Boys Under 16 Championship & Girls Autumn Meeting 2023

October 30, 2023

Boys Under 16 Championship & Girls Autumn Meeting 2023

BOYS UNDER 16 CHAMPION 2023 BEN SESSIONS OF BISHOP’S STORTFORD, PICTURED WITH BSGC CLUB CAPTAIN MARK LAW

HARRIET BUCHAN OF BISHOP’S STORTFORD – GIRLS AUTUMN MEETING HANDICAP WINNER

Our final Championship event of the 2023 County schedule was played last Friday, 27th October, with the ‘junior jamboree’ of the joint playing of the Boys Under 16 Championship and the Girls Autumn Meeting events. These events were kindly hosted by Bishop’s Stortford Golf Club, a long term hotbed of junior golf and activity and as such no surprise we were oversubscribed for the event, beyond the maximum field of 72 across both events, with several boys balloted out on handicap and put on a reserve list.

Over the years the Boys Under 16 Championship, previously known as Boys Intermediate Championship, has had a checkered history in terms of weather conditions on which the event would be played, or indeed attempted to be played. One year the event was cancelled due to snowfall the day before. Another year the event was cancelled mid round after heavy downpours rendered the course unplayable due to flooded greens. And we’ve had several run-ins with fog delays. Sadly 2023 was another of those years where heavy fog on first light failed to clear by the first tee time of 8:30am. Eventually after the excellent co-operation of the host club, we were able to run the event as planned with a 2 hr + delay on all tee-times, but thankfully once the fog lifted the rest of the day was bathed in glorious sunshine and perfect conditions for golf.

In the Boys event, the lowest gross score was returned by 15 year old Ben Sessions, playing on his home course, with an excellent score of 67 -4, and in turn would win both the overall Boys Under 16 Championship as well as the James Cup for the best Under 15 score. The best nett score was returned by Freddie Raven of Hanbury Manor with a nett 65, with a PB gross score to date of 73 +2 less his playing handicap of 8 on the day. The age related winners on the day were as follows; Under 14’s Gross winning the Harkett Cup: River Gardiner of Porters Park with 75 +4. Under 14’s Handicap: Mihir Pasura of Moor Park with nett 69 -2. Under 15’s Handicap Jamie Jackson of Knebworth with nett 73 +2, Under 16’s Gross winning the Duke Cup: Ronnie Gibb of West Herts with 69 -2, Under 16 Handicap: Nate Warren of The Shire London with nett 72 +1.

In the Girls event, the best handicap stableford score returned and therefore winning the Autumn Cup was 23 handicap and last minute subsistute player on the day, Harriet Buchan of Bishop’s Stortford with an excellent 43 points. The best gross stableford score on the day was returned by Alecia Ibekwem of Sandy Lodge with 34 points off scratch and therefore winning the Barbara Quirk Shield. The 2nd and 3rd best handicap stableford scores were 38 points, with Ruby Esterbrook of Bishop’s Stortford edging her clubmate Grace Maskell into 3rd place on a countback. This event is also combined with our Girls Spring Meeting, played back in the Easter holidays at Porters Park this year, to create a cumulative aggregate score across both events, with the winning scratch score winning the Cuningham Salver and the winning handicap score winning the Girls Handicap Plate. In the scratch event the aforementioned Ruby Esterbrook won the prize by virtue of a countback using the Autumn score after she and clubmate Connie Packer had tied on 58 points. In the Handicap event, two steady scores of 34 points in each were good enough to take the title on 68 points, some 2 points better than her nearest rival.

Our thanks go out to all the junior competitors and their parents for their patience on the day and for the Bishop’s Stortford GC management and staff for their help and co-operation in ensuring the event would get completed despite the vagaries of the british autumn weather.

2023 is now all wrapped up and we wish all our golfers a good winter re-fresh period before starting again in 2024!