Royal Ashdown Forest GC

The weather in East Sussex on Sunday morning was set fair with plenty of sunshine. Much work had been carried out on the fairways in the previous few weeks to overcome a difficult winter, however the greens were in exceptionally good condition for late April. After a warm welcome of coffee and bacon sandwiches provided by the club, we set off just before 9:30 am.

Chris Spink and Guy Baxter led the Martlets out and secured a half in a very tight match. In match 2 Mark Bowden and Kevin Bartlett brought home a valuable point which was well earned considering Kevin had not played Royal Ashdown for many years. The next two matches resulted in halves. With the Young and Forster match going to the last putt on the 18^th where Jonny Young a prospective new Martlet had a six-footer for the par to secure the point, which narrowly slipped by. The final Martlet pairing of Mark Stevenson and Stuart Ritchie were unable to fight off some excellent golf by Tom Henderson and Andrew Murdoch.

Post golf we assembled in the sunshine on the club house balcony overlooking the course to enjoy a few pre-lunch drinks and to ruminate over what might have been.

RAFGC put on an excellent three course lunch with wine which was greatly appreciated and enjoyed by the Martlets despite the one-point loss. With the weather continuing to be fine a few soles ventured out to play a few holes to walk off their lunch.

This is a most delightful fixture, and we look forward to returning in 2026

Robert Forster: Hon Sec