ANOTHER busy week for the Seniors at Forest Hills, started with a Reverse Cha-Cha-Cha on Thursday morning, as 11 teams took to the course on a morning when the conditions early on were unpleasantly cold and wet.
The expectation might have been that those going out later might have had an advantage but in the event, the teams that were out first and second topped the leaderboard.
The winners were Robin Leamon, John Watkins, Paul Taylor and Gerry Woodley with their score of 87.
They finished one shot ahead of John Auton, Colin White, Mike Connon and Dave Virgo, with the quartet of Dave Stuart, Bob Gibson, Malcolm Green and Andy Wright a further one shot adrift in third place.
There were eight twos carded, of which Keith Bell laid claim to two of them, as a result of birdies on the 14th and 17th.
The Thursday Roll-Up was the prelude to the main event of the day, which was the third playing of the Forest of Dean Seniors Triangular, and it was the turn of Forest Hills, to host the event this year.
The competition is a 12-a-side Stableford, with the 10 best scores to count.
After last year’s competition, that was hosted by the Forest of Dean Club.
As the three Captains led off the proceedings, Richard Keeble (Forest Hills), Jerry Bolster (Forest of Dean) and Mark Lightbound (Lydney), the storm clouds hovered over Mile End, but they stayed away for the most of the day.
After the first eight returns from each team were entered onto the score sheet, it was apparent, that this year was going to be another close contest, as Forest Hills held a slender two shot lead over Lydney.
The top individual contributors for each club were, Chas Challis 40, Terry Davies 38, and Roger Hall 37, for the home team, Brian Jones 37 and Kev Burford 34 for F.o.D, and Howard James 38 and Stuart Kear 36 for Lydney.
With the bottom two scores dropped it meant that Forest Hills jettisoned scores of 24 and 26, F.o.D. 19 and 21 and Lydney 27 and 25.
All this resulted in another nail biter that kept the three captains engrossed, as the scores were finally totalled up, that led to a final result of: Lydney 334, Forest Hills 331 and Forest of Dean 300.
The victorious Lydney team was made up of Mark Anderson, Colin Ervig, Howard James, Stuart Kear, Mark Lightbound Tommy Miller Brian Nice, Tony Norris, Brian Snook, Dave Prentice and Pete Thomas.
The Lydney club’s Seniors visited Forest Hills the previous day, where despite several close results they were beaten overall by 4 points to 2, the only Lydney win coming from the returning Mike Gerrish with Bill Flyng, while Stuart Kear/Paul Lucas and Tommy Miller/Jon Mills recorded halved games.
The Lydney Seniors also travelled to Cleeve Cloud Golf Club, the highest point in Gloucestershire, with magnificent views, where under windy conditions on a well prepared course they were well beaten by 4.5 to 1.5 with only Jon Mills/Tommy Miller winning and Mike Gerrish/Jim Bendall halving their game.