Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2010

Saturday 27th February saw the Tonsley Golf Society gather for their annual meeting at the now familiar Belmont Golf Club.

This time, in true Tonsley style, the competition bar had been raised, the individual competition (Get in the Hole Challenge) remained, but the competition was now in Ryder Cup format with the Angels playing the Devils for the Tonsley Cup.

In a bid to talk team tactics and gain the early advantage, the Angels met on Friday and stayed in Hereford. Whilst their strategy may have been sound, when the Angels arrived at the club, the aroma of hops gave the Devils a sense of confidence for the day ahead.

The Ryder Cup style tournament (using stableford scoring) was enhanced through Tonsley's partnership with VPAR, a virtual scoring system where all players were able to track the scores of each individual and their team in real time on handheld PDAs as they played the course. This proved an exciting way to play out the day with it all being square at the end of Saturday, the singles day.

There was much to discuss in the clubhouse whilst watching Ireland put one over England in the Six Nations. A smart dinner, prize giving and some late-night trombone playing saw a liquid evening pass quickly.

Day two, pairs day and it was all to play for. The Angels got off to a cracking start and after nine holes had a comfortable lead. But the Devils dug deep and pulled it back to set up a final hole showdown between the final pairs. When it mattered, the putting of the Angels faltered and the Devils pulled off a magnificent win to take the (inaugural) Tonsley Cup 2010.

Particular note should be made of the following:

Mark Goodall's calamitous dip from his 2009 form
Paul Pannell sweeping the floor on both days (with hire clubs!)
Pete Bullock's terrible putting form on Saturday, topping an easy 2-foot putt (Dick of the Day nomination)
Dan Potter not being able to drive past the ladies tee (Dick of the Day nomination)
Rupert Bell snoring in the clubhouse in front of the rugby (Dick of the Day nomination)
Simon Woolf having the decency to go to his room to sleep during the rugby (Dick of the Day nomination)
Richie Duncan waking some old duffer who had passed out in the bar with point-blank use of the Shiny Trombone (Champagne Moment)

Here's the detail and prizes (whatever, show me the photos)...

The Tonsley Cup 2010

The Tonsley Cup is a match-play competition which loosely follows a Ryder Cup format. On Saturday we played ‘singles’ where there were two matches in each fourball.

On Sunday we played ‘fourballs’, where each hole was won by the team whose individual golfer had the lowest score. Handicaps were taken into account.

All players were designated a team: Floody and Woolfy’s guests playing in the Angels team (captained by Floody) and Rob and Joe’s guests playing in the Devils team (captained by Rob).

And the Tonsley Cup 2010 was won by The Devils!

CHALLENGE TROPHY 2010

Paul Pannell

The individual competition run over both Saturday and Sunday rounds and based on a combined ‘stableford’ score was won by Paul Pannell (turning up with minutes to spare and hiring some old clubs from the pro-shop!... total bandit.)