Week twenty of Greetham Valley’s Winter Order of Merit got underway in almost Spring like conditions – sun, warmth and unusually, next to no wind. Even the greens felt Springlike, very fast but true. After nineteen weeks of the competition, no player has won it more than once and week twenty, yet again, was no exception. Second Team Captain Alan Bennett, playing off seven, won this week with a massive 41 points. Alan, who was two under for the front nine and level on the back, said that he just played steady golf with the feeling that he just couldn’t miss. He was docked two shots off his handicap and will play off five next Sunday.

Club Captain Trevor Smith continued his push to not only win the Order of Merit but to do it with the lowest handicap possible. Playing off plus two, Trevor was second with yet another sub par round, he came in with 37 points and had a further shot taken off his handicap, he will play off plus three this weekend. Fraser Denholm headed a group of three on 36 points to take third and saw his handicap drop down to six for Sunday. Steff Dutton and Bob Beverley were pushed back into a tie for fourth place.

With the Order of Merit leader Paul Jenkinson missing through injury, Trevor Smith took over at the top of the league with 224 points, 12 ahead of Paul. Steve Anderson drops to third just 3 points behind Paul. Last week’s winner Carl Causbrook drops down a place to fourth and another previous winner Tony Mould is in fifth. This weeks winner, Alan Bennett moves up nine places into twelfth. Organiser Neil Harris said that it is all still very tight for the top thirty players and impossible to pick the eventual winner. Seventeen of the top twenty are now playing off single figure handicaps, somebody could still burst from the pack and make a charge.

 Next year, this competition, which started as an alternative to the Winter League, will be adopted as an official club competition but for now with only five rounds to go all of the players are focused on winning the last independent one.   

In the quarter finals of this year’s Winter League, played on the Lakes course on Sunday, Ben Gasson and Matt Asher beat Neil Crees and Bernard Bell four and three. In group two Bill Skinner and Graham Day beat the previous unbeaten pairing of Ray Gladwinfield and Mark Hibbitt on the last hole. Peter Dickinson and Pete Smith beat Gary Graham and Kevin Burdall three and one to win group three. In Group four it was a comprehensive win for Peter Zimmer Smith and Peter Key who beat Steve Sharples and Mick Jones six and five.

This coming Saturday 9th March sees the first Medal of the year and on Sunday round 21 of the Winter Order of Merit takes place. The following week Saturday 16th is the date of the Winter League semi final. Ben Gasson and Matt Asher play Peter Peter Zimmer Smith and Peter Key and Bill Skinner and Graham Day will play Pete Dickinson and Pete Smith. The winners will go forward to the final on Sunday 24th March. Good luck to all involved!

Cold wind and snow flurries were the order of the day as round nineteen of  Greetham Valley’s Winter Order of Merit got underway on the Lakes course. After eighteen weeks of the competition nobody has managed to win it twice and this week was no exception. Carl Causbrook playing off nine took the honours with a sterling 36 points. Carl has come close to winning before but lost out on countback and had to settle for second place a few rounds ago; he will play the next round off seven after being docked two shots. Club Captain Trevor Smith playing off plus one also came in with 36 but lost out on countback to Carl; he loses another shot and will play off plus two in round twenty on Saturday. The ever consistent Steve Anderson was just the one point behind on 35, he loses point five off his handicap and will play off five this weekend. Wayne Terrett also came home with the same score as Steve but was dropped back to fourth place on countback. Club President and winner of the first Order of Merit in 2010/11, Martin Boughton, was fifth with 34 points.     

It is very tight at the top of the leaderboard: Paul Jenkinson just managed to hold onto the top spot, he has a mere five point lead over Steve Anderson: Steve has 206 points. Carl Causbrook jumps up nine places into the third spot with one hundred and eighty six points whilst only three points behind him is the ominous figure of Trevor Smith who moved up six places into fourth. Trevor is now just three points ahead of long time leader Ian Copley on one hundred and seventy nine. The top ten places are very close to each other and the last five weeks will prove interesting as the title is within reach for a large number of players. Fifty points separate first from tenth, from first to twentieth it is less than a hundred points, if somebody can get two wins they will shoot up the leader board and with so few games left, could win it overall. The scores won’t be high for the remaining five rounds as everybody in the top thirty has had at least one cut to their handicaps.

The Winter League round robin stages finished this weekend. The final games were played on winter greens for the first time this winter, thankfully, the Greetham Valley ground staff are not fans of winter mats and apart from just the one set in concrete on the tenth, they have built separate winter tees for all of the other holes. Gary Graham and Kevin Burdall finished at the top of group one. Alan Bennett and Steff Dutton lost their final match and dropped from the second qualifying spot into third. Peter Zimmer-Smith and Peter Key turned up for their game but their competitors didn’t, this meant that they took the two points on offer and moved up to second place to claim one of the two spots to qualify for the quarter finals.

Bernard Bell and Neil Crees, Bill Skinner and Graham Day both lost their games in group two but still qualified for the quarters. 2011/12 winners Dave Morgan and Iain Bain finished in third place despite a valiant fight to win their final game against their opponents from the final last year, Mick Carnie and Jim Kearney. The top three all finished with nine points and countback was employed by Greetham Valley Secretary Dennis Millington to sort it out.

Matt Asher and Ben Gasson topped group three with eight points and go forward to the quarter finals. Steve Sharples and Mick Jones were fourth before the final round, Les Kowal and Jason Giblett were second, Steve and Mick beat them in the last game to leap ahead of them into the second qualifying position. Ray Gladwinfield and Mark Hibbett were the only pairing to win all of their games in group four and finished the round robin stage with a perfect twelve points. Peter Dickinson and Pete Smith lost only one game and qualified in second. 

The eight pairs will become four after the quarter finals this Sunday.

Greetham Valley’s Ladies, led by Ladies Captain Sheila Douty, found a way to use up the times when the recent snow caused a cancellation  of their golf games: they have started a bridge school. This has become so successful that they now play bridge at least once a week as well as playing golf. Sheila said that in the future, they hope to play host to other golf clubs in the surrounding area who also play bridge.

Week eighteen of the Winter Order of Merit saw yet another first time winner; nobody has won it more than once,  although a couple of players have come close. This week’s scores reflect the cuts in players’ handicaps over the past eighteen weeks of the competition. Immediate past Captain Jim Wheeler was this week’s winner with thirty six points. Jim said that he didn’t have a spectacular round but just played steadily to his handicap; he was cut by two shots and will play off twelve in the next round. Neil Harris also had thirty six points but was pushed back into second on count back after a poor back nine. Neil was the only player still on his original handicap in the top half of the table, he was cut by one shot and will play off four this week. Three players returned a score of thirty five points: Steve Anderson had the better back nine and so took third place, he will now play off six. The other two, Martin Boughton and Ian Cunningham, were tied for the fourth spot. Paul Jenkinson retains the top position in the Order of Merit with a twenty five point lead over Ian Copley. The consistent Steve Anderson climbs two places into third. Dave Copley has moved back up into the top five, he has jumped from seventh to fourth, organiser Neil Harris leaps ten places into a tie for fifth with George Grant, they have a hundred and sixty one point six, only point four behind fourth placed Dave. Week eighteen winner Jim Wheeler has the biggest move of the week going up eleven places from thirty eighth to twenty seventh. Thirty eight players have seen their handicaps cut in the series so far this year and with only six more games to go, anybody making a run could win it. A hundred points separates first from twentieth but with fifty points on offer to the weekly winner, this could soon change.

With only one game to go in the round robin knockout stage of the Winter League, it is extremely tight at the top of most of the four groups. In group one, Gary Graham and Kevin Burdall have eight points and look favourites to be one of the top two to go forward to the quarter final; a point from their last game would mean that nobody could catch them. Steff Dutton and Alan Bennett have six points as have Peter Zimmer-Smith and Peter Key: only one pair can go on to the next round so both need to go for the win. In group two, Bernard Bell and Neil Crees and the team of Bill Skinner and Graham Day have nine points, however if they were to lose their final game and third place pairing of Dave Morgan and Iain Bain were to win theirs, they would all have nine points and it would depend upon count back. Matt Asher and Ben Gasson lead the way in league three with eight points, Les Kowal and Jason Giblett are only a point behind them. Kevin Hingle and Andy Webb are on six, so it is all to play for. In the final group, Mark Hibbitt and Ray Gladwinfield have already qualified for the quarter finals with a perfect score of ten points, and are the only team to go into this weekend in a relaxed frame of mind. Behind them, it is all to play for, Peter Dickinson and Peter Smith have eight points and Steven Chisholm and Steve Burgon have six. The weather forecast for the weekend hints at a cold and possibly icy weekend, this could throw a spanner in the works!