This friendly match was played on a beautifully sunny, though rather hot, afternoon at Sudbury Golf Course, which is near Wembley Stadium and has wonderful views of the City of London in the distance as well as the occasional glimpse of the arch on the Stadium.
Middlesex were unable to raise a team of 12 as originally planned and so Katherine Irvine, Cathy Jones, Sally Collier and Pat Bennett stood down from my original team. Thanks very much to them for volunteering not to play. After some difficulties with the parking, we eventually assembled on the first tee for the team photo.
Jane Sly (Mill Ride), Yvonne Craven (Castle Royle), Tracy Crew (Reading), Charlie Keenan (Reading), Ann Williams (County Captain), Djura McRae-Stoelwinder (Calcot Park), Sheree Dove-Wilde (County Champion), Sharon McAsey (Winter Hill) and Claire Randell (Sonning)
We played nine holes of foursomes, followed by 9 holes of betterball, with each half played as separate matches. The pairing of Sheree and Charlie had very tough opposition, but halved their foursomes, before falling foul of the ‘curse of the captain’ and losing a few holes whilst I was watching!! They eventually lost the better ball 3 and 2. The other pairings played their foursomes very well, Djura and Sharon being 4 up, Jane and Claire 3 up and Tracy and Yvonne 7 up at the halfway stage. The better balls were closer; Djura and Sharon and Jane and Clair finished all square in the betterballs and Tracy and Yvonne won 2 and 1. Therefore an overall victory to Berkshire 5 1/2 to 2 1/2 .
Thank you very much to all who played and also to Middlesex for organising such wonderful weather.