Our first round saw us drawn against Forest at Royal St Georges on Thursday morning. Pairs 2 and 3 won well, pair 4 staged a strong fight back having been down early to be all square on 16th, and pair 5 faced some strong opposition, doing well to keep their match alive. Pleasingly it fell to top pair – James Boyle and our rookie Charlie Craddock (expertly steered round by caddie Matthew Hansford) to hole a clutch put at 16 to take the match to 2up and then make a solid par on 17 to close the game out.
Our second round pitted us against Kings Canterbury, a school occupying a similar position in the Anderson scale as ourselves, and cram packed full of links specialists – Rye, Deal and RSG members. A win in our 4th pair counter-balanced our top pair who were unable to recreate the magic of the previous day and were undone by savvier links golf from the opposition. The match came down to our pairs 2, 3 and 5 who took their games to the 19th. Sadly, decent pars from the opposition in the first two of those matches was too good for our Cranleigh pairs and enough to give Kings Canterbury the victory 3.5-1.5 (with our 5th pair who had fought back from 3 down having to take the half).
On reflection it’s a Hewitt about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand we continue to uncover new talent and give our youngsters more experience – we are in good stead for the coming years. On the other, this was one of the best draws I can recall, and represents a real missed opportunity for a decent run. That’s something backed up by the fact that Kings Canterbury managed to get to Sunday morning and the semi-finals.
Thanks go to all those who participated in the squad, in particular to Frazer and Badger for coming over from the US. Congratulations to Badger on playing his 30th year, Tony on reaching the milestone of 50 matches and to Charlie on his first of no doubt many Halford Hewitt’s. Most importantly, I’d like to thank our supporters for their energy and enthusiasm and encouragement. I speak for all of the squad when I say that it is hugely appreciated by us. In my view we continue to have the best band of supporters of all of the 64 teams.