Warwickshire Golf
Men's EG County Championships - Tournament Report
EG Men’s County Championship – Midland Qualifying
Saturday 15th July 2023 at Belton Park GC, Lincolnshire
After much consideration, the team selected to represent Warwickshire in the Men’s 6s was:
Rob Bardsley (Moor Hall)
Warren Bladon (Kenilworth)
Seb Cave (Bramcote Waters)
Tom Cleaton (Rugby)
Alex Ford (Robin Hood)
Darryl Gwilliam (Coventry)
Ian Smith (Forest of Arden) – travelling reserve
6 of the team were present for the practice round on the afternoon before the event. Warren was unable to join us as he was battling away at Woodhall Spa in the R&A Senior Amateur Championship. With the threat of heavy rain and strong winds, we made our way to the first tee and started play. After a few holes the heavens opened and we decided to not play any more (after all, most of the players had all seen the course). A couple carried on walking the course whilst the rest went to the local driving range to hit some balls.
The competition day had a weather forecast of blustery winds and possible thunderstorms. Fortunately we avoided the thunderstorms, but one heavy downpour did result in a pause in play for nearly an hour whilst the green staff tried to squeegee a number of the low lying greens as they had standing water. That said, the golf course was in excellent condition but was extremely challenging given the continuing strong winds.
Our team put in a solid performance in the morning with rounds of 70 from Darryl, 71 from Seb, 73 from Tom, 75s from Rob and Warren and a 76 from Alex. As the format is best 5 from 6 our team score was 364 or 9 over par. This put us in sixth position some 17 shots behind Lincolnshire’s staggering and impressive 347 (8 under par). We had work to do!
Unfortunately Warren’s travails at Woodhall Spa meant that he “ran out of steam” in the ongoing testing conditions in the afternoon. Scores of 71 from Darryl and Rob, 73s from Alex and Tom and a 77 from Seb saw us post 365 in the afternoon for an overall score of 729. We managed to claw our way up the leaderboard to finish overall 4th but Lincolnshire continued their form from the morning to win the event with a terrific score of 706 (4 under par). The highlight for Team Warwickshire was Darryl’s overall 1 under score seeing him finish joint 4th, just one shot short of the winning individual score.
Although we were slightly disappointed with the end result, we wish Lincolnshire all the best when they represent the Midlands in the finals at Southport & Ainsdale at the end of September.
My thanks to all the players in the team as well as the support team of Stu Bloxham, Chris Brown, Pete Clarke, Nev Gardner, Debbie Reynolds, Mark Reynolds and Tom Whitehouse for all their help in the run up to the event and assistance on the day.
Mike Pell
County Captain
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