Fortunately, the match against the Sugar Association at Denham was spared the worst of the aftermath of Hurricane Humberto despite heavy overnight rain. Even as we sat in the clubhouse over coffee and bacon rolls, a cloudburst broke over the course dumping half an inch of rain in just twenty minutes. Denham drains like a sieve though, so we teed off on time off two tees in a fourball better ball with just a sprinkle of a shower as we set out.
The morning matches were tight for a time, but eventually resulted in wins for Captain Allan Kerr and Chris Edwards over Emilio Weldon and Ian Stephenson, and for Steven Spencer and Rakesh Gupta over Barry Callingham and Howard Jenkins. Things got trickier in the other matches with David Farrar and Seamus O’Connell scraping a half with Alex Homer and Francesco Vincenzini while James Taylor and Dr Colin Griffiths went down 4 and 3 to Harry Harland and Cato Davis.
At lunch – and what a lunch! The writer saw at least half the company go back for surreptitious second helpings – the LMEGA led by 2 ½ to 1 ½
The afternoon format was greensomes and again started out in a sharp shower. The opening match saw the Captain and Rakesh Gupta halve with Ian and Francesco while Chris Edwards (the only LMEGA member to score two points) and James Taylor recorded a handsome 4 and 3 win over Barry Callingham and Harry Harland. The LMEGA now led by 4 to 2. All was not well in the last two pairs, however. David Farrar and Colin Griffiths fell at the 16th by 3 and 2 to Emilio Weldon and Howard Jenkins and Steven Spencer and Seamus O’Connell went to the 18th green before succumbing 2 down to Alex Homer and Cato Davis, who drove several times more than 300 yards including driving the blind 17th green over the trees.
All’s well that ends well, though, as the LMEGA retained the Commodity Cup with the final scores 4 all.