No problems with the weather as experienced in our home match with Bedfordshire conditions could not have been more ideal for golf. Although, by their own admission, not in its usual pristine condition, it’s certainly an attractive course to play. Very tight and bouncy a challenging environment for match play. Bedfordshire’s needed a win to have any chance of progressing to the final and they had picked an extremely strong team.

The Essex team included Ben Humphrey and Mitch Wellington both making their first appearance for this team and both Tim Moncur (who made the final Open Qualifier) and Will Wright (Semi Final of the English Amateur and winner of the South England Boys Championship) there was high expectations of some quality golf.

Essex Team as follows: Ben Horton, Ben Humphrey, Timmy Moncur (Capt.) Eoghan O’Connell, Dominic Piccolo, Zac Taylor,  Mitch Wellington, Will Wright,

As anticipated the morning foursomes were close but home advantage and some solid golf gave Bedfordshire 2½ to 1½  lead. Ben and Mitch won the opening match and Will and Timmy gained 1/2 a point. Both the other matches finished on the seventeenth. Traditionally we have always performed well in the singles and the afternoon was no exception. Although singles players went out in pairs. When  the last group teed off on the 18^th the overall score was level at five points each. With Will one up and Zac one down. It was all decided on the final green where Will managed to win his match and Zac holed a difficult putt to halve  his match. Earlier Ben had won on the 18^th to gain a vital half point.

With wins for Timmy, Mitch, Dominic and Will this gave us the 6 1/2 points we needed to win.

There were many notable performances, and the standard of golf was excellent. A particular mention for Timmy who had numerous birdies on the front nine to win his match and Zac who early in his match was five down and came back to gain a vital half point.

A big thank you to Ashley Guise and Woburn Sands who superbly hosted the event.

The game was played in superb spirit.

     - Kevin Prince, Challenge Team Manager

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