Hemishpere Cup

THE HEMISPHERE CUP
Founded 2000

7th Hemisphere Cup - Saunton, England

May 18^th/19^th, 2006

SOUTH DOMINATE IN THE WIND AND RAIN

Having not been played in England since the first event in 2000, the 2006 Hemisphere Cup was organised for Saunton in Devon. This was by far the most southerly venue yet for the Hemisphere Cup and we all anticipated and looked forward to some 'fun in the sun' in May. How wrong can you get!

But before we get to the event, I must also write to encourage people not to try and move house and play in the Hemisphere Cup in the same week. Given the Hemisphere Cup was in the diary first I explained to my wife that it could not be moved and we should try and work around this. Needless to say they ended up in the same week and I needed to spend some 100+ brownie points to get a pass to attend the golf. Come the week, leaving a wife at home with three kids and three hundred boxes was not ideal and though I may have been at Saunton in person, my mind was probably not with me.

The British are famous for talking about the weather. However, during the first round of this years Hemisphere Cup nobody was heard talking about the weather at all. Why? Because the gale force winds made conversation impossible between players unless they were standing about 6 inches apart.

It may have been great for Surfing at Saunton, but it was shocking for a mid-handicapper with a slightly dodgy high fade as his stock shot. My swing was last seen heading eastwards and has yet to return. Julian was able to nearly catch one of his drives as it was returned with interest by the wind.

Even the fox that followed many of us around for a few holes looked pissed off with the weather.

It was clear that the Southern team handled the conditions much better, and Hugh positively bloomed during the first round destroying Graham and Barry in the process.

One other down side of the weather was that individuals were forced to wear so much clothing this year that this years Trinny & Sussana stylists could not show off how much better they had been in picking this years tops.

Previous years had seen Sarge in charge of tops but he had been sacked as kit man back in 2005 for supplying the Southern team with shirts that would not have looked good on a goat (Southern Team Shirts from 2005). Hugh and Dave took charge of the situation and worked closely with the Saunton pro-shop to get some tops that one might at least wear again. I feel they may be asked to keep up the good work in 2007.

Not much is actually known about the golf that took place over the two days as everyone was struggling so hard with the elements. I am sure that some good golf was played as the result in the end was a complete hammering of the North by the South, with the South winning every set of matches and winning by a record margin.

INTERESTING FACT ALERT - In a near exact repeat of the opening fourballs at Dornoch, the South play far better than the North and end up taking the opening matches 3.5 to 1.5. What is strikingly similar is that again only Mike and Ollie make any headway for the North with a win, whilst again Dave Burns grabs a half point. Maybe we should cancel next years opening round and write the winners and scores up now!

The North fail to bounce back and slide even deeper into trouble by losing the second set of matches 4.0 to 1.0 creating a five point gap before the singles have even started.

The South complete their victory by also winning the singles 5.5 to 4.5. The North saw wins from Mike, Ollie, Charlie & Rob whilst the South saw wins from Dave, Greg, Tony, Paul C and Darren.