Simon Byford’s golf column: Shae Baldwin & Alex Sumpter land Bury St Edmunds Golf Club’s Michaelmas Bowl trophy plus action from the Stenson Shield Final

The Michaelmas Bowl provides a great opportunity to develop many useful future skills for the juniors at Bury St Edmunds Golf Club.

Being one of the club’s ‘majors’, there is a cracking trophy up for grabs, but the foursomes format provides so much more.

The teamwork, co-operation and inherent pressure that comes with alternate shots are great character-building traits for the youngsters as they develop with their golf and life. Not to mention that many of the larger inter-club, inter-county and international team events utilise this format. You can see why all foursomes experience is invaluable.

Playing your own ball is one thing, but putting your partner in the trees, or having to recover when the roles are reversed, will test even the strongest of friendships – not to mention the two pairs of siblings that competed.

On the day, the scoring was very commendable, with all the teams coming in no worse than five-over-par, all breaking 30 points in the Stableford format.

Johnathan Points & sister Jasmine held the clubhouse lead on 38 points. Johnathan is this year’s junior captain and Jasmine has been representing the club hugely successfully in the Weston and Haskell Ladies teams.

Just behind them were Suffolk Under-14s pairing of Lucas Bond & Jacob Severn, with 35. But that was until Shae Baldwin & Alex Sumpter came to the 18th hole.

The day hadn’t started well for the pair, with two balls in the out-of -bounds field on the first hole.

However, they rallied back and after three magnificent shots on the par-five 18th, they found themselves just four feet from the pin after a remarkable approach by 11-year-old Alex.

Shae therefore had a birdie putt to win the trophy.

Speaking afterwards, he said: “It’s one of the most nervous I’ve been, I really wanted to hole the putt but I was shaking.”

In the end, he rolled it in the middle to score 41 points, including just one-over-par for the last six holes.

Bury St Edmunds GC

The Jim Bright Salver is competed for by the past men’s captain at Bury. It’s always a competitive event, with the top three players all scoring within one point of each other.

Third place went to Guy Lesser on 38 points but ‘The Count’ was required to separate the top two after they both scored 39.

Marthinus Robbertse was the unlucky one, leaving Martin Byford to claim top spot.

In 20 months of writing this column, I think it is my first opportunity to mention dad in dispatches. The 1994 captain (I was 11) has now won the Jim Bright three times in the years since captaincy. Well done, dad.

Peter Thomas continues his recent dominance of Bury St Edmunds-based competitions, winning the Midweek Stableford at The Suffolk after his victory last week at Bury.

His 36 points put him one ahead of Brian Hay on 35, who was aided by ‘The Count’ as James Laflin also chipped in with 35 points.

In the weekend’s Stableford competitions, there was a brace of 40 pointers to claim the wins. On Saturday, the 40 went to Paul Dobbyn, who was two shots clear of Daniel Kaye on 38 and Brian Hay, again in the placings, third on 35.

On Sunday, it was Gavin Hogg on 40 points, but this time the margin of victory was just one shot. Matt Franklin return a 39 and Glen Barker 38 to round out a close top three.

There was just enough time to squeeze in the Midweek Medal competition too. John Dale had the best nett score of the day, scoring nett 76 in tough, wet conditions. James Laflin again was close but no cigar, coming second this time with nett 79 and Dave King was third on nett 82.

Stenson Shield Final

The final of the Stenson Shield was played on a glorious sunny day at Ipswich Golf Club. The competition sees the top eight players from each club compete in scratch foursomes in the morning, followed by scratch singles in the afternoon.

The final was to be contested by Felixstowe Ferry and Woodbrige Golf Clubs and is often considered the blue ribband event in Suffolk men’s team golf.

The morning foursomes saw Felixstowe take a 3-1 lead into lunch. Highlights for Felixstowe included Jimmy Price & Adam Sheldrake winning 7&5 against Nathan Parrish & Philip Ashden, and Rhodri Hartson & Will Pearce’s 6&5 win against Tom Fowler & Gary Fisher.

Will Peace continued his fine form in the afternoon singles, with the undoubted highlight being a hole-in-one on the sixth during his 3&2 win over Gary Fisher.

The other matches were all nip-and-tuck and at many stages it looked like the Woodbridge comeback was on.

The first two singles matches were shared and then the following four matches all came down to the last hole. The first two of those finished in halves, with a highlight being Dominic Rudd holing from 25 feet to secure the half against Rhodri Hartson. Bailee Taylor secured a 1-up win to put Felixstowe on the brink and when the following 18-hole decider was tied, Felixstowe had done enough.

The final two matches also went to Felixstowe, leaving the final score at 8.3-3.5. This final score doesn’t do justice to just how close the matches were in the afternoon, but congratulations must go to Felixstowe and well done to Woodbridge on a valiant effort.

Have a great golfing week.