Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Cool heads prevail
Chris Sherwood and Connor Bundock are Canterbury’s Hallet Cup men’s Winter League champions after holding their nerve to take fourth place in Sunday’s 17-hole eighth and final round to win overall by six points.
Sherwood and Bundock led the standings by two from Michael Longmore and Scott Lindsay, going into the final round with five of the 42 teams still in contention for overall honours. However, Longmore and Lindsay finished 11th to consolidate second overall while David Simmons and Stephen Zachry scored a two-birdie, nine-under-par net 70 for 43 Stableford points to win the final round and climb from seventh to third in the final standings. With the 12th hole shut and a strong wind making the first nine difficult, Sherwood took command for their outward haul of 20 points. He made a birdie at the ninth after six pars and one bogey while Bundock scored a par at the eighth hole.
But Bundock came into his own on the back eight, with four pars and two bogeys, while Sherwood notched a bogey at the 15th and a crucial par at the last for another 19. Bundock said: “It’s great to finally win something. “Sometimes, things didn’t go our way and we got into a few sticky situations, but it was just a case of getting through the bad holes and taking our chances when they came. “We just had to not get ahead of ourselves, which is what we did in the last round last week and fell apart.” Sherwood added: “It’s brilliant, this is a first board competition
win for both of us and I’m over the moon. We just tried to stay level headed and it was perfect symmetry, the front nine it was all me and the back eight it was Connor.
“Walking up the ninth, I said: ‘Connor, this is all you now’ and he just took it from there, it was brilliant
“The best shot of the day was Connor hitting his 3 wood into the wind to eight feet on the 17th for par.
“That was the moment I knew we had probably won it.” Final-round winners Simmons and Zachry started on the 10th and Zachry hit form from holes 13 to 18, scoring 16 points from a 14th-hole birdie, three threepoint pars and two bogeys in their opening half score of 20. Simmons then made a birdie at the eighth, four pars and a bogey
and Zachry chipped in with two pars and a bogey as they harvested a further 23 points from a one-over-par inward half of 37 gross to win by one from Alan Holcroft and Hugh Burton on the day.
Derek Horne and Sam Cliff scored a birdie apiece in a score of 42 points for third. Super-sub Phil Johnson birdied two of the final five holes to help Tony Bevan and Ray Lloyd to overall victory in the Bill England Trophy Seniors’ Winter League on Monday. Johnson stepped in after Lloyd contracted Covid and he and Bevan shared three birdies, six pars, six bogeys and two one-point doubles to win the rescheduled final round with an impressive haul of 39 Stableford points on a cold, sunny and breezy day. They scored 19 points on the back eight to win on countback from David Spencer and Peter Cheney, who scored seven pars, nine bogeys and one scoring double. Bevan and Lloyd started the day six league points behind the leaders and Lloyd was well enough to say: “Fantastic, I reckon I owe Phil a couple of pints.”
Phil Myers and Robert Green scored 38 points to take third position on the day on countback from Les Elmer and Mick Scott, and fifth-placed Chris Stephens and Brian Whybrow in a field of 37 pairs and one other single player.
While Johnson underpinned the round win with his two late birdies, three pars, one bogey and a double for 16 points, Bevan did the majority of the scoring, totting up 23 from a chip in birdie at the 11th, three pars, five bogeys and a scoring double at the 16th.
Bevan said: “I spoke to Ray earlier and he’s thrilled to find out that we’ve won it. I’m really pleased - it’s the first thing I’ve won since I joined Canterbury three years ago.
“Phil played really well and especially as a last minute stand-in, I was most grateful and we dovetailed well.” Lizza Berry won for the second time in a month when she scored 28 points for victory in Saturday’s 17-hole ladies’ Weekend March Stableford. Berry had a par at the fourth, four bogeys and four scoring doubles for 15 points on the front nine.
She scored another par at the 17th after chipping to 18 inches and scored 13 points on the back eight to win by two from Alison Kingston, who held off Val Binns and fourth-placed Clare Mills on countback.