THE WINNERS

BALLINROBE

The first course of this years trip was Ballinrobe, a very well kept parkland course with excellent greens. It was a boiling hot day and everyone was expecting good scoring as w hadn't been able to get a late drink on our first night in Wesport.

There were a tremendous amount of flies around - mostly over Willie as he'd left his case at the airport and hadn't changed his clothes or had a proper wash!

Tenko was winging on about his back trying to convince the Handicap committee to raise his handicap, all to no avail.

The scoring overall was high average nearly 32 points. The usual suspects claimed Nearest the Pin - Paffer and Longest Drive - Cliffy (New R7 Quad purchased after a lesson at the Belfry a week earlier - not taking it too seriously though!)

Mr. Consistency(off18!) carded a useful 36 points, the Tour Virgin also started well with 37, but the only person to win a day on each of the tours starts off with a fine victory 38 points from Andy Widd.

Most of the party were shocked when they found out that Timmsy claimed the Orange Jacket with 25 points - nobody thought he'd score that many!!!

Just a small reminder for the tour party it was here that Wils lost his putter. We'll have a minutes silence on day 1 next year.

ENNISCRONE

The next course  was Enniscrone, a superb links course, many peoples favourite of the week . It was another hot day and after an hour or so in the bus people were again looking forward to a game of golf. Today was 'Yellow Tour Shirt' day upheld by everyone - except Tour Virgin as he didn't have one.

It was on the practise green that the putter was first noticed to be missing, as you can imagine peoples bags were getting emptied, Edge was getting a lot of flack, as things turned out Wils had to borrow Willies as he was one of his playing partners.

The scoring was rather low on a very difficult course the average of only27 points. The Tour Virgin claimed Nearest the Pin - Wocko and guess who had the Longest Drive - Cliffy (New R7 Quad purchased after a lesson at the Belfry a week earlier - not taking it too seriously though!)

Davie G continued his good form with a 3rd place 32 points, the same group, had many peoples pre-tournament favourite Paddy score 34 points for 2nd place. The 3rd member of the group claimed that he hadn't played well but it was good enough to win with 35 points Big D.

Here the Orange Jacket was won with one of the lowest scores 17points, but he did have a lot on his mind! Was Tenkos back going to be OK? Where was that dreaded putter? Should we cut or raise Cyrils handicap? A resignation speech! Maybe he did well just to get round.

CONNEMARA

Before we started play today there was a special presentation made to Edge from his possible successor Wils. This consisted of a fishing set as he was convinced he would be more successful as a fisherman than a golfer, nobody doubted his words! This must have inspired him as Ade had his most successful day  on a golf tour with a 2nd place finish.

Connemarra golf links was a very remote location, Cyril entertained us with his driving to the course, then whilst playing he also stayed in control with a excellent round to finish in 3rd place.

This was the only day that we had any wind and rain, luckily this only lasted for a short time.

The longest drive was won by the person with the bad back!!! Andy Widd claimed the nearest the pin prize.

The overall winner is a regular winner, this was his 3rd daily win since the tours have started. He is also overall one of our most consistent performers, but he will have to work on reducing his handicap for next year! Badger scored 34 points to win by 2.

The Orange Jacket was a surprise to everybody, it was not his first win of this highly sort after prize, but as stated earlier he was the peoples pre-tour favourite. Paddy claimed the prize with 22 points.

OVERALL STANDINGS AFTER 3 ROUNDS

WESTPORT

Arriving at Westport golf club in our 'Greens' Edge went into a panic, 'The 1st time I don't book the course we have problems'. He still got blamed for not organising the tee times properly.

Luckily there was some space and we were soon starting. Another tremendous course with some  stunning holes particularly on the back 9. With only 5 points separating the top 8 places this was the closest final round we'd ever had, everyone still had a chance of victory.

SCORES OF THE LEADERS AFTER 9 HOLES

The new 'Nearly Man' had a good front 9 and claimed the lead at the half way stage. He was still leading by 1 shot with 5 holes left to play! Did his bottle go with 3 blobs in the last 5 holes and only 4 points scored - only Andy Widd can tell you what went wrong.

Davie G also blew up with 4 blobs on the back 9, Wocko was another one to crumble, but he blamed the night before for his poor form. Just when he needed to Badger started to hit form, but couldn't maintain his good start to the back 9, as he only scored 3 points from the last 3 holes.

With this happening in the final group it opened the door for someone from group 3. Cliffy had a steady round but was constantly being distracted  as he had to loan his putter to Wils. (A poor excuse - but he's sticking to it)

Daz had a good front 9 but his round collapsed when he realised that he was in contention at the par 3 12th. He didn't hit a provisional ball and had to get Tenko to drive him up and down the hill to play a 2nd ball. He didn't score on that hole and claimed 5 more blobs for a back 9 score of 5 points! The joint worst 9 holes ever Packo's at Lanhydrock.

Little did the rest of the party know but there was a tremendous battle happening for the Orange Jacket. At the turn Daz was 3 points in front of Wils, but with 2 holes to play they were level. Both failed to score at the 17th, Wils claimed a par and all Daz could do was a boggy on the 18th, so with a total of 22 points he claimed the Orange Jacket.

While all of the excitement of the  Orange Jacket was happening Paddy steadily scored and without a blob on his card scored 34 points. Not only was this enough to win the daily prize, but it was good enough to take the overall honours. He won with a total of 124 points, beating Andy Widd by 2 points. This was the smallest winning total of all the tours - also the smallest winner.

CONGRATULATIONS TO PADDY