Round Norfolk Golf Tour summer comp 2016. Round 1 The Masters at Hunstanton

Tuesday saw this years Round Norfolk Golf Tour summer comp 2016 kick off with the first major of the year, The Masters at Hunstanton. Hunstanton was making it's début on the tour and the ground staff had obviously been working hard as the course was in excellent nick. They were clearly keen to keep their place on next years tour.

Looking down 18th at Hunstanton

The Masters had attracted a bumper field of 6 chasing the huge £5 first prize that would see the winner head straight to the top of this year's money list in the race to Sheringham.

Golf Pig was also pleased to see such a large field as he was stuffed full of entry fees.

With groupings selected it was left to Andrew to kick the tour. Despite mutterings about how he would have had a shot on this hole last week blah blah yawn yawn etc he hit a stunning drive down the first leading to a fine birdie (for 3 points). However the next 5 holes (mainly with the wind) proved a little more difficult for him adding just 4 more points.

Andrews Tee Shot down the first

Tour Debutant Jill had the opposite experience registering a blob on the 1st before parring the next two holes to get her round back on track and had a solid 9 points after 6 holes.

Jill's first ever shot on the Round Norfolk golf summer tour

John was having a mixed start complaining that they had made the holes too long and like Andrew had 7 points from 6 holes.

John teeing off to a green a very very long way a way

With both Andrew and Jill in the bunker on the 7th John didn't want to miss out but instead of putting his ball in the sand he tried to let his buggy to roll in instead but just missed.

Pars on 7 and 8 gave Andrew 15 half way points with Jill on 13 and John on 10.

Meanwhile in the group behind Kevin had got off to a flyer with back to back opening pars and the early on the course lead. Sadly that was the end of any good play from him and it may have been wise to call it a day at that point to save both his mental state and the course from getting a damn good thrashing. He hacked his way to 12 points at the turn.

Kevin missing a birdie putt on 2nd which was his highlight of the day

Bob was fairing a lot better and despite blobbing the 1st and 9th he was looking solid and shared the halfway lead on 15 pts.

Bob teeing off on the second.

Chris was having the most up and down round with a number of duffs mixed it with some excellent shots including chipping in from 50 yards for a cheeky birdie on the par 5 (for ladies only!) 5th, to also join the leaders on 15 pts.

Chris about to play a chip shit like the one she got her birdie with

Like the first group the 7th provided bunker fun with all 3 balls, but no trolleys finding the sand.

All 3 ball and Bob in the sand at the 7th

The back 9 proved a lot tougher as most of the holes were into the wind. Sadly due to lack of phone battery no photos got taken on the back 9 so you will just have to imagine what it was like.

Although hard to believe Kevin's game deteriorated even further on the back 9 with blobs on all the odd numbered holes. Only a monster off the green putt on the last enabled him to scrape up to 20 pts and last place.

Jill was also struggling on the odd number holes with 3 blobs and with only 5 pts on the last seven holes she too ended on 23pts and out of the prizes.

John was the only player to have a better back 9 with 6 consecutive bogeys (12pts) giving a much tidier look to his card before registering only a single point after that and 23 pts. He felt he would have got a lot more points if the course had been the right length for him.

It was looking good for Bob as he was still up with the leaders until the blind par 3 14th. Here his tee shot found a bunker from which he hit what he thought was an excellent bunker shot. Coming down the hill he questioned why Kevin and Chris were putting to a different flag from the one he had been aiming for on the 4th green. The mistake affected him badly as it led to 3 successive nil points and his challenge slipped away finishing on 24 points and 3rd place..

Andrew managed a good par at the 13th to take the lead but then only got 5 more points finishing with 27 pts and the club house lead. (It would have been 30 pts before he was cutt at the weekend zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Chris had been picking up points on most holes and coming on to the par 3 16th she hit a nice 6 iron and with a few useful bounces it rolled up to the hole where she sunk the putt for her second birdie and 27 points. This meant only one more point was needed to win. However a lost ball on the 17th (apparently the fairway was in the wrong place) and a duffed rescue on the 18th meant a tricky 4 foot putt had to be successfully sunk for the win.

So Chris is this years Masters champion and gets her name added to the honours board.

The tour now moves on to Royal Norwich where Chris will hope to keep her winning start going.

The Blog will be updated with competition leader boards etc once Kevin starts to do better.