Our final fixture of the year, against the current London University side, looked in some doubt as temperatures dropped and snow fell in the days before the match. But it takes more than a sharp fall in the level of the mercury to shut Huntercombe and the teams assembled bright and cheery in the comfortable old clubhouse ready for the final whack of the year.
Willie Park Junior, Open champion in 1887 and 1889, identified Nuffield Common as an ideal spot for a golf course and housing estate at the very start of the twentieth century. Not short of confidence – Willie had issued a challenge to anyone in the world to play him for £100 – he struggled with the housing plan and fell into serious financial difficulty.
The golf course, however, was built and is a gem of Golden Age design. Unlike later practitioners of the art, who moved great tracts of land around to suit their design, the early architects laid their courses on the existing landscape. Links course were by the sea and so had natural sand bunkers, heathland settings were less sandy. So while Huntercombe has very few conventional bunkers, the holes have plenty of protection through rough ridges and cavernous hollows.
Not that we saw much of the course during the morning. Willie Park, hailing from Musselburgh, would have called the day ‘dreich’; dreary, wet and foggy. And that probably suited the LUGS as the university side, boasting an average shoulder turn of well over 120 degrees, consistently hit the ball out of sight (and, indeed, site) and fell behind in the morning session.
A very convivial lunch followed. To those of us of a certain age, it was clear that academic standards at the university were on the rise, with the youngsters entertaining us with stories of ambitious dissertations and esoteric post graduate studies. And so while the undergraduate side has struggled a little with university recognition and its fixture list over the last few years, it was good to see that so many fine and enthusiastic youngsters are still keen to play the game.
By the time we reached the first tee again, the fog had lifted and the course and rolling countryside were now in full view. The Lavelle/Falconer combination was fortunate to come through with a half against the excellent golf of the university’s captain and secretary. Fortunately for the LUGS, the appearance of Emma Watson on the course (Hermione to the JKR fans) distracted Anastazja sufficiently for the old hands to win the first three and then ‘hang on’.
All in all a fine day of golf to end the LUGS’ year. The game against the current side is, in many ways, the most important of our calendar and we hope that many of the current side will graduate into the LUGS ranks in due course. The university fixture list is a shadow of what it was and we hope that there are LUGS that can step forward to make introductions to clubs. And, by way of reciprocation, Julia and Anastazja have promised to help us enhance LUGS’ social media profile for next year. Having a website is, I am led to understand, very ‘last century’!
| Morning | |||
| LUGS | London University | ||
| Tyler Kenton & James Bull | Won | Rohan Dhingra | |
| Andrew Westmore & Andrew Berryman | Adrien Joly & Matteo Magri | Won | |
| Joe Park & Jonathon Lavelle | Won | Anastazja Piechula & Zofia Rzeznik | |
| Leo Faganelli & Neil Falconer | Halved | Abhisaran Sohal & Julia Wozniak | Halved |
| Morning Score: | 2.5 | 1.5 | |
| Afternoon | |||
| LUGS | London University | ||
| Tyler Kenton & Leo Faganelli | Won | Rohan Dhingra | |
| Joe Park & Andrew Berryman | Halved | Abhisaran Sohal & Julia Wozniak | Halved |
| James Bull & Andrew Westmore | Won | Zofia Rzeznik & Matteo Magri | |
| Jonathan Lavelle & Neil Falconer | Halved | Anastazja Piechula & Adrien Joly | Halved |
| Afternoon Score: | 3 | 1 | |
| Result: LUGS win by 5.5 to 2.5 | |||
London University Golfing Society 