Sittingbourne & Milton Regis - Tue 11th Mar 2025

Report

We received a great welcome on our return to Sittingbourne & Milton Regis after a 2 and a half year gap.  A good intro to the course, by the course starter, after a great breakfast. We even had a few songs this morning as we celebrated Jim's 60th birthday, & Dave's 45th... Hope you both had a great day!  

It was great to see Arthur Fairhall back with us after an 11 month sabbatical... in fact, we were so delighted that we gave him a generous extra shot back, surely that won't come back to haunt us... again! 

To be fair everything about today was great (apart from the Greens!!)... but alas, it was the same for all of us, & with 17 of the 28 golfers scoring over 30pts the greens didn't cost us too many shots!  The last three groups were pretty shocked early on as one of the three 'guests' was taking liberties & had his name on the 1st nearest the pin... just three holes later & they were flabbergasted, as Jeff 'the guest' had his name on the next Nearest the Pin as well... Things weren't looking good for Jeff's application to join... especially when rumours were circulating that Jeff had 25pts after 11 holes, however, surely that couldn't be true as Jeff finished on 28pts. Maybe, Jeff's application will be viewed more favourably now.  It also, left the Guest prize to be a straight shoot-out between Chris Greenfield & Ben Wildman. The Wildman wasn't wild enough today, & Chris received a pack of balls for the highest guest score.

The two Nearest the Pins were also both won by the same person, when Ian Horsham popped up with two great shots that no-one else could beat.  So, Jeff & Ian are setting the pace for this year's King Pin title, & last year's winner Bob is yet to be off the mark with the defence of his title.

With the course weaving in & out of the beautiful Kent countryside, there were plenty of opportunities for stories of golfing exploits to be shared... such as Ricky chasing his trolley around the course & trying to play the back 9 before he'd finished the front, or at least that's what it looked like as he played his third shot of the round from the far side of the 10th fairway... yet he still managed a 7 for 1pt on the 1st.  Another story was that of Pete hitting the pin on the 6th, having played a lovely shot over the lake, only to see his ball rebound back towards him before sinking into the not so lovely lake...

There didn't seem any chance of a long putt going in today. That was until Smoggie stepped up on the 15th & used all those wasted years on pin-ball machines to send his 2nd shot bumping & bomping & bimping all the way to edge of the hole before diving in & earning Paul all £28 of today's 2's money! Well played Smoggie...

The top 5 all scored 35pts or more. 3rd place was Alan Garrett, on count-back with 35pts. Leaving Pete in 2nd place on 36pts & today's popular winner was Arthur Fairhall with 37pts.  So far this year, three winners all beginning with A (Alan, Anthony, Arthur) & all being recipients of a generous shot allocation on the day they win!! However, all now have received a cut from the H.Cap scissors...

Ooh... I nearly forgot... the scissors reminded me... we were topped & tailed by the Fairhalls today. Fairhall Senior (Arthur) with an impressive winning score of 37pts, & Fairhall 'not-so' Junior (Gary) with a less than impressive score of 20pts & the latest recipient of our Wooden Spoon.

Next Month we're at Canterbury on Tuesday 15th April - see you there...