Report on Brent Knoll Bowl 2017

Report on Brent Knoll Bowl 2017

The 2017 event was played at the usual venue of Burnham & Berrow Golf Club in Somerset. We were blessed with glorious sunshine most of the weekend, but a stiff North Easterly breeze meant that the golf course remained very challenging. Lloyds Bank Golf Society team for 2017 was Nick Bliss, Jon Addenbrooke, Ian James, Simon Roberts, Alun Morgan and Gerald Thomas.

The first round match was played against the Old Millfieldians Golf Society. Millfield school has produced many international sports stars, including swimmer Mark Foster, golfer Brian Barnes and rugby players Sir Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams and Chris Robshaw to name but a few. To say the school has a strong sporting pedigree would be something of an understatement. The following is a brief extract from their Wikipedia page:

Olympic Games

Millfield has been represented at every Olympic Games since 1956. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Millfield was the most represented British school. At Rio in 2016, eight Millfieldians took part and won a total of four medals in rowing, swimming and rugby sevens.

Millfield appeared in the official London 2012 Pre-Games Training Camp Guide. The Russian swimming team used the school as its training base before the London Olympics, and the Great Britain modern pentathlon squad also used the schools facilities in preparation for the games.

Old Millfieldians team handicaps ranged from 0 to +3, this gives you some idea of the task we faced in a scratch event where our handicaps ranged from 2 to 9. History, sporting pedigree and handicaps weren’t enough to get the better of a bunch of bankers though, with Lloyds producing one of the standout performances for many years to emerge victorious by a score 2 to 1.

The R.A.F. awaited in the second round. Anyone who has read these reports over the years, will have undoubtedly seen a negative pattern for us when playing any of the armed forces. And 2017 I am afraid continued that pattern, with the Lloyds team going down 1 to 2 against a strong R.A.F. team who were the eventual winners. That left only the Team Stableford contest on Sunday morning, played in the same scratch foursomes format, with team returning a creditable 80 points from the 3 pairings. Not enough to get into the prizes, but only a few points short.

Once again, a tremendous effort from the team in what is a very competitive and challenging event.