RND WIN BASIL STEER JUNIOR KNOCKOUT

RND & Churston contested the Final at Taivistock on Sat 9 Sept - RND won the Basil Steer Junior Club knockout. It was a very tight contest which to the went to last green.

Photo of RND Team L to R: Joe Worthington, Joe Neve & Scott Parker

Basil Steer result, participating players and report as follows.

On a cloudy and fairly wet and windy day at Tavistock Golf Club, Royal North Devon Juniors took on Churston Juniors in the final of the Basil Steer knockout trophy. RND represented by Scott Parker, Joe Neave and Joe Worthington were up against the formidable team of Girls from Churston of Lexi Dart, Lauren McGinnis and Lucia Woodall.

Game 1 of Scott Parker vs Lexi Dart started well with Parker taking an early lead and Dart responding with birdies to get back from two down to all square, this was pretty much the pattern for the whole game with Parker getting his nose in front and Dart throwing birdies back at him in reply to level the match. With both players scoring birdies on the par four 17th, Scott was one up with one to play. As per the pattern for the whole match, Lexi once again managed to pull another rabbit from the hat and birdied the 18th to take the match into extra holes. The pair knew that their match was pretty vital as word had come down from the course that the other two matches were looking like a point a piece. Both hit great drives and the middle of the green on the first extra hole and then it was left to the putting.  Dart went first and watched her putt go agonisingly close but not drop which left Parker his putt to win the match which he promptly went on to do with aplomb and seemingly no nerves whatsoever.

1/0 to RND.  Game 2 saw Lauren McGinnis always in the driving seat receiving 14 shots in the match and no matter how hard he tried, Joe Neave just couldn't seem to make any headway eventually going down 3&2. When questioned on his performance, Neave said that he had actually played quite well, but unfortunately for him, Lauren was just better and always in front.

Overall match tied at 1-1 with just the back pair to come in. Joe Worthington played very steadily throughout the round and applied pressure on his young opponent all day even though he had to give her 21 shots in the game. Word and crowd had now filtered back to this pairing and they obviously realised that the whole "shooting match" was down to them. With Joe one up playing the last but having to give a shot the tension was immense. Both players were short of the 18th green in 2 shots with Lucia Woodall seemingly in the driving seat with her shot in hand. On arrival at her ball it was obvious that she had a very tricky shot with a slightly restricted backswing to come.  Unfortunately the shot got the better of her and she failed to move the ball at her first attempt eventually getting on the green in 5 shots. This somewhat took the pressure off of Joe who knocked his ball up to "gimme" distance and therefore won his game 2 up which meant that RND had prevailed 2-1 in the Final.

It was a fantastic match played in truly great spirit and a delight for me to have been there as referee on the day. Well done Royal North Devon and bad Luck Churston but I'm sure their day will come.

MARK SANGSTER, DEVON JUNIOR GOLF

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