When the team sheets were drawn up we saw that the combined handicaps for the LSE team was 145 compared to our own total of 200! Still, that shouldn’t matter, right? That’s what handicap differences are for, so we sallied forth on a sticky day, hope springing eternal in the LME breast - until we saw the rough and the heather!
When the scores from the morning fourballs rolled in, the awful truth dawned. A last minute appeal for someone of the 63 other LMEGA members to stand in for the injured David Hardy fell on deaf ears, so David played despite his injury and he and Alex Heath managed a win, while Paul Lillis and Steven Spencer scrambled a half despite having been three down with three to play. The scores stood 4 ½ to 1 ½ at Hankley’s splendid lunch, but all was not lost – there were twelve singles to come in the afternoon.
Sadly, David Hardy's injury prevented him playing in the afternoon singles, so Rakesh Gupta was selected to play two singles matches, which he did extremely well, halving one match and winning the other. Alex Heath also came in victorious, as did David Farrar and Steven Spencer, but apart from two halves by John Ambery and Dr Colin Griffiths, all the other matches were lost, the afternoon singles going 6 ½ to 5 ½ to the Stock Exchange.
The final score was thus 11 – 7 and the trophy remains with the LSE for another year.