Ryde win Southern Challenge Division 1

A somewhat reduced Division this year, with only five teams making it this weekend after several late pul–outs and a number of clubs saying that they didn’t realise it was happening!

Nevertheless the manager John Low adapted the format successfully, leaving our team of four (David Dray and Jon Diamond both days, Mike Gentry and Dan Crocombe on Saturday, Richard Mann and Gerald O’Brien on Sunday) with a total of 10 rounds – 50% singles and 50% doubles.

Saturday dawned mostly sunny, but with a chilly wind, and when the clouds rolled over it was almost cold – sweaters were de rigeur. At the end of the day we won 9 games and lost 11 (all four of the doubles) – not too too bad considering that Dan was the highest handicapped player and that many games were lost at hoop 13.

Day 2 was pretty much a repeat of day 1, albeit only four rounds rather than six and perhaps marginally warmer according to the forecast – it felt colder to me most of the time. The doubles again were our Achilles heel.

In the end we drew with three of the teams and only lost to the winners Ryde, albeit by 7:1 (roughly the same as the other teams too!).

All told not a bad result as most of our players had a positive result in terms of index points, if not in absolute games won.