Bath Heat of GC All England Handicap

The Bath heat of this year’s All-England GC Singles was played on Thursday 15th June – another baking hot day in what feels like an endless series of them. The original plan of having 7 rounds in an ‘all-play-all’ format was modified therefore, and we decided 5 rounds should be sufficient to pick a couple of winners to go forward to the SW Regional Final in August. This is also being played in Bath, on Sunday 13th August.

The CA had announced that all games this year should be played as Advantage GC, untimed, and eight Bath members bravely put their names down to compete under these new handicap conditions. In the event it worked out very well, with the lower handicappers winning exactly half of the morning’s block games, none of which went over 50 minutes. There were some remarkable performances amongst the higher handicappers, with Lyndon Hughes (9) winning all three of his block games, which included a 7:6 win over David Veal (6), and MJ Middlehurst (8) getting a 7:6 victory over Neil Pinker (6) in the other block.

There were two further rounds in the afternoon, with several very close games. Again, honours were equally split between lower and higher handicappers.

Neil emerged as the overall winner with four wins, having beaten both David and Lyndon in the play-offs. Lyndon was deemed to be runner-up. He was one of four people who had three wins under their belts (Lyndon, David, Miriam and Anwen), but David and Lyndon had the highest nett hoop score overall, and Lyndon’s win over David that morning secured him a very well-deserved second place, and potentially a ticket to Ryde for the National Final.

Despite fears that untimed AGC games “can go on forever”, we were delighted to discover that this was not the case, on this particular day anyway, and the whole tournament was done and dusted by 3pm! Many congratulations to all who took part, and thanks to Bob Hart who refereed the tournament very ably.