Match Report
SWCGA v The Midlands
Venue: Remedy Oak Golf Club
Date: 31st of August 2023

The weather forecast for the match on Thursday the 31st looked ominously poor and when we arrived at Remedy Oak the omens were not looking good. Fortunately, due to the hard work of the greenkeeping staff they were available to squeegee any greens coming under saturation, but the greens proved to drain extremely well, and we got our matches under way on time at 10am.
Our Cornish duo of Ian Veale and Simon Knowles played steady golf and eventually overcame the Midlands paring to win our first point for the Southwest. Our next paring of Mark Snape and Michael White losing to the Midlands 3&2 which evened up the scoring. The next match Chris Audin and Paul Newcombe were playing Steve Creed, the Closed Open Seniors Champion and Charles Banks, the former British Seniors Champion and had a brilliant win, 4&3 which was crucial as we only achieved a half a point in the final two matches.
By this time the weather had started to clear, the course was now in perfect condition with just the singles to complete, everything was set for a tense afternoon of golf.
Michael White led off in the afternoon facing Steve Creed. They had a highly competitive game with the match finishing on the 18th with the Midlands taking the first point. Chris Audin playing at 2 continued his form from the morning and had an excellent win against Adrian Firman, 4&2 and after a slow start by Mark Snape he fought back extremely well to get a half a point from Steve Sansome. The match then continued to ebb and flow but finally Ian Veale, Jon Cowgill and Gary Earl all won their matches taking out the Midlands middle order extremely effectively and with Paul Newcombe getting a half and a great fight back by Simon Knowles with 2 down to 3 to play to get a half against Duncan McPherson our victory was confirmed and it allowed Phil Bill to conclude his match 2&1 assuring us victory against the Midlands.
The Midlands Golf Union has approximately 118,000 players against the Southwest having in the region of 70,000 so they have a much stronger field to pull a team from and therefore it was a delightful moment when we managed to avenge our defeat of last year and all credit must go to our team members who created a wonderful atmosphere of camaraderie after hard fought battles in the channel league over the season. It was a real pleasure to watch our Southwest players fighting away as a team unit to ensure our victory it was played in great spirit with a tough competitive edge and from all the team, I’ve had emails describing their enjoyment and honour in representing the Southwest.
Hopefully we can look forward to another campaign next year and with our sides being strengthened by new arrivals each year all bodes well for the future.

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