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Having originally been as many as a possible 10 or 11 players, by Friday morning we ended up with 5 due to various mishaps, pressure of business and a confusion over dates. So Stephen Bois, John Macpherson, Tom Webb and Jeremy Fricker, joined me for a much enjoyed day on Rye’s beautiful links in fantastic weather on a course that was playing as well as I have ever seen it in over 50 years of membership. We were joined for an excellent lunch by Angela Webb, after which Jeremy, Stephen and John played the recently completed Jubilee course adjoining the original links, which proved to be no less of a challenge. I had played Rye three times in the week and Littlestone once, so passed on yet another round.

In glorious sunshine on Sunday 8 May, Denham members Alastair Mackenzie, Elmfield 1970 and Simon Berry hosted a game with two U30 OHGS members. Alastair, the Society’s Hon Sec before he moved to China for a three year stint, is now back in the UK and looks forward to renewing his OHGS involvement. Playing off 8, he did well to pick as his partner Will Finley, Moretons 2006, whose “estimated” handicap of 21 proved to be a work of complete fiction! Jack Stow, an exact contemporary of Will’s in Moretons with a kosher 18 handicap at Rye, got landed with yours truely, playing off 12. In an exciting contest, the Stow/Berry partnership were always ahead until Finley came in with outrageous gross pars on 15, 16 and 17 to go one up; a net bogey at the 18th was enough to take the money and explain Finley’s broad smile in the after match photo.

The annual OHGS Spring Meeting was once again enjoyed at Royal St Georges Golf Club over the 2 days of 22-23 April. There were 29 participants, approx. one third of whom were fresh faces and several under 30, which is very encouraging. The event was ably run by Geoffrey Goddard who we hope will manage this fixture for many years to come. Our congratulations to him for keeping everyone more or less on the straight and narrow, and thanks to all those who helped with the complex job of scoring and making the draws for the afternoon competitions during lunch.

It has been nearly 20 years since Harrow tasted success in the Halford Hewitt. The glory years of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s (when the society won 4 times and also lost 1 final) have been replaced by a drop in performance levels, partly due to the increased standard of competition, and partly due to the lack of interested school leavers.

To nurture healthy grass roots of the OHGS and by way of a warm-up for the Micklem Trophy, Simon Page very kindly invited a team of OH’s to take on the boys in 18-hole singles matches at Woking on 8 March 2016, also providing a bit of Bernard Darwin practice for the more advanced in years, Harrow being the current holders.