Round Norfolk summer golf tour round 12 at Thorpeness. The US Open

The US Open at Thorpeness

Wednesday saw Round Norfolk summer golf tour round 12 take place at Thorpeness and it was the second major of the year being the US Open. Two groups gathered on the first tee to see who could be crowned US champion and it was another exciting affair.

Bob got things underway with a tidy start on the first couple of holes but when he reached for his driver on the longer 3rd he realised he had left it at home and only had his 5 wood to tee off with. This seemed to impact his game and with no pars on the front 9 only managed 12 pts.

Bob having to tee off on the long 5th with his 5 wood

The back 9 was a little bit but a double blob finish on 17 and 18 kept his overall score down to 26 pts and off the pace.

More 5 wood action from Bob

After a couple of weeks away from the game Tracey was struggling to find form and was one of 3 players today with a run of 3 blobs in 3 holes as she finished the front 9 on 10 pts.

Tracey tees off on 5th for second of her 3 blobs in a row

The back 9 was looking better with 14 pts off the first 7 holes, including an excellent birdie on the 16th (although the ladies tee box takes some finding as it's 70 yards shorter than the mens). However she too had a double blob finish to end on 24 pts.

Traceys tee shot on 18 also leads to a blob

Chris was playing very solidly and made the most of the 4 additional par 5's that could be found on the ladies card. She had 6 pars on the front 9 and although the other 3 holes were not so good she still had 18 pts at half way and a big lead.

Chris gets underway on the first

In the group behind it was predominately all or nothing from most of the players. This was demonstrated on the opening hole when Kevin and Greg both got birdies while Vince and David got blobs. Our statistician has checked the 'two birdies on same hole' spreadsheet and if one exsisted then this would probably be the first entry. 

However from here things went down hill for Kevin. Despite hitting a number of long and straight drives the chipping shanks from Gorleston returned and he went on to get 5 blobs when less than 50 yards from the green after getting there in 2. 

A fine teeshot from Kevin on 5th but after finding the greenside bunker
with his next the ball never found the putting surface.

With his game in tatters and his clubs going further than his ball he had 3 successive blobs on the back 9 before birding both 16 and 17 by cleverly avoiding the need to chip with two excellent tee shots. However despite his 3 birdies the 8 blobs in the round meant he only had 21pts, although massively improved his eclectic. On the plus side chipped shanks don't go very far so he only lost one ball all round.

2nd shot on par 5 14th was A1 leaving only a short 50 yrd chip to the green
but I think we all know what happened next as no points were registered 

Vince was having the opposite problem as he was struggling off the tee and had 3 blobs in the first 4 holes. He did once again make the most of his 2 shot holes and was able to recover his back 9 and with an excellent par on the par 5 9th he got to 15 pts at half way.

Early gorse trouble for Vince on the first

David got off to an even worse start with 3 blobs in the first 4 holes. He decided that Thorpeness wasn't a patch on the other two suffolk heathland courses (Woodbridge and Purdis Heath) although this maybe because he had finished first on both those occasions. With a couple more pars and no more blobs he managed to get up to 12 pts at the turn.

David tees off on the 3rd on his way to a blob

Greg was the only player in the group scoring well. As he had 15 pts after 7 holes including a second birdie on the par 3 7th.. This was especially impressive seeing as he seemed to had gone into a bunker on all of these. However for some reason he decided to avoid the bunkers on the next two holes. It would have been a good tactic if he had opted for the bunker free fairways rather than bunker free woods and blobed both the holes to have 15 pts after 9.

Greg tees off on the 4th straight into a bunker

Up ahead Chris was scoring on every back 9 hole but with only two pars not really racking up the points. When she fluffed her short chip on the 18th (which returned to her feet) she would not realise how much it would cost her as she finished the round on 33 pts and leader in the overflow car park.

Chris teeshot to "short" par 3 16th.

Vince soon put himself out of the running as he 'drove' a number of balls into the woods, ferns and gorse. His lost ball count got to 6 before anyone stopped counting. With 4 blobs in 6 holes, and the 3rd person to get 3 in a row in the round, another new record (probably), he finished on 25 pts.

Vince hitting a ball into the woods

Greg had a solid if not spectacular back 9 until successively reintroducing his bunker strategy on 16 and 17 and then back into the woods on 18 meaning he only got 3 pts on the closing holes. This gave him 15 more points, 30 in total and 3rd place on the day.

Greg tees off on 11 with his driver has he announced a risk reward strategy. He was rewarded with a par.

The back 9 seemed to be much more to David's liking as his early season form returned. A birdie on the 15th put him back in contention and with pars on the next 2 holes he only needed to par the last for an unexpected win. Unexpectedly he missed his par putt and finished joint first with Chris on 33 pts. However there can only be one winner of a major and David took the US Open title (his first major win).

David on a way to a par on the very long par 3 16th

David cemented his position at the top of the leaderboards but Tracey and Kevin are now at the top of the eclectic and are bottom of the average blobs showing their all or nothing approach.