​We tried, oh how we tried, but it was not to be. Our team comprised Captain Martin Abbott, Vice Captain David Farrar, Yang liu, Brian Collins, John Ambery, Rakesh Gupta, Steven Smith and your Secretary. On glassy greens and with devilish pin placements, Effingham wasn’t as easy to play as the card would suggest and most players found the putting very difficult. There was talk at lunch of four-putts and even a five-putt!
 
If you like fast greens, as does our Captain, a Roehampton member, then Effingham was for you. Martin did, indeed take the individual prize with an score of 37 points in the morning round.
 
Effingham had stuck firmly to the Covid restrictions and had restricted the party to as close to 30 as possible, thus the four teams were 8 players instead of the traditional ten. This meant that there was no longer the usual option of discarding the two lowest scores – all scores had to count, so the relief of knowing that one’s poor round might not impact the team was denied us. Every point counted and the individual guilt assumed enormous proportions.
 
At lunch, John Ambery, the Captain and Yang had scored the bulk of the LMEGA’s points in a total of 231 and the competition was wide open, with the FOREX leading from LMEGA, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange.
 
The afternoon Greensomes saw Brian Collins and David Farrar win the Greensomes prize with 44 points and it was their effort that lifted the LMEGA to a very competitive score of 141, while the FOREX and the Stock Exchange fell away. That left the LMEGA with 372 points overall, but the Bank of England somehow scrambled to a total of 382 to win the Quadrilateral by a slim ten points.

​The Annual Summer tour in 2020 having been a victim of the Chinese virus, this year saw twelve going to Yorkshire, where we played some of the best courses in England. Anyone who wasn’t on the tour missed an absolute treat and some gems of the golf circuit. Yorkshire in beautiful sunshine is indeed God’s own county.
 
Perhaps for the first time ever, though open to opinion, there was but one player who had ever traded in the Ring. A sign of the times perhaps, as the rest of the party was composed of physical traders and senior management figures. 

​Day One: ALWOODLEY. This stunning course, laid out by Alistair Mackenzie, lived up to its reputation for beauty and challenging holes. A wide range of scores showed that some adapted quickly to conditions unknown in the South, while others floundered. It was quickly apparent who the final leaders would be when the Captain, Martin Abbott, finished with 36 points, still complaining about the speed of the greens, which are seemingly nothing like as fast as those at Roehampton. For those who like to putt on a skating rink, Roehampton would be a good venue. John Ambery, with 34 points was also complaining that he left a dozen putts “out there”. Behind these two came Tanya Epshteyn with 31 and the Vice Captain, David Farrar, and Edward Sawbridge with 29. The average score for the day was 23.5.
 
At the end of the day the party returned to Leeds to check in to the hotel – a Hilton – to find that the car park must have been designed in the ‘60s for Morris Minors, or possibly Austin Sevens for those old enough to have seen one. Suffice to say no James Bond car chase scene could have been filmed in it, requiring as it did several bays to be blocked off to allow three, five or seven point turns to get up and down the ramps.
​

​Day Two ILKELEY: The party moved on to Ilkely. For your correspondent this was the finest of the courses played. 

Another Mackenzie design but with the river Wharfe running through the course and Ilkely Moor towering in the background the setting was magnificent. And OH! the joy of playing on soft turf after the bone hard or soggy fairways of the last two months! In blazing sunshine and with dozens of the local population enjoying the lido that was the river bank, the Captain repeated his stellar performance of day one and finished with another 36 points. Yet again, John Ambery was his main challenger with 33 and Allan Kerr came in with 31, Edward Sawbridge again consistent with 28. The average score was 26.9.
 
  
Day Three GANTON: An hour and a half’s drive brought us to Ganton, close to the North Sea coast near Scarborough. 

​Hard running fairways, slick greens, a stiff breeze and cavernous and plentiful bunkers clipped the wings of the Captain, who could only manage 23 points to John Ambery’s 29, so the lead changed hands for the first time. The day’s winners were John and Edward Sawbridge with Steven Spencer and Seamus O’Connell five points adrift. The average score was 24.33
 
Day Four – MOOR ALLERTON: A complete change of design awaited us on the fourth day as we arrived at Moor Allerton, the home of the late lamented Peter Alliss. Designed by Trent Jones, this was a hilly parkland course with some tricky holes that required thought and a careful choice of club, there being a lot of ditches and streams at inconvenient distances. 

​Once again, John Ambery’s consistency enabled him to consolidate his lead with 30 points to the Captain’s 29, but a careful examination of the rule that the worst round is dropped from the final total showed that John was vulnerable to a reversal, his worst round being 29 while the Captain’s was 23. Coming in behind these two were Steven Spencer with 27 and the Vice Captain and Tanya with 26. The average score was 24.55.

​Day Five MOORTOWN: The final day is always played in reverse order of scores, so that the potential winner is likely to be in the final group. Moortown, another beautiful Mackenzie course and the venue for the first Ryder Cup to be played on British soil in 1929. was a tough proposition for some of the party after four rounds in four days.
 
Tanya, Edward Sawbridge and Jan Rommer, who had played throughout with a shoulder injury, went out first in a threeball, David Littlestone, having struggled throughout the tour, being unable to play. Tanya shot a creditable 29.
 
The second group out was Seamus O’Connell and Allan Kerr, both of whom scored 32 points, playing with Steven Spencer who didn’t score 32 points.
 
The last group, the Captain, the Vice Captain, John Ambery and Tanya’s guest Oksana Ivanyk, were keenly awaited in the clubhouse, where Tanya was the early leader as things stood with a total of 112 points over the four rounds she was able to play. The Captain started on 124 points but would have only 101 points after dropping his worst score of just 23. John Ambery was on 129 points but only 97 points after dropping his worst score of 29. The Vice Captain, David Farrar was on 103 points, but a net 82 after dropping his lowest score. Oksana who, not being a member, could not win the trophy, was on 106 points, net 83.
 
Should the Captain’s last round score score be 4 points less than John’s but with both scoring more than 29, John’s worst score, the Captain would win.
 
David Farrar finished on 31, bringing him to 113, a point higher than Tanya’s total. Oksana scored 33 for a creditable 117 point total.
 
Meanwhile the Captain and John went head to head until John slipped up and registered only 24 points, his new lowest score. This might have helped, as it replaced his previous worst of 29, thus making his best four rounds a total of 126. But the Captain once again steadied his ship and came in with 32 points and a total of 133 to win the 2021 Foster Plate.

Captain's Day and the Spring Meeting combined to launch the golf season in fine style at Walton Heath on Friday 11 June.

The morning dawned with a spitty drizzle that faded away to a cloudy day. 28 players eventually turned out after a spate of injuries had put paid to the aspirations of ten players to win the Silver Challenge Cup. After coffee and bacon rolls, some intrepid players ventured on to the practice green to see what they should expect out on the course and left visibly shocked.

The Old Course is not a friend to high handicappers, of which we had many, and searches for balls lost in the heather stretched the morning round out to about 4 3/4 hours, delaying lunch and the afternoon foursomes.

The early leader in the clubhouse was Yang Liu with 33 points but as the back of the field came in two players had tied for the lead at 36, Brian Collins winning the Silver Challenge Trophy on a countback from Rakesh Gupta, with Steve Ball coming in third. The guest prize was won by Brian Watt, the guest of Rakesh Gupta.

The afternoon round was a foursomes competition and the afternoon grew hot and humid, sapping the energy of players drained by the efforts of the morning’s ball searches. The Charles Davis Salver, over 12 holes of the New Course, was won by Martin Abbott and Yang Liu for Sogemin with 24 points. The runners up were Seamus O'Connell and Colin Griffith for Mocatta. The open foursomes was won by Brian Watt and Phil Beck, both guests for the day, with Brian Collins and his guest David Heath coming in second.

Yang Liu won the Directors' Cup, the Captains' Cup and the Carr Sargant. The King Cup went to Brian Geddes and Steve Ball took the Scratch Prize.
 
The trophies are on display in the gallery at the L.M.E.. 

Left: Steve Ball wins the Scratch Prize. Top right: Brian Watt wins the Guest Prize.
​Bottom right: Rakesh Gupta, second prize in the singles.

​England was struck by Monsoons in the early part of October, which created a sense of foreboding about the LISEGS match, scheduled for the afternoon of October 8th at Denham.
 
Sure enough, the heavens opened during the morning and the ground was well and truly soaked on the one-way walk into the clubhouse. However, Denham was well organised, and after drinks in a large, heated, marquee we entered the clubhouse for a fine lunch. Denham is famous for its car very, which clearly couldn’t t happen in these COVID times, but the three course lunch was an excellent replacement, and we ventured forth feeling truly replete into a now dry afternoon for a squishy 18 hole battle, played as four 4-ball better ball games.
 
It is possible we were a little too replete. The LMEGA pairings of Bill Green and Steven Spencer, Martin Abbott and Allan Kerr, John Ambery and David Farrar, and Edward Sawbridge and Dr Colin Griffiths has a tough time, and eventually lost the match in a whitewash, with our best less being 2 down.
 
This is the LISEGS 100th anniversary year, and more than one LMEGA player noted it would have been rude to spoil LISEGS sense of occasion, but in reality we were soundly outplayed.
 
LISEGS president Richard Barber was gracious in his victory speech (the trophy was delivered to LISEGS by LMEGA vice captain Martin Abbott a week later at Bowood golf club in Wiltshire, but that’s another story).
 
In particular Richard singled out his memories of playing against Derek Raphael in matches past, and noted Derek’s integrity, humour and fine sportsmanship as characteristics he would never forget. He was also kind enough to add that such qualities typified the atmosphere of LMEGA LISEGS matches over the years.
 
We look forward to our rematch next year, and may we carry such a reputation, polished by our finest members, for years to come.

​On what turned out to be a perfect day for Autumn golf, your intrepid combatants assembled to do battle with the Bank of England in this long-standing annual encounter.  We were at West Hill GC: this was a new venue for the match, after being ousted by West Byfleet, which is guarding all available tee times for its members until the New Year.
 
West Hill has adopted a serious approach to COVID precautions, without it becoming intrusive, and all praise is due to its attentive clubhouse staff for making everyone welcome.  We were provided with an excellent lunch, sensibly taken in the marquee erected over the terrace at the back of the 18th green.  The course offered a stern challenge and was presented in first-rate order by the greens staff.  Happily, the day remained dry, but there was a sufficiently brisk wind to keep everyone on their toes.
 
At lunch, the result of the morning fourballs was tied at two and a half points apiece.  Alex and Yang held off one of the Bank’s single figure players and its lady Captain for the half.  Steven Smith and John Ambery, together with Seamus O’Connell and the Hon Sec, were victorious.  The usually reliable dream team of Hardy and Smit were overcome on the 18th by the Bank’s other single figure player and perhaps the very best 16 handicapper on the planet.  David Farrar and Colin Griffiths had a slightly earlier bath (or would have done had the locker rooms not fallen victim to the pandemic).
 
Fully refreshed and with all to play for the afternoon greensomes over holes 3 to 13 (because of the fast diminishing daylight) yielded a series of closely fought results.  Together with Steven Smith, Yang recorded her second halved match of the day while Hardy & Heath and Ambery & Griffiths came out on top of tight games.  David Farrar and Steven Spencer were seen off by two of the Bank’s wilier competitors.
 
Bill and Seamus were defeated by one hole, but this result deserves closer examination and a learning moment.  The bank team, led by the single figure player who had overcome Bill in the morning, announced on the opening tee that they would be giving Bill and Seamus two shots. He had mistakenly used the foursomes handicapping approach of ‘half the combined difference,’ which should anyway have given three shots. But he went further to declare that, as the match was over 11 holes, they should only get two shots and, that as index 1 was the 14th, in effect they should only receive one shot. 
 
This is wrong on several levels: the greensomes rule of a side’s handicap is to take 0.6 times the lower handicap and 0.4 times the higher, at the end of which the difference is taken at the stroke index holes as they fall on the course, regardless of which holes are to be played.  This should have resulted in a difference of 3.6 rounded up to four, in which case Bill and Seamus would have won by one hole rather than losing by one due to accepting the Bank’s incorrect foursomes-based approach.  Even if using the foursomes rule correctly, the result would have been halved. Bill is still firing up his blockchain computer installation to further refine what his result should have been!
 
However, the result was not challenged, and the upshot was another shared session with an overall match result of all square. This fixture was won by LMEGA in 2018 but cancelled because of the heavy rains of Autumn 2019, with LMEGA retaining, and now with this tied match, LMEGA continues to hold the, still strangely unengraved, silver platter.  Given the slight handicapping kerfuffle, this does not seem an unreasonable position at the end of another well humoured encounter with the Bank.
 
The presentation would have been made by our special guest, the President of West Hill GC and World Golf Hall of Fame member, Ken Schofield.  However, as the trophy is locked away in COVID secure conditions at the LME, the presentation was replaced by a few more drinks from West Hill’s well-stocked bar.
 
By unanimous vote, the fixture will return to West Hill next October.  West Byfleet’s members may yet regret the decision arbitrarily to cancel all corporate and society commitments in deference to the tee time demands of all those presently WFH!

    ​                      “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside”
                                          Cartoon by Clem Danin

​​Thirteen Past Captains turned out at a very windy Seaford GC on Wednesday 23rd September and after a bar lunch set out in extremely breezy but dry conditions with the forecast being for a few showers in the afternoon.
 
An enormous black and purple cloud did not look like the forerunner of a few showers, nor was it. It was in fact all the showers rolled into one cloudburst that lasted the best part of 15 holes. Seaford drains so well, however, that everyone completed their rounds on good fairways and beautifully true paced greens.
 
The wind gusted up to 40mph with a steady 25mph governing the afternoon making even standing still to putt a challenge. It was not surprising, therefore, to see scores averaging around 26 points with Bill Smit (2006), last year’s winner coming in alongside Ian Taylor (2009) with 31, being the leaders of the pack. The pack, however, was somewhat outdistanced by the 2019 Captain, Allan Kerr (2019), who waltzed in with 40 points thanks to some outstanding putting - no luck involved – with 21 points on the front nine and ten points in the first four holes of the back nine, to the amazement of his playing partners.
 
The club produced an excellent dinner and after a tribute by the President, Martin Prevezer (1988) glasses were raised to Derek Raphael (2008) who died recently.
 
The following morning dawned blustery with heavy rain and more forecast so the competition was abandoned and Allan takes home the Past Captain’s claret jug.

​The Past Captains' Competition is entirely self funded and takes no subsidy from LMEGA funds

The 13th hole. A 162 yard par 3 surrounded by bunkers on which Ben Horton had a birdie two to follow his eagle three at the 471 yard 12th.

A gripping encounter took place at Worplesdon in glorious early autumn golfing weather.

Worplesdon being a two ball course on Thursday mornings, the teams fought out a set of foursomes in the morning, the format perhaps not suiting the Sugar team as the LMEGA won the morning 3-1. Alex Heath and Brian Collins won 1 up, Steven Spencer and James Proudlock won 2 and 1 and Allan Kerr and David Farrar won 4 and 3. Only Dr Colin Griffiths and Seamus O'Connell went down and by 6 and 5 to a pair led by Ben Horton of Stonex, which should have sounded a warning bell. Ben is off scratch and had contemplated turning professional.

The afternoon singles were a nail biting affair. Alex heath went down 4 and 3 to Barry Cunninham but James Proudlock beat Des Monteith 1 up. Then two swift reverses came with David Farrar beaten 4 and 3 and Steven Spencer, tackling Ben Horton who shot a gross 66 including 4 birdies and an eagle 3 losing by 4 and 3. The scores were now level.

Seamus O'Connell then beat Howard Jenkins 4 and 3 but Brian Collins was beaten by the same score. All was hanging on the last two matches.

Dr Colin Griffiths managed to halve his match and then last year's Captain Allan Kerr scraped a vital point with a win by one hole to seal a narrow victory for the LMEGA.

In honour of the late John Paine, whose inspiration created this fixture back in 2004 over an extended lunch (what else) at the Hyde Park Hotel, it was decided to create a new trophy to replace the Commodity Cup to be called the John Paine Trophy. This will be played for at Worplesdon in September next year.

Captain’s Day and Spring Meeting at Walton Heath – 4th September 2020
AT LAST!
​The LMEGA season got of to a very much delayed start at Walton Heath on Friday with the combined Captain’s Day and Spring Meeting competition. This is only the second time that a Captain has served two terms and we thank Jan Rommer for stepping in to fill the gap when Martin Abbott was forced to delay his captaincy for a year.
 
In good golfing weather on the Old Course but, on fairways that were being scarified and with fast greens, scoring was not easy. With carries over heather of up to 170 yards and with heather intruding into the fairways in and around a profusion of bunkers there was a premium on long and accurate driving and on approaches to well guarded greens. Not for nothing is Walton Heath an Open qualifier and host to the Ryder Cup in past years.
 
RIP Derek Raphael
Before the prizegiving a minute’s silence was held for Derek Raphael who died last week and Past Captain Allan Kerr gave a eulogy. Derek is seen here second from the left in a photograph taken on a Summer Tour to France in 2011.

From left to right: Alex Heath, Derek Raphael, David Hardy, Martin Prevezer, Brian Woodbridge, Frits Beek, Seamus O'Connell, Michael Farmer, Steven Spencer​

The results:
The Silver Challenge Trophy dating back to 1905 and which can be seen in the cabinet in the LME gallery, was won by Jack Burns of Stonex at his first attempt with a score of 38 points. ​

​As a result, Jack also wins the Scratch Competition for handicaps of 12 and under, and the Carr Sargant for Category 1 and 2 companies. Jack now takes a two shot cut to his handicap for next year’s competition. The runner up was the LME’s Yang Liu, a past Captain, who also takes the Director’s Cup and the Captains’ Cup.
 
The King Cup for the best 24+ handicap goes to Ashok Singhania.

​Yang was also presented belatedly with the Knockout Cup which she won in 2019 but which presentation was delayed by the Covid crisis. Rob Draisey took third place with 34 points on a countback over holes 10-18.

The afternoon competition was played as foursomes over 12 holes of the New Course. Category 1 and 2 companies played for the Charles Davis Salver which was won by Jack Burns and Malcolm Leonard for Stonex with 21 points, beating Alex Heath and Steven Spencer for Lonconex into second place. The remainder of the party played a foursomes competition which was won by John Ambery (ex PWC) and Rakesh Gupta (BNP Paribas) with 26 points. The runner up was Bill Green playing as a single as injury prevented his partner David Hardy from taking part.

The 2019 season came to an end on Thursday 21st November with a grand farewell to the outgoing Captain, Allan Kerr. 41 players, together with Peter Pemberton, who came as a lunch guest, thanked Allan for a superb year as Captain.
 
Looking back on the season, Allan recapped the wonderful venues at the RAC Club for Captains Day, Walton Heath for the Autumn Meeting and The Buckinghamshire, where the inaugural International Competition was held and which was won by a Chinese team. He thanked Martin Pratt and Yang Liu as the main organisers and we hope the event will be repeated in 2020. He also recalled with delight the Summer Tour, which was in Portugal this year. Another first for his captaincy was the LMEGA Knockout Competition, which was won by Yang Liu from Tanya Epshteyn in the all lady final. In matches, the LMEGA retained the Beckermet Trophy against the Iron and Steel and the Commodity Cup against the Sugar Association but lost to the Stock Exchange and the Scrap and also failed to hold on to the City Quadrilateral plate. Sadly, and for the first time, the match against the Bank of England was abandoned in the deluge of mid-October.
​ 
The weather turned very cold for the Xmas Fayre, with 4C the highest temperature for the day with a 10mph breeze providing further air conditioning making the “real feel” sub zero. It was also lightly foggy on the day and although the greens were true and firm for the time of year, the fairways were slow but played well despite the stupendous amounts of rain that had fallen in the last few weeks.
 
Rob Draisey pipped Colin Griffith for the Nearest the Pin prize and Steven Smith outdrove Dominic Boyle to win the Longest Drive.

​In the competition, the average score in difficult conditions was just 27 points. The Guest Prize went to Richard Pelly with 34 points by one point from Nick Cartwright.
 


​Melanie Wells, Alison Ellman and Tanya Epshteyn suitably swaddled against the cold

​Third place went to Adam Sussmes with 35 points, Edward Sawbridge coming second, also with 35 points on a countback over the back nine holes but the outright winner with 37 points was John Ambery, who declared in his thankyou speech, clutching the Winchester Cup and two bottles of champagne, that this was the first trophy he had ever won.

​The Captain presents the Winchester Cup to John Ambery

​The last presentation of the day was the Harry Scott Trophy, inaugurated by Triland in memory of Harry, for the highest score by a player who had worked on or around the Ring. This went to Steven Smith with 34 points, despite labouring under a handicap of just 12 following his victory at Captains Day. Martin Pratt, CEO of Triland, presented the trophy.