Post date: May 31, 2017 2:21:08 PM
Sue Jacobson and Betty Gilliland played Darla Luzum and Mary Riorden on Tuesday, May 30th at Kingswood. It was a spectacular spring morning with plenty of sunshine. And then they hit the 3rd hole and the sun was gone. It was suddenly completely overcast. Then it started drizzling about the sixth hole and it started raining harder so they took a breather at the 7th tee. The rain finally eased up enough to start playing again ... but it was still drizzling and had cooled down significantly! Everyone was scrambling looking for jackets which had been left in cars and at home since the weather forecast had predicted a sunny day with temps reaching to the mid 80s!?! Well, the rain continued until the sun came out while they were putting their clubs away!!! You can imagine how thrilled these ladies were to be playing in these conditions!?!
In spite of the conditions, the match was a lot of fun for everyone involved. Darla and Mary took an early lead and then the match went back and forth winding up all square by the 8th hole. Mary took the 14th hole to go 1 up by being the only one who managed to avoid the stream in front of the green. Betty took the 16th hole after chipping her ball up close to the pin. At this point, the match was all square again with 2 holes to go and the players were shivering after having dodged rain drops for the majority of the match.
Sue was the only player to hit the 17th green. But Mary chipped her ball to within gimme distance for a par. By the way, this was the second time Mary had chipped to within gimme distance and she was relishing hearing "Pick it up" from Sue and Betty! Mary had also sunk every putt from within 6 feet all day long to tie holes!!! And so they went on to the 18th all square watching the sunshine approach from behind them to the north but never quite overtaking the clouds. Everyone hit their shots up the fairway on 18 so that there were significant putts on the green to win the match. Mary's putt from about 15 feet narrowly missed the cup sliding by on the low side. Sue was next to putt from about 8 feet and it curled into the cup to take the match! Betty went on to putt and sunk hers as well which would also have taken the hole and the match.
The players were delighted with the new Match Play format using 2 person teams! If you did not enter this year, they highly recommend you join the "fray" next season!!!