No hat-trick for Nicolle as Halden and Harwood pull off Foursomes shock

Jeremy Nicolle finally saw his unbeaten record in the competition come to an end last night as Tim Halden and Wayne Harwood pulled off the shock of the quarter-finals by beating the two-time winner and his father Dave on the last hole of an absorbing contest.

A biting easterly wind that was gusting to force six at times made conditions extremely challenging and meant that par was a very good score on most holes, but there was little to separate the two pairs in the last match out on the course.

The Nicolles held a narrow one-hole lead with five to play, but there were plenty of twists and turns still to come.

With the long 14th playing as a true three-shot hole into the teeth of the wind, Halden and Harwood managed to engineer a par five that was enough to bring them back to all-square.

They took that momentum onto the next hole and a fine birdie downwind at 15 edged them ahead.

The Nicolles responded in kind and a three on the 16th levelled the match once more.

In the circumstances, both combinations played the 17th impressively and they had decent looks for birdie thanks to pinpoint approaches – the first from Nicolle jnr before Halden replied by finishing just inside of the opposition – but neither putt dropped on a day when the atmospheric conditions had to be taken into account almost as much as the slopes.

And so to the 18th, which was arguably playing as tough as it can get.

With the honour, Jeremy Nicolle attempted to control the flight of his iron shot as much as possible and it looked good for much of it until it stalled right at the end and finished up in the hollow to the front right of the green.

Halden struck his tee shot sweetly, too, and it remained on line with the pin throughout until coming up five yards short of the putting surface, but in a much more likely spot to make a three.

So it proved as the Nicolles were unable to save their par whereas Harwood judged his approach putt to near perfection to book his and Halden’s place in the semi-finals.

They will face another related pairing in the last four in the McKenna brothers, Rory and Conor, who progressed at the expense of last year’s runners-up Tom Le Huray and Wayme Moore.

In the top half of the draw, the semi-final will be an all L’Ancresse Golf Club affair.

Top seeds Danny Bisson and Tom Pattimore came through in 15 holes against Michel Davy and Jason Savident while Jamie Blondel and Steve Mahy needed one more hole to end the hopes of the all-professional combination of Harrison Brown and Ronnie Casey.

Guernsey Press Elite Men’s Foursomes Championship

Quarter-final results

D Bisson & T Pattimore beat M Davy & J Savident 4 & 3; J Blondel & S Mahy beat H Brown & R Casey 4 & 2; R McKenna & C McKenna beat T Le Huray & W Moore 2 & 1; T Halden & W Harwood beat D Nicolle & J Nicolle 1 up.

Thursday's semi-finals

Bisson & Pattimore v Blondel & Mahy, 4.45pm; McKenna & McKenna v Halden & Harwood, 4.51pm.