Festival Day 5 – Ladies AMAM Open

As is traditional, Thursday at Cavendish Golf Club is ladies day.
Today we welcomed 41 teams to compete in our Ladies AMAM Open and as with all our open competitions, players come from far and wide.
Is it because we are ranked 61^st in the Golf World Top 100 in England or perhaps it is because we are ranked 51^st in the Golf World Top 100 Fun Courses to play UK and Ireland. Whatever it is we had players from Merseyside, North Yorkshire, Leicestershire and as far south as Plymouth all hoping that today was their day.

The weather at 1000 feet above sea level can be fickle to say the least and what became very apparent was that the early starters were going to get the best of the day. In fact contingency plans were in place just in case what the Met Office predicted came to pass. They weren’t far wrong.

In fabulous conditions the ladies from Tytherington went about their business in steady fashion but knowing they hadn’t done enough. “It’s a tough course; we’ve never really got to grips with greens but it’s been a fabulous day nonetheless” was how they summed it up as they drove off on 18. No such issues had affected the team behind from Branston Golf & Country Club who were definitely making the most of the conditions to post a creditable 85 points that would eventually give them 6^th place. But it was their fellow Branston members Natalie Mitchell, Rachel Smith, Kay Marshall and Susie Spruce who lit up the leaderboard with an electrifying 92 points to establish a lead that would prove to be unassailable.

The afternoon groups did their best. As conditions worsened the team from Beauchief (Sheffield) came close with 90 points, a solid 2^nd place. Many assumed we’d seen the best of the scoring as the rain rolled in and the conditions became increasingly challenging with a gusty 25-30mph wind. But some people just adapt and despite the deluge local ladies Andie Curtis and Rachel Child playing with Anna Baker and Kathy Holley from Matlock returned an excellent 89 points to take 3^rd place.

Quote of the day from one of our visitors: “ Great layout and clearly a fun course; I must come back and play it in the summer” and it was hard to disagree. with the rain sweeping in horizontally nobody had anything that wasn’t sodden.

A special thanks goes to all the Cavendish Ladies responsible for putting on the event and to all those who supported our Lady Captain’s Charity. The half-way house was also very well received with a wide variety of refreshments.