The Masters at Heacham Manor
With the weather forecast predicting temperatures near freezing and gale force winds it was obviously the start of the 2021 Round Norfolk Summer Golf tour. As tradition dictates the tour always starts at the same time as the Masters in Augusta. The main differences between the two tournaments is that they don’t have half the field pull out the day before, as it might be a bit cold and windy, plus the potential quality of the golf. As it happened the RNSG Masters was played under sunny clear blue skies, although it was rather windy and the golf was once again probably not up to Augusta standards..
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| Turned out to be a lovely day at Heacham Manor |
With the field cut to 5 everyone was in with a good chance of a prize and the opportunity to make early progress up the money list. Especially as a major offers double prize money, which has been increased from previous summer tours. There was also the chance to make it onto the virtual honours board as a major winner.
With the WHS now in operation and without either of the tours handicap experts available no one was really sure what handicaps people should play off but using a combination of shoe size, age and day of the week we came up with numbers acceptable to all.
So it was all to play for as the groupings were sorted out, using a covid secure balls in the air government approved method, before Robert got the tour underway.
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| Robert gets the 2021 season underway |
Robert was playing with Jo and Kevin. The Barnards have played here on many occasions so were offering Kevin dubious course advice leading to the lose of his ball on the second hole as he stumbled to 5 points in the first 5 holes. From there his game picked up with 14 at the turn.
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| Kevin was mighty relieved to clear the water on his way to his first par of the day |
Robert was going along nicely showing his skill at keeping the ball under the wind, at least that's why he said he kept hitting it along the ground. Three early pars had him on 18 at the turn.
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| Jo and Robert couldn't be separated, score wise, throughout the day and even hit the wrong fairways together |
However he was surprised that Jo was beating him with 19 points after a very impressive opening 9 with the only blemish of a blob on the 4th.
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| Jo on the way to her only blob of the day after going in the pond at the 4th |
In the group behind it was an erratic affair with blobs and pars flying in in equal measures. Vince, however stole a march on Chris with a 4 for 4 on the 9th to have 16 points to Chris’s 12 after 9.
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| Chris in action during an up and down day |
The back 9 followed a similar pattern as Chris secured another 13 to Vince’s 11. This left the pair in 4th and 5th overall with the action for the prizes in the group ahead. They did report that they had explored many of the less visited parts of the course so felt they had had their money's worth.
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| Vince with one of his better lies today |
Despite being only a week out of lockdown the course was empty with no other golfers spotted so the players could relax and focus on the Barnards going head to head.
Kevin started the back 9 strongly with 3 opening pars but as soon as Robert used mind games and pointed out he was back in contention he knew his race was run as he blobbed the next two holes. He recovered to finish strongly but his final total of 31 points was never going to be enough.
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| Kevin is relived his approach shot didn't go in the pond at the 12th |
With a par on 14 Robert had pulled into a one point lead over Jo who didn’t get shots on two of the last 4 holes. The Masters was his to lose and he would have to have a complete meltdown not to win. And what a meltdown it was as he spent the last 4 holes in long rough, water or recovering from poor drives. He managed only two points to finish on 32.
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| Despite Jo trying to put Robert off he sunk his putt as he built up towards his meltdown |
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| Jo was crowned this years Masters winner |
So Jo was the 2021 Masters champion, yet another new winner of the title and early leader on the money list.
The next RNSG fixture isn’t now until early May when hopefully it will be a bit warmer but before then the postponed last round of the 2019-20 winter tour will be taking place at Mundesley where it is still all to play for if you can remember that far back.
