FULLWOOD SEALS RECOVERY

“Golf. Bloody Hell.”

So spoke the Captain of the Sheffield Union team, Richard Hodgkinson, after his side survived a nerve-shredding opening Inter-District league match of 2015 at a well presented if windswept Silkstone on Sunday.

An afternoon of fluctuations, momentum shifts and drama concluded with Sheffield victors by 20 points to 16, but the outcome was in doubt until the final match on the course came off the 18^th green.

As had been the case in last year’s 18-18 tie against Bradford at Baildon, Sheffield’s hopes came to rest in the hands of Wath’s Gary Fullwood. Offered something of a reprieve at the 17^th when his opponent, Damian Simpson from Waterton Park, missed from four feet, Fullwood came up the final hole all square and needing to halve his game to ensure victory for his team. Here he resorted to his tried and tested method of hitting the fairway, hitting the green, and holing from 30 foot for a birdie to settle the matter in emphatic style.

His ultimate victory produced a four point margin of victory which did little justice to the closeness of a contest which looked for most of the day to be heading Leeds’s way. 7-5 ahead after the morning foursomes, the visitors claimed highly creditable victories in the top two singles games, in which Joe Dean and Jonathan Thomson, two of Sheffield’s strongest players, were undone by the experience of former Yorkshire Champion David Appleyard and Simon Coumbe. With 11 points on the board, and ahead in four games on the course, the victory target of 19 was tantalisingly close for the old enemy.

Then, though, Sheffield’s powerful middle order rumbled into action. Ben Brewster, Matt Evans, Nick Poppleton and Neil Stones all recorded victories by the 15^th. A cruel lip-out at the 18^th denied Joel Cartlidge a win, but with Dominic Moon (winning four holes in a row) and Lewis Hollingworth crucially overturning deficits the scene was set for Fullwood to secure Sheffield’s first points of the Inter-District season.

Gary Holes out!

“My confidence had been down a bit,” admitted Fullwood. “I just had to graft, and it turned around a bit just when most needed.”

“Gary had said during the week that his form wasn’t quite where he wanted it to be,” said Hodgkinson. “But he’s an easy guy to back, because you know when the pressure is on, he has the habit of conjuring up a long putt or a chip in.

“I wasn’t surprised he knocked in that putt at the last. Relieved, yes, delighted, yes, but surprised, no. He’s done it too often for it to be a surprise any more.”

Sheffield’s next game is at Middlesbrough on 14^th June, and an improved foursomes performance will be required if similar tension is to be avoided against the Teesside Union.

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