Although there were some creditable performances from the younger qualifiers – none more so than that of Lewis Blondel and Kieran Marley who gave Blondel’s dad Jamie and his regular Island partner Steve Mahy quite a scare – the pairings who progressed to today’s quarter-finals all share an element of ‘been there, done that’.
The Blondel-Mahy combination are the epitome of that in Guernsey golf and are previous winners of this championship, but they found themselves in a spot of bother against Blondel junior and Marley, son of another multiple Island champion in Mick, with the youngsters 2 up after 10 holes.
However, there was never any notion of panic from their opponents and by the time they reached the 16th tee, the scoreline had been flipped in Blondel & Mahy’s favour.
Just to keep things interesting, the established pair made a bit of a mess of the 16th and it led to a bogey, which halved the deficit for Blondel & Marley.
Then, remarkably, both pairs were 8ft from the hole in two on the 17th and Marley won a coin toss, but opted to allow Mahy to putt first and it proved critical as the ‘old hand’ rolled in his birdie attempt but Marley’s reply stayed above ground to end the match.
The former winners will now face top seeds Jack Mitchell and Danny Bisson, who played very solid golf to see off the challenge of another two up-and-coming talents in Alex Mills and Charlie Bowen with something to spare.
The best match of the first round, though, went all the way to the 22nd hole before pro Simon Ward and Dave Robinson emerged victorious against Jeremy Nicolle and Rory McKenna, who had birdied the last four holes in regulation just to take the match down extra holes.
By contrast, their quarter-final opponents Tom Le Huray and Sean Mills came through the quickest match of opening night, requiring just 12 holes to get past Andy Eggo and Harry Bushby.
Neil Tanguy and Graeme Falla were another duo who proved experience counts for a lot in matchplay as they played impressively to knock out Josh Neville and Monty Wyatt in 15 holes and set up a last-eight meeting with pro Ronnie Casey and Sam Le Huray, who were taken the distance by Lewis Marley and Dave Jeffery.
The final quarter-final pits two combinations who have done well in this competition before with Roland Mills and Andy Chamberlain coming up against Wayne Harwood and Tim Halden, who came up with a contender for shot of night as he put his 94-yard approach to within a foot at the 17th to seal their victory over Jake Lowe and Joe Marshall.
Moments earlier, Mills and Chamberlain had also won on the same hole against Wasif Anees and Chris Walker.
Tuesday's quarter-finals tee off at 4.45pm at L’Ancresse.
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