UK Senior Golf Association
Bramall secures victory at Princes with two rounds of 74
Phillip Bramall's second consecutive round of 74 was sufficient to take first place at Princes from Paul Knight (also 148). Third place was claimed by Ian Attoe's (150) whose second round of 71 was the lowest score over the two days. Simon Ostrom took the Seniors (152), John Yuill secured Super Seniors (150) narrowly missing third place on countback, and Stuart Fawcett's 152 secured the Masters prize. Handicap honours went to Kevin Batchelor with a nett 144. Congratulations are due to Richard Wood for his "hole in one" into the 8th on Shore and to Nigel Phillips for an excellent first round of 72 (level par). Inevitably, given the location of Princes, prize giving numbers were somewhat reduced, but our chairman Howard Moxon took the opportunity to applaud the Overseas teams for their excellent wins in Europe earlier in the year as well as the prize winners that day.
For those that don't know the course, Princes has three nine hole courses and therefore different combinations can be played. The association played Shore/Dunes on both days. As ever, a links course is ruled by the wind and this proved to be the case at Princes. The wind strength varied throughout both days and produced a fair test of golf for all, with CSS remaining at par for Round One with no NR cards that day. The rough was quite unforgiving and the firm advice to take a provisional once offline was heeded by most players. Judging the pace of the greens proved challenging for some and this, combined with some tricky pin placements, made for lively debate at the 19th! It was reported with authority by some, that the Head Greenkeeper was last seen heading out to sea on a jet ski, hotly pursued by Les Bruckner with Peter Adams shouting encouragement from the shore! Seriously though, the course looked in great condition and a huge amount of work has been carried out over the last few years. The major reworking of the Himalayas (the nine that UKSGA didn't play)is ongoing to prepare the course to become one of the four Regional Final Qualifying venues for the Open from 2018 to 2021.
Our thanks go to Robert McGuirk and his team at Princes for the use of the course and clubhouse and ensuring that our players were looked after so well.
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