Almost 30 valiant FROGS turned up for the final event of the 2015 season: the KPMG FROGS Individuals played in memory of the late Ken Reid, one of the founding fathers of the Society.

And in the midst of this gathering, Jonny Hill went into battle with Simon Baker to decide who would be the SHRM 2015 Matchplay champion.

And it was hot! But, apart from the heat, conditions were ideal: little wind and the course in excellent condition having been softened just enough by the recent rain.

Botty, our starter, maintained the high standards set by the 2015 vintage through his excellent coordination of his assistant, the little Brunette helper, and delivered to us excellent bacon butties and some very healthy orange juice on the first tee. He then spent the next hour and a half putting up with a constant stream of FROGs comments on how he had managed to get that dent on his fine car — something that wasn’t there when he left his car in the car park earlier that morning.

Given that on this rare occasion, we were playing all 18 holes: LD and NtP were set on the second 9. A monstrous effort by Chris Juste secured him the ‘Top FROG’ award for the LD (showing the benefit of eating one’s greens) while Peter (no more pink shorts) Baxter showed us all what we should be doing on a Par 3 to win NtP and got the birdie to boot. Dave Winters thought he had the leary won on the 18th missing the eagle by 20cm until our beloved starter missed it by just 2cm.

The results were close with the FROGS actually showing that they can play this course well, especially in light of our interesting exchanges after the Ryder Cup. It should not be forgotten that most of our FROGGIE handicaps are considerably lower than our real club handicaps.

5th and 6th were tied on 32 points place respectively but on count back Jess Have had to settle for 6th, Will Heath for 5th, Andrew Paton shot 33 for 4th place on his own. Fred Sudret, on only his second outing, was 3rd with 34 points edged out of 2nd place by Peter Baxter on count back.

On 35 points, the winner and the 2015 KPMG FROGS Individual Champion is Nick Felfoldi.

The prize for best gross went to Alan Botfield, who managed to forget all the comments on his car and produce a solid round of 78 shots beating Craig and Nick who both shot 80!

We had two guests and our friendly Golfaholic interloper, Pat Hutchines with 33 points bested Chris Edwards.

Having lost out on the pink ball at the last CITCO event, Duncan Tippin on 19 points was definitely not going to be outdone this time especially as KPMG offer the prize as ‘Most honest golfer’, although he only won it on reverse count back from Graham Paul with Simon Baker, Stuart Rowlands and Colin Cameron also pushing Duncan close.

Many thanks to KPMG for its sponsorship and the generous prizes including golf balls offered to all those who did not win a prize.

And, let us not forget in the midst of all this, a tight battle was taking place to decide the 2015 SHRM Matchplay champion: and it ended on the 9th with Jonny ‘Bacon Butty’ Hill defeating Simon Baker on the final hole to win 1up. Congratulations to the champion and the runner-up! Our thanks to the sponsor, SHRM!

One last thing…

Only one gathering remains for 2015 and that is our Annual Dinner. Information on the date and venue will be sent out shortly.