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Unfortunately in 1964, with my job then being made redundant I moved down to the West Country and Joined Clevedon Golf Club. I joined BRS as an Articulated HGV1 driver doing mainly Scottish runs so was away from home most of the week, although I did manage to get some games in during the light evenings in the Summer in Scotland, but golf was mainly a week-end only game for me, but even with this problem I still managed to keep my scratch status for four years until they changed the system to the SSS and everyone on scratch was immediately put up two shots. I managed to get back to one pretty quickly but never ever made it back to scratch although I did have a realistic chance one year in the last open of the season. This was the Long Ashton Vase and even though I finished second to David Hemmings of Yeovil G. C. my score was not good enough to be cut.
I also reached the final of the regional John Player Classic after my semi final opponent; George Irlam gave me a bye as he did not wish to play me at my home club, after I had turned down his offer of two strokes to play him at Weston, his home club. In the final I lost to a Yeovil G.C. player who played for Dorset, Trevor Griffin, on the last after I failed to make a rather long carry over a dog leg on the final hole. I cannot blame anyone other than myself for gambling on a difficult shot at a critical stage of the game. Another learning experience
I won our own Hawkins Trophy in 1971 as well as the club championship three years in a row, 1967, 1968 and 1969, but work did not always allow me to play these every year. Isn’t work a pain in the backside when one wishes to play golf?
Strange as though it may seem I feel that I played my best golf when I was a 1 handicapper perhaps that was because I started to play more open competitions
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