Our annual Triangular match at u14’s against Norfolk and Suffolk saw CAGU host this years event at Cambridge County Club.
On a less than warm early Sunday morning the teams looked keen to get under way.
Format for the day would start with morning 9-hole foursomes. This would be followed by lunch and afternoon 18 single match play with a well-earned dinner afterwards!. The CAGU team would see two debuts Lorenzo Chapman (Nene park) and Lewis Wright (Gog Magog) make the starting line-up, in what is a very strong u14 team. They are on a winning run this year already having beat Northamptonshire and Essex earlier.
The foursomes team of, Captain Theo Morris (Newmarket Links) and Sam Marshall ( Nene park) would get us under way against the pairing of Seb Kubitzek / George Swalllow for
Suffolk and Harry Thomas / Sully Goddard for Norfolk. Three good shots hit the first green and got us under way. Next away due to a late arrival for Suffolk were the young CAGU pair of Ellis Kerr / Harry Sherriff (both GOG /) going up against Kane Russell / Cameron Bacon for Suffolk and Hayden Bradley / Will Payne (Norfolk) they also hit good tee shots. The debutants Lorenzo Chapman (Nene park) and Lewis Wright (Gog Magog) would show no nervousness and hit a great shot on the first to be underway. They were up against Charlie Langdon / George Whinnery for Suffolk and Max Cuttings / Matthew Cozens representing Norfolk. Last away for CAGU, Rohan Neat ( Ely) and Joe Austin ( Newmarket Links) playing against Jamison Grey / Quinn Monaghan for Norfolk with Suffolk only fielding one player Henry Clarke in this match, a point each was awarded to CAGU and Norfolk but the Suffolk player would still go out and play.
The CAGU pairings soon put their mark on preceding’s and took all 4 matches with Maximum points.
Morris/ Marshall wining 4/2 over Suffolk and 3/2 against Norfolk
Kerr / Sherriff 2/1 over Suffolk and 5/4 over Norfolk.
Chapman / Wright winning 3/2 over Suffolk and 1 up over Norfolk
Neat/ Austin winning 1up against Norfolk and both Norfolk and CAGU getting a point against
Suffolk W/O.
Scores after the foursomes
CAGU 8 points Norfolk 2 points Suffolk 2 points
Lunch was taken and the singles matches followed. Sam Marshall lead the way against Clarke (Suffolk) and Thomas (Norfolk) this match was a tight affair until near the end when Sam pulled it out for the double win. 4/3 against Suffolk and 1up v Norfolk. Theo Morris stormed out of the blocks to take early control of his matches, but a few holes around the turn lead to the match in the balance against Norfolk (Goddard) but Suffolk had been blown away 8/6 (Whitney).
Being 1 down with 3 to play Theo turn on the gas and W 1 up. Rohan Neat had a tight match against both opponents Russell (Suffolk) and Grey (Norfolk).
It was nip and tuck most of the way around with Neat staging a come-back in the later stages to edge Suffolk 1 up and all square against Grey (Norfolk). Ellis Kerr went up against Kubitzek (Suffolk) and Bradley (Norfolk) and also hit the ground running and played solid golf to take the wins 4/3 against Suffolk and 3/2 against Norfolk. Harry Sherriff went out against Swallow ( Suffolk) and Payne ( Norfolk) steady golf got him into a positive position against Suffolk very early on Won 8/7, with Norfolk going to the wire but he ran out winner 2/1 for a good win. Debutant Lorenzo Chapman got under way against Bacon (Suffolk) and Cozens (Norfolk) again he got the upper hand early on against Suffolk and ran out winner 4/3, but it wasn’t as easy against the Norfolk player and being 1 down with two holes remaining and amongst the tall rough after his tee shot on 18 he had to take his medicine and play out sideways for his second. His third from 150 yards + found the middle of the green. With Norfolk also on the green for three it was a stiff challenge to win the hole. But win the hole he did! With a 20ft putt sunk his opponent couldn’t match it, so all square going onto the 1st (par 3) which is the last hole due to work being carried out on the course. Both players finding the green with good tee shots but again the putter was talking for Chapman and he holed a 15ft birdie putt to win on the last hole! Not a bad debut I’d say!
Last away but not least was the other debutant Lewis Wright against Cutting ( Norfolk) with no representation from Suffolk, they already took a point each. Lewis was solid from the start and put the gas on his opponent from the off and won 7/6.
This was an unbelievable effort from the CAGU boys to win 15 out of 16 single matches and all square in the other to take 15.5 points out of a maximum 16 in the singles. Add that to the maximum points for the foursomes to finish the match:
CAGU 23.5 points
Norfolk 9.5 points
Suffolk 2.5 points
Norfolk took 7.5 points from Suffolk in the singles
A record win for CAGU u14 team!!
Brilliant boys well done!!