ERUGC Team Championship
Brough Golf Club
Sunday 11 May, 2025
Bouncy Brough bared its teeth for almost all of the morning competitors. Some tricky pins and firm fast fairways made birdies hard to come by and no-one matched par around the immaculate Cave Road layout. The best score in was from reigning ER Amateur Champion Jon Samuel of Hull who battled back from a scratchy front nine to birdie two of the last five holes to shoot a fantastic 71. Next best was Matty Raybould of Hornsea with 73 and four others on 74.
Jon's score was added to by a couple of 76s from George Clark and Ricky Boniface to leave Hull with the slenderest of leads at lunchtime with a team aggregate of +19. Hornsea were only two shots back thanks to Matty's 73 and matching 76s from Seth Topham and Jonny Fisher. Defending champions Scarborough North Cliff were a further two adrift on 227 thanks to a Tom Duck 75 and 76s from Simon Boddy and Alex Wiggins. Ganton had been very much in the mix for team and individual honours, but had unfortunately fielded an ineligible player and were disqualified at the close of play when the infraction came to light.
So - as we say every year - all to play for in round two!
The afternoon brought a more breezy Brough with players resetting their expectations and realising that anything in the mid 70s was a pretty decent knock!
Hull looked like they had one hand on the trophy when Jon Samuel birdied the last (pictured above) to match the par of 68 for a two round total of 139. However, George Clark and Ricky Boniface couldn't match their morning scores and posted 80 and 79 respectively to leave Hull as catchable clubhouse leaders on 450.
Despite an excellent 71 from Tom (below centre), Scarborough North Cliff couldn't quite bridge the gap as shots slipped away on the notorious last four holes. They ended up three short despite the best efforts of the evergreen Simon (below left) and Wiggo.
Home boys Brough snuck into third place with Hessle 2 just missing the podium places in 4th. George Coope (85/80), Dave Liversedge (77/76) and Garry Robinson (79/83) at least had the consolation of taking the nett team prize (for those clubs outside the top 3 gross).
It is worth noting that the total combined score for the 17 teams who submitted six cards was 1,196 over par. No-one ever said golf was easy.
Thanks to Brough stalwart and ERUGC Competition Secretary Ian Jeffrey for organising the whole event and manning the desk all morning, before handing over to ER Secretary John Illingworth for the afternoon shift. John was on starter duty on the first tee from 0730 (pictured below) before handing over to the ever present Andy Pittaway.
Head Greenkeeper Gareth Brown and his team presented the course in fantastic condition, despite the recent lack of rain being against them recently, and the staff in the clubhouse looked after the 60 players superbly all day.
ERUGC President Dave Greenwood presented the prizes and thanked Brough Captain Neal Evison for his club being such good hosts. The A.B. Care Trophy will therefore return to Hull for the first time since 2017.
[Above: Only showing top 21 individual scores. Full results on Golf Genius]
Jonathan Clark
ERUGC Press Secretary
