The sun continued to shine as the 8 players set off for the afternoon quarter finals.
Game 1 was an epic encounter with Dominic pulling back a 4 hole deficit to win 1up against
James with an excellent birdie 2 on the beautiful 18th hole.
Both Jacob & Lewis managed wins on the 17th green over Peter and Harry respectively in nip
and tuck matches before Max despatched his buddy Callum 4&3.
Sunday morning was again showing signs of being hot and dry as Dominic & Jacob played off
the first tee in game 1 followed by a re-run of the 2017 final, Max v Lewis in the 2nd semi-final.
Both games started similarly with Max & Jacob getting their noses in front early, both a couple
up through three holes.
Jacob held his lead over Dominic into the back nine, although in game 2, a 30ft bomb at
the 7th saw Lewis go 1up only for Max to hit 2 exceptional irons into 8 & 9 to restore the
narrowest possible lead through the turn.
Jacob got to the 16th tee 3 up on Dominic but the Walton Heath man would not lie down
holing a nice 8-footer to win 16, and then also win 17 following Jacob’s visit to the fairway
Bunker. Up the last!
Both players hit nice shots into the par 3 and Jacob progressed to the final when Dominic
couldn’t repeat his heroics from Saturday just running a 7ft birdie putt past the edge.
Max, having been 1up through the turn then made a remarkable par on the 10th from an
impossible lie to go 2up but Lewis would reply with an excellent birdie at the 11th.
Max went 2up on the 12th with a 3ft par putt after both players had missed the tricky par 3
green, a lead he would not relinquish and when Lewis missed his birdie try on the 17th Max
was in his 2nd consecutive final.
A healthy crowd followed the final match as Max started fast hitting his approach to the 1st to
only a few inches, he then went 2up when Jacob unusually 3 putted the 2nd.
The next few holes were halved with pars before Jacob made a nice birdie on 9 to halve his
arrears. Max got in a little trouble at 11, just falling in the hazard with his approach, and
although choosing to play it, Jacob was now level.
Jacob continued his steady play and a combination of a missed putt at the 12th and an errant
tee shot at the 13th by Max saw Jacob 2up playing the short 14th. Halved holes over the next 3
saw Jacob dormie up on the 17th. An untimely error saw him in the fairway trap with Max in A1
position and the final was going up the 18th.
Max hit it to 20ft behind the hole whilst Jacob came up a bit short on the fringe and putted up to 4ft.
Max was eyeing up extra time, but his putt slipped past before Jacob solidly holed his putt to
be Champion for 2018. So not only had Jacob hit the last shot of the Championship, he was
also the first player to tee it up on the Friday!
Many congratulations to Jacob and many thanks to Burhill for hosting our Championship.
Mid-Age Championship
The beautiful West Surrey Golf Club was the venue hosting this year’s Mid-Age Championships
which comprise of an individual and a team competition. The format is 36 holes medal for the
individual Championship and for the team event two nominated players from the same Club
have both their rounds to count towards the team score.
To ensure players of all ages have a County Championship to play in the age range for this
Championship was changed to 26 to 54 (on the day of competition). This change has proved
to be a great success with a field of 45 players taking part, the most for several years and as
word gets around the numbers will most certainly grow for 2019.
The weather for the morning two tee start was cooler than it has been recently but
unfortunately this came with that rare thing called rain, and plenty of it. However, that didn’t
stop some excellent scoring with Duncan Hodgson leading the way with a fine level par 71,
closely followed by Ben Palmer on 72 and a host of players on 73, 74 & 75’s, the Championship
was wide open.
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