EAST RIDING V SUGC

Sunday 14 July 2024, Brough Golf Club

Result:  East Riding 19 -17 SUGC

July 14 2024 was perhaps a day when thoughts and priorities lay more in Berlin than Brough, so it is a great credit to the SUGC team of 12 who turned up at Brough and competed so well.

Thanks must go to the three players who were drafted in to the team at very late notice and played, not having the best preparation nor even expecting to play, but put representing SUGC above other plans they may have made.

Arriving at Manchester Airport at 3.00am on Sunday morning after a week in Greece with all the hedonistic pleasures that Bacchus can provide, or dashing back from a wedding reception on Saturday evening having more than sampled the lake of red wine that was flowing freely, in order to be on the tee for the morning foursomes does not feature prominently in many guides for the preparation for IDU matches. 

Similarly, one player who was finding it an increasingly painful exercise to even walk as the day progressed, never mind expect to get round 36 holes, turned out and gave it his best shot. 

The match was played on a well presented Brough course which was understandably damp and soft given the overcast and rainy conditions which produced very receptive greens.

As the course comprises 5 par 3 holes and only 1 par 5, offset by some demanding long par 4 holes, the stage was set for a battle of the birdies.

So it was to prove in the morning foursomes with our second group being subjected to a barrage of five birdies in the final five holes turning a four up with five to play advantage in to a fight for a point on the eighteenth with a birdie of our own. A return of two wins, two losses and two matches all square for 6 points to 6 tally at lunch indicated how close the entire match was likely to be.

Even the individual match scores more or less mirrored each other. A 5 & 4 win matched by a 5 & 4 loss; a 2 & 1 win equalled by a 2 down loss.

The scene was now set for a battle royal in the afternoon singles which we entered with high hopes of a victory, although we suspected that whichever way the final result went, it would be by the slenderest of margins.

Four of the first six matches did not go our way, however, and we suffered heavy defeats, achieving just 3 points from a possible 12. A 2 & 1 win in match seven raised the hopes a little with a near parity 6 points to 5 tally, but another heavy defeat in match eight proved to be a considerable set back. Three wins by the narrowest of margins in matches nine, ten and eleven, nonetheless led us to believe that we could, after all get a result, but, unfortunately, it was not to be as a conceded putt on the 17th green to give ERUGC a 2 & 1 win meant that the hosts, with much relief from growing stress, had won the afternoon singles battle by 13 points to 11 for an overall 19 points to 17 victory.

A contest which is settled on the 17th green in the final match of the day has, by definition, to have been a good one and credit must be given to the, by now very tired and injured, SUGC squad which battled throughout the day against all adversity. 

Those who played were a credit to the union and the ethos contained within it.  All that was left at the end of the day, however, was another battle, on the M18 this time, against, for some of us, a road blockage due to a breakdown closing the carriageway for almost an hour, making the charge to witness the other match which was taking place at 8.00pm more difficult to stomach than the result at Brough.

Nigel Ogden

15 July 2024

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