Royals start as they mean to go on
THE Rocque Balan Royals gained some revenge on Monday for their defeat in last year’s Nedgroup Trust Ltd Scratch League final – but that was just the first step towards the main aim for Tom Le Huray’s side.
They are out to reclaim the trophy that they lost to their L’Ancresse Martellos neighbours in 2020, having won the previous three editions of the competition before the painful loss in the showpiece match last year after finishing well clear at the top of the round-robin table.
Le Huray was able to call upon all of his big guns for their first outing of this campaign and his foursomes pairings set the tone from the outset on yet another windy evening on the links.
From an early stage both were in control of their rubbers and with a bonus point available for winning inside 15 holes, there was no let-up.
In the first match out Roland Mills and Rory McKenna were 3 up as they crossed the Mont Cuet road having completed six holes against Arthur Evans and Sam Le Huray, with the Martellos duo struggling to find any rhythm.
A hour or so later, when the ‘RMs’ made an impressive up-and-down for par on the 12th, they were five ahead and they needed just a couple more holes to see out the match.
It was much the same story in the other foursomes encounter as the experience of Nigel Vaudin and Dave Jeffery comfortably saw off the more youthful combination of Tom Pattimore and Will Davidson.
That Royals duo were also 3 up after six and although Davidson drained a long putt on seven to reduce the gap to two, that was merely brief respite.
Vaudin and Jeffery were 4 up through 11 and then, despite the latter chunking his tee shot on 12 to leave the best part of 60 yards into the green at the par three, they still got up-and-down to win the hole on their way to a 5 & 4 win.
The rest of the rubbers, though, were much closer and far more unpredictable.
In the first of the singles, which turned out to be a high-class clash, Dale Rutledge was the first player to claim a nearest-the-pin bonus on the seventh but Martellos captain Steve Mahy matched his par to maintain a 2 up lead at that stage.
That was still the gap when the New Zealander repeated the trick by becoming the first man to hit the green at the 12th on a night when that was particularly challenging, but this time his par won the hole and that was the catalyst to Rutledge winning four in a row as birdies followed on 13 and 14.
A superb approach into the 16th gave him the chance to end the match there, but this time his birdie putt missed on the low side, although that delayed his victory only until the 17th where Mahy came within a whisker of a birdie that would have taken him down the last.
Where he failed, though, Daniel Griggs succeeded.
When he had reached the 12th tee trailing by five to Danny Blondel, the Royals player was at a loss to explain the score other than a few minor misjudgements on his part because he was pleased with how he was striking the ball.
He proved that with a quality tee shot to earn a nearest-the-pin bonus as well as win that hole and he picked up a couple more in the next four so that Blondel was 2 up with two to play.
That was when Griggs played the 17th to virtual perfection, finding the centre of the fairway with his drive and hitting his approach pin-high before rolling in his 10ft birdie putt to take it down to the last.
He was already in for his par when Blondel lined up a 5ft putt for the win, but despite catching a large portion of the hole, it lipped out and Griggs had salvaged a half.
The consolation for the Martellos came in the fourball rubber, where Danny Bisson and Jake Marshall secured their second win in two outings.
Marshall, who has maintained his fine form over recent weeks, found himself up against his Elite Foursomes Championship winning-partner Jeremy Nicolle as well as the Royals captain Le Huray in a match that looked for all the money as if it was going to go the distance.
However, after Nicolle picked up the NTP bonus on 12 and won the hole to edge the Royals ahead, it was all one-way traffic as the Martellos suddenly took charge.
Having driven just past pin-high on the par-four 13th, Bisson made birdie to level the match once more and although he also made birdie on 14, he was outdone by his partner as Marshall put his sweet six-iron second shot to 25ft then holed his eagle putt.
They immediately doubled their lead on the 15th and when neither of the Royals could make par into the wind at 16, the Martellos pair sealed victory.
