Tennis Society vs Golf Section Golf Challenge Match by Dallas Reid
Squash Section snatch a draw from the Jaws of Defeat to Stay Unbeaten
At some ungodly hour 20 or so sleepy Club members made their way to an awaiting coach on Wong Nei Chung Road for the trip up to Kau Sai Chau for the third meeting of the Golf and Tennis Sections on the golf course. The track record to date was two wins out of two for the squash section so both teams had high expectations of proving the technical and talent superiority of their brand of racquet sport.
As ever the fairways on the North course were quite chewed up by the wild boars which insist on swimming across to the island and having dinner there. I am not sure why they don’t open the Kau Sai Chau Hunting Association but apparently this is frowned upon. The greens however have now been cunningly converted to the East course grass and they were slow but quite impressive.
As ever the games were played in a great spirit and it was an excellent opportunity to meet other members of the club who you might never otherwise see. The results are detailed below, but my personal highlights were:-
- Watching Greg Brutus take a drop next to the 18th green. He was already basically out of the hole, but I counted about 15 penalty strokes being accumulated by the various infractions he committed in the process.
- Taking 30 cans of beer onto the bus for the trip home and watching 29 disappear well before we got near Happy Valley.
- Leo trying to drink beer out of the trophy only to find it leaked all over him.
- Best of all, after Jenny Chapman was abandoned by her partner Christophe Baleyte who felt poorly around the 9th, she then proceeded to take apart Malcolm Kerr and Dave Cross single handedly winning 3&2.
Less amusing was watching Duncan Spooner (my opponent) blasting the ball all over the shop with gay abandon only to see it ricochet off assorted trees, wildlife etc back into the middle of the fairway from where he continued to pile up an unbeatable score. This was particularly galling as he clearly used up his lifetime of good bounces in advance of our more important battle for the Reunification Cup that weekend.
As with all great matches, the result boiled down to the final group out on the course, and the Squash section, having been 3-1 down, managed to claw a 3-3 tie with the ‘banker for a point’ pair of Andrew Wood and Chris Burley not letting the captain down and the more uncertain duo of Wei Lam and Luke Cianfarani winning on the 18th to secure the draw. This will result in the Tennis name still not being engraved on the trophy and it returning to the Squash trophy cabinet for another year.
Thanks are due to the team organisers John Thompson and Anatole Le, and to whoever arranged such excellent weather (possibly Duncan as he did seem to have a direct line to God at certain points in his round!)
For those who insist on facts, the results were:-
Leo Kwok and John Thompson beat Anatole Le and Toby Clark 2&1 Squash
Dallas Reid and Kien Ng lost to Duncan Spooner and Nathan Booth 4&3 Tennis
Malcolm Kerr and David Cross lost to Chris Baleyte and Jenny Chapman 3&2 Tennis
Jason Waldie and Nick Shultz lost to Gilles Bonnier and Beatrice Lin 5&4 Tennis
Andrew Wood and Chris Burley beat Henry Lai and Mel Watt 2&1 Squash
Luke Cianfarani and Wei Lam beat Greg Brutus and Job Tang 2 up Squash
Nearest the Pin: Hole 3 Malcolm Kerr, Hole 7 Dallas Reid, Hole 14 Toby Clark.
Nearest the Pin Par 4: Hole 5 Duncan Spooner, Hole 13 Jason Waldie
Longest Drives: Chris Baleyte, Jenny Chapman
Best net score: Duncan Spooner (Ably assisted by a higher power)
Worst net score: Nick Shultz
In the separate event to determine the Squash section’s top player this was tied by Leo Kwok and Chris Burley.
Dallas Reid
