Ross Golf Club’s annual medal competition to decide its Men Seniors Champion (60+) for 2018 attracted 97 entrants and produced some high quality performances, arguably in keeping with the exceptional summer weather conditions and which clearly suited defending Seniors Champion, 9 handicapper Robin Darling.

Remarkably, Robin’s impressive front 9 holes play, completed at 1 under gross par, was identical to his winning score-card in 2017. However on this occasion he was able to considerably improve on his finishing 9 holes play and his completed gross 75 medal score was a massive 6 shots better than 12 months ago and included 8 pars, 2 birdies and an eagle.

A highly successful day for Robin, winning by 3 shots from joint runners-up 11 handicapper, Geoffrey Fisher and 12 handicapper, Tim Rigden with all three players suffering 1 shot reductions in their respective handicaps. Geoffrey and Tim can consider themselves unfortunate, their scores would have normally qualified them for the winners enclosure.

They were followed by Neil Lancett’s gross 80 and Bill Day’s gross 81.

Interestingly the record books show that Robin’s gross 75 score-card has only been previously bettered once, that being in 2010 when Gwynne Morgan, with a 7 handicap, carded a gross 74 to claim the title in a year when his son, James was crowned Men’s Club Champion to kick-start shared family celebrations for the Morgan family.

The best nett performer was 15 handicapper Chris Tweedale, whose nett 66 medal score won him the Marsh Allan Trophy, with Chris completing his front 9 holes by just dropping 4 shots to par to put him on course for a Cup winning performance. His birdie 3 on the par four 16th hole earned him the count-back decision ahead of Tim Rigden and Robin Darling who were also nett 66 achievers.

There were also praiseworthy performances by Club Captain Robert Tuttiett, nett 68, Chris Good and David Beavan with nett 69’s followed by Allen Bartlett, nett 70, and Martin Johnson and Scott Thomson with nett 71’s.See this week’s paper for more stories like this, available in shops and as a Digital Edition now.