Nick Steiner won the Wrest Park Advanced Tournament
[<<] [>>] by David Marsh
at Wrest Park
8 Jul
2018 (AC)
The tournament was won, as it was last year, by Nick Steiner, who served notice by recording the only TP against Duncan Hector in his first game. He then lost to Adrian Kirby but won his remaining five games to finish with six out of seven, just ahead of Nigel Polhill with 6/8, who won the prize for the most index points gained apart from Nick himself.
The weather played its part: the heatwave that had started in late June was still in full swing, the lawns were the colour of straw and shade was at a premium. It was a class field, with nine of the 14 players on scratch or better and manager Eric Audsley the highest handicapped on 2. Lawn 1 was fast but flat, lawn 2 fast but less flat ! Lawns 3 and 4 were significantly easier. Everyone coped pretty well with the tricky conditions - hoop approaches could be frustrating (the approach to hoop 4 on lawn 1 needed patience, skill and not a little luck) which led to many breaks coming to a premature end, and most games were fairly interactive with nearly half the results in single figures.
While the grass on the lawns was almost non existent, the grass at the side of the lawns hid many a hard shot leading to lost ball searches. The most difficult was solved when George Collin found his ball 2 feet down a rabbit hole.
Many thanks to Geoff Strutt and his nephew, Tim Brewer, David Woolley and Wendy Audsley for lunches and teas and keeping the water jug topped up.
Nick Steiner (-.5) 6/7 1 TP
Nigel Polhill (-.5) 6/8
Cliff Jones (0) 5/7
David Marsh (-1) 4/6
David Harrison-Wood (-1) 4/6
Adrian Kirby (-.5) 4/8
John Bevington (1.5) 3/6
Clive Goode (.5) 3/7
Graham Gale (-.5) 3/7
Bryan Harral (-.5) 3/7
Duncan Hector (-1) 3/7
Eric Audsley (2) 2/6
David Mooney (.5) 1/8
George Collin (1.5) 0/4