We went into the final round of the Trevor Bell Shield at The Grange with a somewhat comfortable lead over Port Kembla of 26 points, but when the chips are down funny things can happen. We also had the benefit of a largely unchanged team with the exception of Brian O’Hare who was off gallivanting interstate. Ray Orr gave his traditional stimulating rev up before we hit off and this week it was Pat Paris who had the pleasure of Ray’s continued encouragement throughout the day.
I was lucky to play with Peter Young who unfortunately had a horror start by only recording 1 point in the first three holes. But after we both got the benefit of another Ray Orr rev up on the 8th hole, we went on to each record a solid 19 points on the back for a total of 33 points for Peter and 35 for myself. All the more creditable for Peter who managed to snare a birdie and the odd par, so he had a great comeback from a not so good start.
After we returned to the clubhouse Ray and Pat Paris had also just finished and they managed 35 and 32 points respectively. A quick glance at the leader board revealed that two of Port’s players had scored 40 and 39 points, so they were still in with a chance unless we could post something formidable. Nerves were starting to get a bit frayed as we waited for the rest of the field to finish and it wasn’t long before Geoff Reynolds and Ron Chilby arrived with the news they had scored 38 and 35 points respectively.
With another couple of mid-range scores by Port, it became evident they did not have enough points to catch us on the day and when Karl Edlinger came in with 33 points, that was sufficient for Jamberoo to claim an initial win in the Trevor Bell Shield.
We again managed to score in excess of 200 points on the day (we scored greater than 200 points in six of the seven rounds throughout the year), but that was only good enough for fourth position on the day behind The Grange (225 points), Wollongong (219), Kiama (218), Jamberoo (209), Port Kembla (208), Links Shell Cove (207) and Russell Vale (197).
It was interesting to note that apart from Geoff Reynold’s terrific round of 38 points the rest of us managed to almost play to our handicaps with three of us scoring 35 and another two scoring 33. This result typified our performance during the year with one or two of us scoring well and the rest of the team making valuable contributions by playing close to their handicap. Overall it was a great team performance during the year where we displayed consistency with a bit of brilliance every now and then.
At the conclusion of the luncheon (I had the schnitzel with gravy and chips – yum!) the individual prizes for the day were awarded and while we didn’t feature among the leaders, Ray Orr managed to claim the NTP on the 7th with 198cm. This was followed by the presentation of the Shield which was gratefully accepted by our captain Ray. In his acceptance speech Ray acknowledged the hospitality of each of the clubs when they hosted their round and of the organisers. Ray concluded by saying that we had lost Neville Hutchins during the year and that one of Neville’s goals since its inception was to win the Shield, he was dedicating our win to Neville. Nice one Ray.
The Shield is to be engraved with today’s result and returned to Jamberoo over the next few weeks.