Bradfield Continues Success at Desert Springs
At 8.30am on the 10th of February 2018, 12 golfers & 3 members of staff met at the Sports Complex car park to begin the journey to Desert Springs Golf Resort in South East Spain, which would play host to the 2018 European School’s Championship. Sunday the 11th February was the teams chance to scope out the resorts infamous Indiana course. With unforgiving water hazards, cleverly placed desert waste areas & European tour quality greens. Monday 12th would be the start of the tournament with Bradfield being pitted up against some very talented golfers from Millfield, Loretto & Reeds Golf Academy’s among others. Bradfield was in great shape competing in the team handicap format of 2 teams of 2, playing 4 ball best ball stable ford points, in the 22 team field.
Bradfield team 1 (Killian McGinley, Ewan Henderson, Oscar Fowler & Aidan Benger) finished 4th, Bradfield team 2 (Sam Richards, Kiko Dar, Jack Hedley & Matt Ruffell) finished 10th & Bradfield team 3 (James Gibson, Will Braithwaite, George Clark & Miles Jackson) finishing 12th.
Wednesday 14th February was the final day of the Championship, as the players competed for individual honours in both the gross & nett divisions, Aidan Benger playing in the scratch event, playing off the championship tee’s had a fantastic round & finished one shot back of the leader in 2nd place with 74(+3). However in the handicap division Matt Ruffell played outstandingly too, although he had a disappointing finish still managed to close out his division in 1st place with 41points!
Well played to all who competed over the half term break & am sure we’ll be heading back to Spain next year!
Bradfield Finish 2nd in HMC Singles at The Berkshire
Tom Watson & Killian McGinley represented Bradfield in the annual HMC Singles Strokeplay event on the red course at the Berkshire. Killian played stella golf, as was -2 under par playing his 16th hole a very reachable par 5, he had a dose of misfortune on that & the 17th hole but bounced back with a brilliant birdie on his last hole to finish tied 2nd with his final birdie earning solo 2nd on card play off.
Congratulations on a fine performance & the boys represented the College with great respect for all the other 50+ competitors.
Bradfield College win the National HMC Foursomes at Cotswold Hills GC
Well, what an end to the term – or start to the holidays – that was! The schools at the event at Cotswold Hills were the two Finalists from last year and the six regional winners from this year (Bradfield won, in a series of knockout matches taking place throughout the academic year, South Central Region). When we set off on Tuesday we hardly dared hope that we would reach the Final, never mind win it. Wednesday went well, with two good victories (2-1 and 3-0) against Hurstpierpoint and Canford. On the complicated scoring system formulated for this event that gave us useful credit in the bank. On Thursday we drove to the Club thinking that, if the alternatives for the afternoon were to be whipped by Loretto or let our players play in the individual 9-hole event, the latter might be the better option but it was clearly not the way that our team saw the situation! Against Bedford in the morning we had the handicap advantage in the first match, but not in the other two. Sure enough, Angus and Killian won the 1st match and we lost the 2nd. Aidan and Oscar took their match to the 20th hole, where they just lost to very good and determined opponents. The harsh scoring system gave 7 points to Bedford and just 1 to us; this meant that if Hurst beat Canford 3-0 they would end up with the same number of points as Bradfield. Sure enough, they did win all their games against Canford and so our progress to the Final was decided by the fact that we had, in the relevant match, beaten Hurst.
As we all pondered the question ’how on earth did we manage to beat Loretto?’ (a Golf Academy). We were given the answer from one of our students mothers, as she said ’the difference between Bradfield and Loretto is that your boys are enjoying the match’. That was so true; our players were supporting each other and exchanging banter all the time; they discussed their strategy and forgave each other for any slight mistakes. Our first pair lost their first match of the whole event – but not for want of trying. They then watched as in two successive holes (15th and 16th) Aidan played a superb chip to the green, to be followed by an equally impressive putt from Oscar; they wound up their match on the 16th and jogged up the 17th to support Max and Tom. Here they saw Max play an excellent shot to the tricky 17th green, cashing in intelligently on the advantage given by Tom’s drive. This won both the hole itself and the match.
Back in the Clubhouse every other school (bar one) and the organisers seemed as delighted with our victory as we were. There was one other contest to be decided, though, which had been running over the three days. We asked the Barman which school had run up the biggest bar bill. He said that he wasn’t familiar with the names of the schools, but that one of them had spent far more than any of the others. He thought that the name began with ‘B’:)
Our thanks go to the parents for your support and encouragement, and making your sons available for this event. What was most pleasing of all was that, on the last day, Angus and Killian got us through to the Final whilst Max and Tom, and Aidan and Oscar, won their games – so everyone contributed to our success. That is what we call teamwork! In conclusion thanks to our players for their commitment, for the fine example that they have set on and off the course and for making our jobs so straightforward.
Once again congratulations to our team on a fantastic achievement & probably one of the best golf seasons at Bradfied to date!