'We played on Friday and the greens were slow', said our Vice Captain Dave Westwood, Then we get there today and you watch your first putt sliding six foot past - and that goes on and on.'

Unable to get out in the rain, Lingdale's greens staff were very busy pre play and produced some very smooth and fast putting surfaces which plagued our team. There were more than two dozen Warwickshire three putts over the day (of two rounds) and the losing margin was just six shots.

The opening rounds left us in sixth place but it was all very tight with the top seven counties separated by just 10 shots -

Lincolnshire & Worcestershire 440

Shrops & Hereford 443

Leicestershire & Rutland 446

Staffordshire & Watwickshire 447

Our scores were

Fred Jewsbury 77

Sam Dodds 75

Dave Westwood 77

Tom Ibbertson 70

Rob Browning 76

Andy Sullivan 72

Tom's round included five birdies and he was the 7th best score of the morning round.

A Warwickshire charge was needed and that certainly happened for the first nine of the afternoon. Nearly all our team was at par or better and Dave (Westwood) was showing that his best golf (but not telling anyone his score) is top class. He ended up with a five foot putt to equal the new course record of 67, the new mark set during the afternoon by Staffordshire's Dave Walley and Worcestershire's Chris Nugent.

That putt slipped by but Dave could forget his six problem greens from the morning with his performance and Fred Jewsbury was one shot shy with his 69, another score which was just what Captain Louis Meryon ordered.

There were no fireworks from Andy Sullivan or Rob Browning and news from the course was that Worcestershire were consolidating their position at the top of the leaderboard with three mid 70s scores, as all bar our team fell back.

Sam Dodds produced a very solid finish for a 72 and our final score came from a forlorn Tom Ibbertson. Tom produced three birdies and an eagle - to go with four double bogies and lots of singles. He gamely parred the last three to break 80 as we secured second place, by 8 shots from Staffordshire, but in the end it was putting wizardry from Chris Nugent that made the difference.

Nugent had only 22 putts in his 67, and holed from off the green so he single putted 13 greens.

You Captain jokingly remarked that we needed a putting clinic but we did post the best 18 hole total of the day and Worcestershire showed the sort of team spirit that made them fearsome opponents in last year's Midland League. We hope they have an enjoyable - and successful - time at Hunstanton in September.

The Top 3 positions were:

Worcestershire 878

Warwickshire 884

Staffordshire 892