Temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius and sunny with a little cloud cover sounds like ideal golfing weather at the end of October? Ideal that is if you were in Florida last Thursday, but the Farrington Park Women’s Section had far from ideal conditions for their Florida Scramble competition.

Early sunshine gave way to some heavy showers and several of the late starting teams endured a heavy soaking as the clouds closed in over the Mendips. Thirteen teams of three players had to concentrate to play the Scramble correctly because each player had to take a minimum of five drives, one of which had to be on a par 3 hole. The player whose shot had been chosen then had to stand aside whilst her playing partners played their balls from the same position before the process was repeated with the next shot until the ball was holed.

Despite the rain making conditions heavy underfoot, scoring was creditable. The fourth placed team of Lo Dallocco, Mandy Hobbs and Angela Hudd scored a nett par of 73, but the winning teams were all below nett par. Third place went to Corrina Bates, Pauline Young and Maureen Charlton with nett 72. One shot better were Wendy Collins, Kerry Pawley and Jackie Wilcox but the winners with a very good score of nett 70 were Jacqui Gregory, Sue Skyrme and June Symonds.

After the competition ended, the in-coming captain Jackie Wilcox held her drive-in on the 14th hole. During their rounds, the players had marked a position with a peg on the 14th fairway where they thought Jackie’s drive would finish.

Jackie had invited a representative from her chosen charity “Funding Neuro” to join her on the tee. He duly messed-up his drive by doing an air shot. To cries of “try again” from the assembled ladies and players from the Men’s Section, he delivered a good drive down the middle of the fairway. It was only then that he revealed his name was David Mulligan!

Jackie’s drive was impressive in its distance and height but found the fairway bunker. Sue Skyrme’s peg was closest to Jackie’s ball and she won some chocolates.

The assembled crowd then retired to the Clubhouse for tea and cake as well as a second-hand clothing sale and a talk from David about the “Funding Neuro” charity. The whole day was a great start to Jackie’s reign as captain.

Jane Ball