at one point he showed some heart and kept the match going before eventually losing two and one.
The highlight of the afternoon came in match four. Jenkinson had been nip & tuck with his opponent throughout the round and the pair were all square playing the last.
After a good drive to the right side of the fairway Jenk was left with 127 yards to the pin. Such was the strength of the wind he chose a seven iron when normally from that range he would be going with one of his most lofted clubs.
Luckily he chose correctly and struck it crisply. The ball landed on the green a few feet from the target like a butterfly with sore feet before rolling out to a couple of inches from the hole.
When his opponent failed to hole the bunker shot required it was another point on the board for Cumbria.
Rob Spence had rallied from three down to get his match down the last but ended up on the wrong side of a one hole result.
By this point Craig Morrow had joined his team mates by the 18th green having been in devasting form in dispatching his opponent 7&6.
There would be no fairytale debut for Quayle who performed very well in his first match and certainly didn’t look out of place. Some missed putts prevented him from carving out a lead on the front 9 and this proved to be his undoing as he went down two and one.
After a topsy-turvy game Ian Robinson shook hands for a half and remains unbeaten in singles games in his first season in the squad.
Sturrock & Young both met strong opponents at the top of their game and neither could add to Cumbria’s points tally.
So it was left for the tail to wag and wag it did. Kieran Waters & Jack Hunter both chalking up convincing wins in the anchor singles matches.
Final Result Durham 10.5 Cumbria 7.5
With the singles points shared 6-6 between the two teams it only reinforces the fact that the match was won & lost in the last few holes of the morning foursomes.
The team as a group will lick their wounds, learn from this and be ready to go again when we welcome Lancashire to Seascale GC in a few weeks time.
