A tight win for Bonnar, but a finals berth still awaits

Report by Wayne Humphries (Team Manager)

It was a sunny but cool day at Grange for our contest against Royal Adelaide. We were hot favourites and expected to win. However, Royal Adelaide were desperately trying to avoid relegation and to their credit played some steady golf and nearly won the match. After winning three early games fairly comfortably, we only sealed the win when Ben Layton at No. 3 came from behind to win his match 2/1.

Jackson Kalz at No.7 was 3 up after five holes and continued on his winning way to record a solid 6/5 victory.

Ben Magi at No. 6 played solidly throughout and holed a couple of crucial putts to be 2 up for most of the day before winning two holes later in his match to record a comfortable 4/3 victory.

Mark McDonald at No.5 had an absorbing tussle all day – he was square for most of the front nine with both players hitting some wonderful approach shots – but then Mark lost a couple of holes to be 2 down after 11 and then 3 down after 15 but wins at 16 and 17 took the match down the last – Mark three putted from 60 feet and his opponent made a nice par from the back bunker to win the hole and take the match 2 up.

Henry Duregon at No.4 played well early – he got to 3 up after five holes, but then lost a couple of holes only to fight back to be 3 up after 11 and maintained that advantage to win 4/3.

As mentioned earlier, Ben Layton at No.3 struggled early to be 2 down after five. However, Ben stuck to his task really well and kept his match competitive –after 11 holes he was still 1 down – but then he won the next three holes to be 2 up after 14 and remained solid to win his match 2/1 – and gave us the four team wins required to win the contest. Ben has had a great year so far with 5 wins and only one narrow loss in Round 2 against the strong Grange team.

Braeden Kelly at No. 2 and Luke Bashford at No. 1 tried valiantly all day – both players were 1 down after 12 and couldn’t quite bridge the gap on their opponents. It was Braeden’s 21st birthday but his opponent spoiled the party – Braeden was still 1 down playing 17 but lost that hole to lose his match 2/1. Luke could not match his opponent over the last few holes and finished 3/2 down in his game.

Thank you to the caddies – Josh Hodgson, Paul Grosvenor, Liam Kennewell and Brenton Kalz. Their continued support to the players has been fantastic.

In the end, we were very happy to get the 4 to 3 win and keep our finals chances alive to play against Grange in 2 weeks’ time. However, we still have one more round to play before the Final – we play North Adelaide at Tea Tree Gully next Sunday 5th July from 12.10pm. We need to win this match convincingly to take some strong winning form in to the Final to be played at Flagstaff Hill on Sunday 12th July.

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