The hurt of the April drubbing at The Kendleshire Golf Club was washed away by a tide of gritty determination as The Rolls of Monmouth elite team comfortably beat an almost identical Kendleshire team when they visited Monmouth on Saturday 3rd August.

The emphatic 4 and a half to 1 and a half score line highlighted the turnaround in The Rolls' team fortunes since psychological profiling was introduced by the team coach as part of the selection process.

In the opening fourball, Team Captain Geoff Walsh and current Club Champion and this year's finalist, Jeff Hall met tough opposition in the form of Kendleshire Team Captain, Wayne Graham, supported by Club Captain, Peter Brookes.  Despite dogged defence and some excellent short game play from the visitors, Hall's superb soft hand approach around the greens and some solid driving from Walsh, not necessarily always from the correct tee, eased the home pair to a comfortable 5 and 3 victory.

 With expected military precision, Alastair Beedie and his subaltern, Roly Bulman, marched to a convincing 5 and 4 win over The Kendleshire's Barry Haskins and Robert Rumble.  So efficiently were the opponents despatched that it caused Beedie to reflect on past campaigns during his illustrious air force days but alas his stories fell on deaf ears.

Having battled head to head in a club knock-out match the evening before, Adrian Clark and Paul Mitchell were thrown together against visitors Steven Tudor and Tim Walden.  Although two holes up with two to play, The Rolls pair could not apply the killer touch and slipped to a halved game.

Another deft selection was combining bit hitting Tim Barker with even bigger hitting Mike Willis. Pitted against Gary Haskins and Trevor Collins, the rising stars of the Kendleshire team, they quickly established their superiority and ran out comfortable 2 and 1 winners.

Lumberjack Richard Gable and the wiry Russell Webb used their height advantage to great effect when they powered to an impressive 5 and 4 win against the much fancied Anstey and Dear to reinforce the physical gulf between the two teams on the day.

Alas the euphoria couldn't be maintained to the end as the final Rolls combination of Nigel James and Steve Scott gracefully lost to Wayne Braun and Phillip Chard by 3 and 2.

The Rolls now face three tough matches against Bristol & Clifton, The Herefordshire and Monmouth golf clubs in consecutive weeks and the coach, Geoff Walsh, is considering introducing a squad rotation system to fully utilise the large pool of talent available for selection to avoid potential burn out of the regular team players.

Lyon Roars Again

Refreshed having been rested for the match against Kendleshire, David Lyon produced the round of the year with a breathtaking gross 67 and a massive 44 point Stableford total to sweep away the field in the mid-week competition on 7th August. 

Lyon's round comprised seven birdies with dropped shots on the third and fourteenth being the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect round of golf. 

The victory reinforces Lyon's status as a first choice for The Rolls elite team and justifies his new handicap of 2.

Father Trev Curphey and Terry Burnett must have thought that their excellent 41 point totals would give them a real chance of victory but on the day they had to console themselves with second and third place respectively.