The Cyril Gray golf tournament for 32 public schools is held at the end of June at Worplesdon golf club. The event is for teams of 6, over 50 years, and is a scratch foursomes format.
Brighton assembled at 9am on Wednesday 26th June; the forecast was for the hottest day of the year so far and dry. This turned out to be the case with the mercury rising to 30 degrees. Our match against Dulwich would require us to forget a defeat by them 2 years earlier. Riaz Rattansi (Ch. 1985-90) and Andy Sweet (Du. 1986-91) started out as first pair, followed by Julian Hunt (Du. 1984-87) and Adrian Wood, with Chris Gates (Ry. 1985-90) and Julian Tate (Du. 1982-87) at third pairing. After a few holes, the location of the holes allows some interaction between groups and so we became aware that our matches were ahead. This situation continued. Brighton may like the sun on their backs at the seaside, but evidently liked it also on the golf course. All matches came in with resounding wins , which supported the feeling we had a strong team assembled. We left knowing we had an early start the next day from our homes spread across the South east; our start time set at 9am against Watsons.
Day 2 was quite different; light cloud and a breeze today. Forecast dry but temperature well down. Would this suit the team from Scotland? We were confident knowing we had played well the previous day. The same players as day 1 but we saw a bag tag indicating one of our opponents played for Scotland Seniors and sensed golfing pedigree amongst their team. So it turned out; match 1 went all the way to the 18th Green where a halved match was agreed since both pairs following had lost their matches 4 and 3 on the 15th hole, and walked in. We were out. Glum faces through our team since we had not managed the same golf as the day before. So we had to leave the tournament but will look forward to 2025.
Adrian Wood (Al. 1971-76)