Trophy time for Leighton Buzzard's senior golfers

Leighton Buzzard’s Senior golfers will be dancing in the aisles when they wrap up their summer season with a social gathering on Friday week, writes Stuart Oliver.

After a programme interrupted by Covid lockdown measures, skipper Denis Leitch has handed out the silverware to trophy winners before handing over the reins to his successor Andy Mcdonald.

It wasn’t exactly the end to the season that Denis was looking for though. For after beating Dunstable 4-2 in their penultimate inter-club match thanks to winning performances by Denis and Terry Dell, Harry Adam and Matt Byrne, Steve Maddison and Graham Avery and Graham Pellow and Chris Figg, the curtain came down with a 6-2 defeat at Aspley Guise.

Only Peter Sheridan and Paul Bishop and Harry Adam and Chris Chehade returned winning cards.

The Leighton team won nine of their inter-club encounters during the season, and halved two others as well as beating the club ladies and juniors.

Former motor racing enthusiast David Banwell collected three trophies – all won on the same day. He landed the Ian Mann trophy for the best gross score of 70, the Peter Myrants Cup for the best nett score of 65 and the Geoff Tweed trophy for the 25 putts he took to complete his round in the Senior Championships.

Taxi driver David Nero collected the Spencer Cup, while Graham Pellow was presented with the Over 70’s trophy and Mike Turnock the over 80’s trophy by sponsor Tom Davis.

Phil Rickard won the Tucker Cup on countback from Paul Bishop after both finished with 39 points while Ian Hazell landed the Newcomers Cup.

The final trophy was won on Wednesday by Martin Broadley, thanks to an impressive 24 points on the back nine which landed him the Austin Farrell trophy over Paul Johnson after both finished with 42 points, a shot clear of Paul Bishop and Chris Caney.

David Sweetnam was named Player of the Year for the Roger Wood Trophy.

Club Captain Simon Rossiter retained bragging rights after his team held President Brian Carter’s Dad’s Army to a 3-3 draw in their annual encounter. As defending champions, Simon’s boys retained the trophy thanks to a last match win by Phil Coumbe and Martin Flynn after earlier successes by Peter Myrants and John Brawn and Darran Valentine and Gary Bennett.

Brian, who stands down as President in January after a three-year stint, teamed up with John Preston for an opening match win, followed by successes by Adrian Stephenson and David Hawkins and Trevor Stimpson and Jeremy Taylor. Robbie John and Ian Alexander halved their match against the Captain’s pairing, Paul Bishop and Jon Woolford.