Although the numbers dwindled over the last few weeks, there was a still a fairly healthy turnout for the event at Aboyne. For the first time we had a junior golfer joining us - 9 year old Eli, Paul and Samia's son, who played 9 holes with me, Paul and Malcolm. He looks like a future star and it won't be too long before he's beating his Dad - and the rest of us.
It was a fine afternoon and the course was in great nick. Best individual score on the day came from Gary, who had 37 points, just pipping Keith on countback. Here's the full list:
Harry and Gary got the NP's and Syd and Gary the two (age divided) LD's. As ever, the team competition, which was the best two at each hole, was a little controversial. I had indicated beforehand that there would be an appropriate reduction in the scores of the 4-man teams - probably 10%. Teams 2 & 3 scored 85 and 84 points respectively, while the 3-man team had 81 points, so any deduction of 5% or more would have been enough to seal victory for team 1. Gary challenged this and asked what would the result have been had we just used the overall team averages? Well, guess what - team 1 would still have won - their average was 32.7, whilst the other teams only averaged 31.3.
Linda, as usual, donated the prize balls and I had intended to give mine to young Eli, but I never even got my hands on it - Eli had already pocketed it!
Now the photos - first of all waiting for our post-match meal:
Keith took this photo just before he had to dash off and greet some unexpected visitors at home. After we'd eaten, we did the presentation out on the (west) balcony:
From l-r: Syd Freeman, Jack Simpson, Harry Salter (half hidden), Malcolm Grigor, Ian Stewart, Linda Edmonds, 16 year old Sam Edmonds (6'1" and still growing), Samia Saeed-Edmonds, Eli Edmonds, John Waddell, Gary Grant, Rob Pollard, Paul Edmonds and Nigel Meany.
Before handing over the trophy, there was a round of applause for Samia who had been awarded the MBE in the Queen's New Year Honours List for heading up NHS Wales' Covid team during the pandemic.
Here's Linda doing the honours with Gary:
The trophy was donated by Linda after Terry passed in December, 2001. The first planned playing for it in 2002 was rained off, as was the 2009 event. (Interestingly, none of our other events have been rained off twice - even our oldest outing to Boat of Garten, which has been played over 70 times now, has only been rained off once). Also, the event didn't take place in 2020 due to Covid, so there have only been 18 winners in the 21 years the competition has been held.
Gary and Malcolm are both members at Aboyne (as was Syd in the past). This was Gary's first win but Malcolm has won the trophy 5 times. Me, Paul Edmonds, the late Les Gray and Keith Gray (no relation) have each won it twice and there have been solo wins for the late Dave Edwards, Archie Cook, Harry Salter and Ken Page.
I don't have a record of Keith's winning score in 2017, but, from the other years, Les has the highest winning points with 42 in 2006.
We look forward to next year's event and hopefully Paul, Samia and the boys can make the long trip north again.
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