CRANWORTH TROPHY
Draw & Information
Handicap Index Limits – 19.1 to 28.0
Cranworth Semi-Final: Bramford beat Woodbridge 6.5 – 2.5 at Ufford Park
After a damp start, the breeze rolled the clouds away and the yellowing leaves blew across the Ufford Park golf course in the sunshine as the ladies of the two clubs battled out the foursomes section of the Cranworth Trophy Semi-Final. It was a battle, too. Eighteen holes was not sufficient to separate Bramford’s Tracy Ward and Chris Kilgallen from Jan Fawdry and Jeanette Longman (Woodbridge) and they settled for a halved match. The next point went to Woodbridge (Rita Bird and Anne Truman) by 3/1 while Sue Thorpe and Catriona Herbert evened things up for Bramford against Pam MacBride and Susie Whymary (4/2), leaving all to play for in the afternoon singles.
As the six matches began Tracy Ward raced into a steadily extending lead against Jeanette Longman who found it hard to reply in the first instance. Ward reached six up after eight holes but Longman came back to win nine and the short tenth over the water but couldn’t keep up the momentum and ran out of time on fourteen.
The fourteenth hole proved to be a decisive spot. Lesley Long and Sally Munter enjoyed a close encounter, but Long was 2 up after the 317-yard fourteenth where both players chipped up across the intervening water particularly well. They moved along to sixteen where Long took the point for Bramford (3/2). The same hole was significant for Sue Thorpe and Rita Bird. Thorpe had been 2up after seven holes but Bird pulled back to 1up after thirteen. At fourteen, Thorpe’s approach careered through the green to finish on the bank at the back while Bird’s ball dropped in the water. She then hit an excellent pitch which, enviably, stopped dead. Thorpe recovered nicely but left the ball some 20+ feet from the hole, and then sank the putt which Bird couldn’t match. Thorpe went 2up and moved on to win by 2/1 on seventeen.
Bramford needed only one more point to win the overall match. The Chris Gilgallen versus Carol Brown match was all square, the two of them having hit great drives along seventeen, while Catriona Herbert and Jan Fawdry behind them were equally involved in a close tussle when the news came through that Bramford’s Joyce Jay had outstripped Anne Truman’s efforts. The fourteenth had once again proved pivotal. Jay seized the point for a 5/4 victory which took Bramford through to meet Haverhill in the final. The two matches out on the course were deemed to be halved. Haverhill had beaten Diss by 7.5 to 1.5 in the other semi at Bury St Edmunds. What a pity one can’t be in two places at once! The final will be held at Ipswich Golf Club on 17th October.
Julie Latimer-Jones.
Results (Bramford names first)
Foursomes: Tracy Ward & Chris Kilgallen halved with Jan Fawdry & Jeanette Longman; Marianne Hall & Jan Beard lost to Rita Bird & Anne Truman 3/1; Sue Thorpe & Catriona Herbert bt Pam MacBride & Susie Whymary 4/2.
Singles: Ward bt Longman 5/4; Lesley Long bt Sally Munter 3/2; Kilgallen halved with Carol Brown; Herbert halved with Fawdry; Joyce Jay bt Truman 5/4.
Final Result: Bramford 6.5, Woodbridge 2.5.
General Information
A team shall consist of 8 players from each Club – each player having a handicap index within the range of 19.1 to 28.0 inclusive.
Format: 18-hole Match Play. (To continue until 2025 and the review)
Two match-play foursomes, (playing off ½ difference of combined handicaps), followed by four match-play singles, (in handicap index order), playing off full handicap allowance.
The venues for all the Rounds will be played on neutral courses.
Trophy History
Lady Cranworth presented her trophy to the County Association in 1936. Initially, it is believed, it was played for by Silver Division players but at some point after the Second World War, there developed a keenly contested inter-club knockout competition amongst Bronze Division golfers that became the Cranworth Trophy as we still know in in 2013.
Who thought up the unusual scoring method in force for many years, it is hard to say, or perhaps no one will own up to it! With five points at stake for every match, whether singles or foursomes (one point for winning each nine holes and three for the overall match), it was certainly innovative and might perhaps have been more understandable had it been applied to the more accomplished golfers of the county. However, though the Cranworth matches were marathon occasions, with the scoring system necessarily taking most matches round the full thirty-six holes, most of the protagonists loved it and indeed, in some cases, were positively passionate about it.
There was a short period in the mid-eighties when the competition reverted to ‘normal’ match play, but the two year trial ended with the clubs opting to return to the old system. After a further twenty-five years or so, during which the organisers struggled to contain the matches within a comfortable timeframe, reason has once more prevailed and the Cranworth Trophy is now played for in recognisable foursomes and singles, to the great relief of many. Each round of the Trophy still constitutes a long day on the golf course, offering the players plenty of scope for fulfillment.
The desire to play the competition all the way through on neutral courses has also come and gone once or twice through the decades and is currently in force again.
There is generally more discussion about the Cranworth Trophy than all the other inter-club competitions, probably put together and regardless of the standard of golf at which they are played. Plainly, it continues to keep grass roots interest in the County golfing activities alive and well. That can only be good.
Julie Latimer-Jones
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