South West Inter Counties title battle goes down to the wire
Twelve months after winning it for the first time in nearly 70 years, Somerset retained the South West Inter Counties title at Clevedon GC… but only just.
FORMAT: Six-team round-robin playing 2 foursomes & 3 singles
The reigning champions were second favourites to reach the County Finals going into the final round of matches yesterday. They were level on match points with Dorset (6) but had one fewer game point so needed to beat Wiltshire convincingly and hope Dorset lost or drew to Cornwall or even won by one-and-a-half less points.
And Somerset delivered in style on the final morning – none of their ties went beyond the 16th as they romped to a 5-0 success – but Dorset could only manage a 3-2 victory at the Somerset venue.
Somerset squad:
• Gill Brown, Captain (Burnham & Berrow)
• Helen Hayward, Vice Captain (Taunton & Pickeridge)
• Aimee Sawyer (The Mendip)
• Ellen Reakes (The Mendip)
• Jess Haines (Burnham & Berrow)
• Frankie Dezis (Farrington Park)
• Jade Cope (Weston Super Mare)
• Abby Gray (Wells)
• Sarah Burnell (Burnham & Berrow)
It means Somerset return for another crack at the national finals where will they face Cheshire, Buckinghamshire, Nottinghamshire, Essex and Kent at Stoneham in September (16-18).
Somerset captain Gill Brown, who played the same seven players in the same positions for all five matches, revealed a team talk after a 4-1 loss to Dorset on Tuesday night proved hugely positive.
She said: “We had a very small squad, high in quality but not in quantity, and the win over Cornwall on Tuesday morning really drained them.
“We then had a bad loss against Dorset but then, in the evening, we had a really good team talk and we knew we had to win 5-0 to give ourselves a chance.
“And the girls were buzzing against Wiltshire. The standard of the golf yesterday was really high. There were holes being halved in birdies and they just played superbly.”
Against Wiltshire, Somerset’s foursomes pairs won 5&4 and 6&5 while the singles trio also delivered. The quality of the play was summed up by Weston Super Mare’s Jade Cope eagling the 16th to close out her match 4&2.
Behind them Dorset’s fate came down to the singles match between Melissa McMahon (Lyme Regis) and Kira Barnes (St Enodoc), the Cornwall player holding on to win at the 18th.
It was also a highly memorable three days for 17-year-old Jess Haines (Burnham & Berrow), who finished with a perfect five-from-five record while her club-mate, the former professional Sarah Burnell, made her first appearance in the event for 28 years.
The good news for captain Brown and her vice-captain Helen Hayward (Taunton & Pickeridge) is ‘The Magnificent Seven’ will be available for the finals in September and she will also be in a position to add at least one more golfer to the squad.