Sussex Martlets Reciprocals Day

Meeting up in the bar at Midday were most of the Martlets match managers and a selection of Martlet members. Warm welcomes and banter abound, a superb 2 course lunch with wine supplied by the Martlets was consumed. We were delighted to welcome Mr Paul Walker Chairman of the Sussex Martlets as an additional lunch guest.

The golf got underway at 2pm with the first group teeing off. The format for this year’s reciprocals match was a pairs 18 holes Stableford foursomes. The competition involved 13 pairings competing for 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd prizes. With two guests dropping out the day before, Robert Forster (Hon Sec) played with Iain Robertson and Chris Spink of Rye G.C. to mark their card.

West Sussex with its reputation of subtle borrows on its green and a combination of challenging par three holes and several long par fours, birdies are hard to come by for most all who play the Pulborough course. The scoring certainly reflected this fact and the pairing of Neil Lancaster & Mike Kennedy of East Brighton G.C. playing West Sussex for the first time posted a very respectable score of 33 points, with 17 of these coming on the more difficult back nine. In second place were Peter Scaramanger & Dan Jackson – Martlets from Royal Ashdown G.C. and Reigate Heath G. C. who also posted a score of 33 points; however, they fared less well on the back nine only scoring 13 points which put them in second place. Third place went to the West Sussex pairing of Tony Bauckham and Bob Mitchell who were unable to maximise home course advantage to score any better than 32 points.

We are delighted to report that the cohort of match managers and guests from our host clubs were highly appreciative of the hospitality which was made even more special by the excellent Pulborough course and the warm welcome afforded by the staff at West Sussex G.C.

We look forward to the 2023 fixture which is scheduled for the 18^th of October.