WW2016 - Team Challenge Day, Houghton-Le-Spring Friday 10/6/16

The Wearside Wanderers Team Challenge event is our homage to the Ryder Cup with a pairs match on the morning followed by a singles game that also counts as a round towards our main Championship. It was first ran way back in 2008 for the first few years we used Castle Eden Golf Club as the location then to reduce costs we used Wearside, this season we decided to return to the Wanderers second home, Houghton-le-Spring.

For an added twist this year we decided to change the usual Captain's versus Chairman's team format to a Senior's versus Junior's event. The original idea was to have players either side of 50 years old on each team, unfortunatly there were'nt enough "wrinklies" available on the day so we had to draft a couple of the youngun's into the Senior's team. In total we had 18 players signed up for the morning session (including 2 guest players) with another two joining us for the afternoon. This slightly imballanced number meant we had 4 pairs matches and one singles match on the morning with 5 points up for grabs. As has become the norm for this competition the scoring was extremly tight, the morning session went to the Seniors team by 3 points to 2

Following a light lunch we headed back out for the 18 hole "head to head" singles matches, the other two members joind us for the afternoon session making 20 in total. Before we went out we had the usual press call to allow the world's press, Sky Sports and the BBC to carry out the usual interviews and to allow the paparazzi a photocall. I can only assume they got the date wrong as none turned up, so I took some photo's instead and have posted them in the Photo Gallery HERE. As for the afternoon's golf, let's say it was a bridge too far for some of us (i.e. Me!) as the morning's exertions had taken their toll on some but others revelled in the challenge. For the Afternoon session the weather took a turn for the worse with mist and drizzle decending making the greens a lot slower than the morning but thankfully we all made it round before the rain really became too heavy.

Once the matches were completed we gathered in the clubhouse for a hearty meal of home made mince pie, chips & peas which hit the spot after the day's exertions and certainly cheered me up no end. When the meal was over all that was left was for me to reveal the results of the afternoon games. The afternoon session results had swung either way with the overall result in the balance right up to the final group. In the end the afternoon session was tied with 5 wins each, meaning the overall winner with 8 points was the Seniors team led by John Ford. Congratulations to them and commiserations go to the Juniors team led by Jim Rooks who finished 1 point behind with 7 points.

I hope everyone enjoyed the day and a big thank you to our 2 guest players Tony Buckley and Chris Hewson who helped make this one of our best and closest Team Challenge day to date.

Morning Pairs matches

Afternoon Singles matches