1st V Derbyshire at Erewash Valley

David Westwood - County Captain - Monday, 4 July, 2011

Our second match of the season took us to Erewash Valley not well known by our team as only Tom had seen this course before but looking out it seemed fairly straight forward with no hidden shots for us to deal with, fresh from our success at the county 6's I was confident of a good result and the morning session didn?t go too bad as we went to lunch 3-2 down not the worst start ever but again we failed to get a head start with the foursomes.

Our pairings were Sam Dodds & Rob Browning who managed a half point, this followed an excellent recovery shot from the water on 17 it was good to watch especially Rob being covered in water the result was a loss of hole though and going to the 18th level a 3 by both sides ended the match all square.

Chris Doogs and myself never really got near our best and despite fighting back we eventually lost out when our opponents again rolled another one in for birdie on 17 to win 3&1

A new pairing of Fred Jewsbury and Ryan Wallace stormed to a 5&4 win, good golf from both and with Ryan peppering the pin whenever he had a shot within 100 yards this converted to many birdies in this low scoring match

Tom Ibbertson & Jamie Carney narrowly missed out on a full point when a rare missed putt on the last slipped by this lost the hole but a valuable half point was gained

Richard Oddy and Steve Creed as always battled hard but a combination of missed puts and local knowledge from their opponents ended with a 2&1 loss

So here we were again trying to come from behind, away from home this is especially difficult and we soon found out how hard this would be when my top three games all went to Derby, Sam came off cursing the course losing out 3&2,

Fred although out second finished first but with the wrong result 7&5 down. This was quickly followed by Rob who playing probably Derby's best player lost out 4&3

Some good news at last when getting revenge for his morning defeat Doogs powered his way round the course getting a valuable point with his 3&2 win.

Back to normal though when I found myself up against a player trying to prove himself as a regular 1st team player he did his campaign no harm at all with his 5 birdies and a 3&2 win over me

Ryan following behind again produced some good golf but not a consistent as the morning session 2 down with 2 to play Ryan had a good birdie at the tricky 17th but as happened time and again with Derby his opponent hit back winning the last and finished 2up

At last more good news when Tom had a convincing win of 3&2, it seems an easy formula 5 birdies from Tom with no mistakes gets you the win (if only it really was that easy) well done Tom

Three matches still to finish but the result already known, all games though were close and could go our way to salvage something from today, Richard won 17 to give us a glimmer of hope 1 down now going to 18 both players found the green and with regulation two putts the match went to Derby for another point against us, with all Derbyshire team now enthusiastically supporting their team this seemed to spur the home players and a birdie three at 17 from

Jamie's opponent gave him the 1up advantage Jamie hit back for us though when he produced a great shot into the par three last to win the hole and half the match

Lastly Steve came close again but another 1 down loss, Steve put the blame squarely on his putting, many missed chances and this was made worse for Steve as he had to watch his opponent do exactly the reverse and hole everything, it is what we all know at this level putting is everything

So another defeat making it 2 out of 2 I have to say watching the games finish and talking to both teams most matches were well under par, with four I know being 5 under so it was played at a high standard, this does not help our league position though and I will now need to re-assess the team and our foursomes pairings if we are to improve, I will give this some thought now and hopefully we can come out on top at our next match in August

Thank you as always to John Powell for his support and on course commentary, sorry John you had to follow a very happy day on Saturday at your daughter's wedding with the disappointing result on Sunday. Thanks to Erewash GC who more than looked after us all day.

Full Results

R Browning & S Dodds halved James Booth & Craig Young

D Westwood & C Dougil lost 3&2 Nick Newbold & George Thacker

Fred Jewsbury & Ryan Wallace won 5&4 Ant Wynne & Joe Biggs

T Ibbertson & J Carney halved Gareth White & Tom Hamson

S Creed & R Oddy lost 2&1 Dan Tomlinson & Paul Tatlow

Foursomes Result 2-3 to Derbyshire

S Dodds lost 3&2 George Thacker

Fred Jewsbury lost 7&5 James Booth

R Browning lost 4&3 Craig Young

C Dougill won 3&2 Nick Newbold

D Westwood lost 3&2 Joe Biggs