Patience pays off as Bradley’s duo celebrate victory at Fixby
A great deal of both patience and perseverance was required before Bradley Park duo Chris Forbes and Adam Taylor emerged victorious with 47 points in the HalifaxHuddersfield Alliance meeting at Huddersfield.
Not from Forbes and Taylor, but from the Alliance, which had to wait to stage its first such event at Fixby for around 15 years and got it underway at the third attempt after two postponements.
Even then they had to endure a delay at the start because of fog and play was also halted for a period during the morning before the pair emerged from the mist to win by two from clubmates Ian Welsh and Ben Page.
Third place, also on 45 points but bested on countback, went to Sam Thorpe and Chris Woodhead from new Halifax-Huddersfield Union president Anthony Kendall's home club, Longley Park.
This is the second season since the Alliance was taken under the wing of its 'big brother', the HalifaxHuddersfield Union, and has marked Huddersfield's return to the schedule. The competition was originally slated for November 16 only to be postponed for a fortnight because Fixby was waterlogged – and then got put back a further three months because of snow.
It attracted an excellent entry of 70 pairings and, despite the poor visibility for much of the day, Forbes and
Taylor had no problem keeping their eyes firmly on the prize. They opened with two birdies, overcame a onepointer at the fourth with interest with an eagle worth four points at the fifth, and added another birdie at the ninth to turn with 22pts.
The latter was the first of four birdies in five holes – the exception being another eagle at the par-5 12th. They landed a third eagle of the day at the challenging par-4 16th to add 25pts on the inward run.
Welsh and Page amassed four birdies on the outward stretch, but endured two single-point holes and their tally then stood at 20. They managed five better coming back thanks to five birdies in the final seven holes that were augmented by a four-pointer at the 14th.
Thorpe and Woodhead carded the same nine-hole aggregates of 20 and 25 as Welsh and Page, but in the opposite order, and thus had to settle for third spot. The Longley Park duo had four birdies and an eagle in their first nine holes, four more birdies on the back nine, but also two damaging one-pointers.
Forbes and Taylor's efforts have lifted Bradley Park into a share of second spot in the Club Order of Merit, alongside Outlane on 201 and four adrift of leaders Hanging Heaton.
Outlane's Rob Booth has a commanding 16-point lead over nearest challenger Nigel Hirst in the Professional Order of Merit.
Huddersfield marked the fifth of nine competitions, with the remaining four to come at Meltham, Willow Valley, Woodsome Hall and Crow Nest Park.