B.o.G. LVI

The link to this blog is http://bsvgolf.blogspot.com/

Our 56th official outing to Boat of Garten was held on one of the windiest weekends we've had - particularly at Grantown on Sunday. Defending champion Chris Dickinson tee'd off at the 1st hole:

Chris' selected 4-ball was:

Sorry - never got round to getting photos of the other groups.

Overall, scores were amazingly good considering the strength of the wind - at times, it was almost unplayable. Winner on the day by a country mile was Les, with 41 points, followed by me and Jas with 36 each and Dick and Rob with 35. Nearest the Pins were won by Rob and Jas, and I won the Longest Drive. The winning team, after factoring in appropriate coefficients to try to level the playing field after Archie's unfortunate late withdrawal, was the second group out - Gray, Gray, Freeman & Pollard.

We had beer in the Garth Hotel, just across the road from the Grant Arms, where we were staying, and, of course, pre-dinner G & T's in our hotel. Most of our group had retired to bed by 10 pm - not at all like the old days.

It was still windy on Monday morning, but it had subsided a little - and it was much warmer, especially as the morning wore on. The team photo was taken fairly early on, hence the sweaters, which were soon removed:

Rob Pollard, Jas Bhagrath, Peter Street, Dick Taylor, Syd Freeman, Les Gray, Keith Gray, Dan Corbett, Harry Salter, Chris Dickinson & Ian Stewart

The course was looking great and the greens were fast and true - but very hard. It was almost impossible to stop the ball downwind. Nobody scored 30 points - the best of the day was me with 29 points. I got very close to over-taking Les to win the trophy, especially after his awful start, but he pulled himself together and finally scored 27 points, which was enough to win for the first time since 2008.

Only one NP prize was won - by me at the 9th - and Les got the LD. The team prize was won by the first group out, normally affectionately titled "the hackers" - Chris, Dan & Harry.

Chris presented the trophy to Les:

There followed the usual complicated prize-giving - here's the full list of winners on the weekend:

Overall winner	Les
2nd overall	Ian
3rd overall	Peter
Scratch	Syd
Sunday winner (not overall)	Ian
Monday winner (not overall or Sun)	Syd
NP's - Sunday	Rob/Jas
NP's - Monday	Ian
LD - Sunday	Ian
LD - Monday	Les
Sunday team	Les/Syd/KAG/Rob
Monday team	Harry/Dan/Chris

The full individual scoreboard was:

		Sunday	Monday	Total	Gross
		01-Sep	02-Sep	Points	Points
1	Gray L	41	27	68	44
2	Stewart	36	29	65	43
3	Street	32	26	58	22
4	Pollard	35	23	58	30
5	Freeman	30	27	57	47
6	Taylor	35	22	57	31
7	Salter	29	27	56	34
8	Gray K	30	22	52	18
9	Bhagrath	36	16	52	18
10	Dickinson	24	25	49	23
11	Corbett	27	22	49	15

Good fun - but we're all getting older and I sense a time of further change coming - more on that later.