The first “major” of the year was held at Elie last weekend with the Scottish Wayfarers competing for the Stenhouse Quaich. In a return to more typical conditions, we were treated to a fairly consistent cold breeze off the Forth, though thankfully the predicted rain of Sunday only amounted to less than an hour of stinging drizzle. The temperatures together with the foursomes format led to speedy rounds which is always appreciated, given the clash with the Scotland-Ireland triple crown decider on Saturday afternoon! The course was in good condition, given the winter rains – and thankfully the spring growth of the rough is a few weeks away.
The team was a fairly experienced one this year – with four current Hewitt players, and in contrast to other schools we only exchanged one player all weekend – with Graeme Russell ably substituting for Sandy Gray on Sunday morning.
The format of the tournament is to play round robin against the five other schools, Accies, Fettes, Loretto, Merchiston and Strathallan, but Saturday morning requires a 3-ball sixsome with two simultaneous foursomes matches to make the numbers work. After last year’s tough draw (Loretto & Merchiston), we had a more benign opening – against Edinburgh Academy (lost 2 holes) and Strathallan (won 16 holes). In even better news, we were last off in the afternoon – allowing the team to spectate the first half of the rugby – and perhaps more significantly watch Loretto outlunch themselves – all of which resulted in an unexpected, but pleasing 10 hole victory in the afternoon.
Saturday morning also sees the playing of the medal, which is open to all members of the various societies, not just reserves for the weekend. Disappointingly, there were only two entrants this year – however, happily they were both OGGS members. Graeme Russell was stepping up to challenge twice defending champion Stephen Titterington. Sadly for Graeme, Stephen’s Elie experience counted in the gusty conditions, and Stephen made it 3 wins in a row. Congratulations to Stephen!
At the end of Saturday, there was a log-jam at the top of the table, with Edinburgh Academy undefeated with 3 wins (+15 holes), and then Merchiston (+25 holes), Glenalmond (+24 holes) and Loretto (+3 holes) all on 2 wins. Fettes and Strathallan were set for a Sunday morning show-down to decide the wooden spoon.
Unusually, dinner was a buffet – allowing for the France-England match to be perused alongside the excellent club claret. The new chef at Elie again received excellent reviews.
Sunday morning was more breezy, but perhaps warmer. To illustrate the strength of the breeze, the Fettes player was over the back of the 7th with a 6 iron and the 17th (off a forward tee) was in range for some in the field. A tight game against a strong Merchiston team was lost by 3 holes, which meant pride was all the was to play for in the Sunday afternoon game against Fettes. Happily the team managed a solid performance in a 10 hole victory.
Many thanks to Tom Simmonds for taking over the organising of the weekend – and to Messrs Rennie & Thomson for kindly hosting. The performance of the team was very solid – with only 2 narrow defeats. Sandy Gray notched up 4 victories out of 4, and 5 more players only tasted defeat once, against good quality opposition. Hopefully, this will bode well for the Hewitt – and other golfing enterprises this year!
Final Scores
- Merchiston – 4 wins – 35 holes up
- Loretto – 4 wins – 24 holes up
- Glenalmond – 3 wins – 31 holes up
- Edinburgh Academy – 3 wins – 4 holes up
- Strathallan – 1 win – 59 holes down
- Fettes – 0 wins – 35 holes down
Medal result
- Stephen Titterington
- Graeme Russell
Team
- Sandy Gray (except Sun am)
- John Laird
- Matthew McEachran
- David Rennie
- Graeme Russell (Sun am)
- Tom Simmonds
- Ruaraidh Stewart
- Mike Thomson
- Niall Watson
Medallists
- Graeme Russell
- Stephen Titterington