Thrilling finish at Carden Park

We headed up to Carden Park fearing the worst after the horrendous weather forecast we were subjected to as we departed. Driving to Carden Park we had waterproofs at the ready as we drove through driving rain but miraculously as soon as we arrived the dark foreboding clouds cleared and that’s the way it stayed all day!

Carden Park is a fantastic venue with two excellent courses and our members seemed to enjoy the challenge of the Nicklaus course. The live leaderboard provided the entertainment it was built to deliver, with four or five players really pushing each other throughout the round.

Both Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive went to Rebecca Gray. Rebecca thoroughly deserved both wins and claimed her prizes of a Linksnet towel, Titleist cap and Dirty Dog sunglasses. Well done Rebecca.

In the team event, the performance from the three ball of Andrew Gray, Steve Cooke and Mark Attwell was so strong that they would have won even without a 'blind' player but with this added they scored an excellent 86 points to win a range of goodies from Titleist, Island Green and Hayman’s Gin.

In the Individual Stableford competition, third place and a pair of Skechers shoes went to Steve O’Keeffe from Blackpool with 37 points. After several washed out attempts to play one of our days, it was great to finally see Steve and wife Louise take part.

The battle for top spot was a thriller. On the front 9, young Jack Fitzpatrick from Royal Liverpool went toe to toe with Andrew Gray, but as we reached the climax, Leon Loberman's solid play gathered real momentum and pushed Andrew all the way. After a battling six on the tricky 18th, Andrew finished on 38 points and it looked like it would be enough to seal first place and the first prize of a Stewart Golf R1-S Push trolley.

However, Leon continued to push hard and came down the Par 5 18th needing one point to tie on 38 points and to also just pip Andrew on a countback. Lying just short of the green in three shots, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion but Leon left his fourth shot perilously short of the pin and like many others before him, it rolled back to his feet. Leon played his fifth shot and the ball fell short of the pin once again but this time as it rolled back it caught the fringe of the green. Two putts later and Leon made his seven for one point and claimed his first UK victory after winning our last Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Swingers day in the US 2 years ago. Well done Leon and well played Andrew who won a Bushnell Phantom GPS.

Some of our members are now on the road with us to St Andrews, our next stop and our first residential Linksnet event. If you still want to join in the fun, there are spaces available for our last two events at Sherwood Forest later this month and our final event at Woburn in October. In our aggregate competition to award one lucky Network day attendee a place in our Princes Final, James Gear still leads the way. With James not playing St Andrews, let’s see if anyone else can challenge him over the next few days! Thank you to everyone who attended our day at and to all our sponsors for their fantastic support as ever.