The meeting took place at Brancaster on Thursday & Friday 11-12 October during the highest tides of the year. To get an idea of what the course looks like during high tides look at this drone footage. There were also very strong winds from the South which made most holes more difficult than usual but the average Stableford score was a creditable 29 points.
The usual warm-up round at Worlington on the day before clashed with a ladies competition and was curtailed to 9 holes but greatly enjoyed by those who attended. We all met for supper with wives at the Brancaster Staithe Sailing Club for an excellent fish pie. Twelve members were lucky enough to stay at a new boutique hotel nearby called The White House which is an alternative to better known local hotels.
There was also the George Rothman Scratch Shield which has complex rules with extra points for age etc. This was fiercely competed for by Jamie Warman (2), Matthew Gibbens (4) and Stephen Posford (7) who was able to take advantage of the forward tees being over 70 years of age. Despite his extra points and reduced distance, he was unable to score better than the indomitable Warman who completed the course in 74 shots.
The winners of the afternoon foursomes competition were again decided on countback with Christoph Buxton and Stevie Richards having a better back nine than Andrew Aylwin and Piers Latham.
It was decided to run the knockouts for only the last 4 and finish at lunchtime on Friday because we had relatively few competitors (25), but our preference is to start with 8 and have the finals after lunch on Friday. In retrospect, this was a fortunate decision as the course was almost unplayable due to strong winds on Friday afternoon. The overnight knockout finalists were: in the Gilroy Challenge Cup for high handicappers, the aforementioned Ben Wallace, and James Rothman; in the De Rougemont Challenge Cup for low handicappers, Matthew Gibbens, and Stephen Posford, Warman having been defeated by Gibbens in the afternoon.
Black-tie dinner and songs took place at Manor House, Docking by kind permission of Colin Amies, father of James Amies who was competing. Our Captain, Stephen Bois opened the speeches with our best wishes to Tipper Wilson who had not missed an Autumn Meeting since they came to Brancaster 24 years ago. We also remembered Nick Carter who had passed away in July this year. We had an excellent speech by Ben Stocks, captain of the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club.
There is no pianist, we played songs from the CD and had put-ons controlled by Simon Berry and Ben Wallace. Some of those staying chez Amies carried on drinking into the early hours and did well to get to the clubhouse before the tide covered the road the next morning.
On Friday, the winner of the De Rougemont Challenge Cup was Matthew Gibbens and the winner of the Gilroy Challenge Cup was Ben Wallace. The foursomes competition was won by our Captain Stephen Bois and Hon Sec William North. Nobody volunteered to play in windy conditions after lunch.
The dates for next year are Thursday 26th and Friday 27th September and the tides will not be so high next year.
