Now home in the quiet hamlet of Chalfont St Peter. It gives me time to reflect on a frustrating week at the European Boys Team Championship at De Pan Golf Club in Utrecht. We left with one of the strongest teams we have fielded for several years and were confident we could do well, even win the tournament.
Our play got off to a very good start with an excellent performance in the stroke play with Denmark four shorts behind us and Sweden a further seven shots behind them. Germany had been the final qualifiers in the top flight after a birdie on the eighteenth on Wednesday evening edging out France by one stoke.
However, beating Germany by a comprehensive margin of 23 strokes does not mean anything when it came to match play. I told the team they would come quickly out of traps and would be fighting for every point. As we are all aware, it was not to be for England on Thursday and on a flat day we fell at the first hurdle. Knowing we had the strongest team was the frustrating aspect of Thursday’s defeat.
We now needed to regroup, pick ourselves up and show how good we were. Belgium were our next opponents. We certainly played better on Friday, still not to our potential, but good enough to show how good England are. The thing about playing Sweden on Friday was that they were arguably the second strongest team after us in the tournament and had been surprisingly beaten by Spain in the quarterfinal. This potentially would have made a great final. The current European Champions against England. However, we were both playing for fifth and sixth place. Not at all that Ola Lindgren the Swedish Captain and I had envisaged when we had arrived in Holland some seven days before. Now was the time for our great team to play to their potential and show the rest of Europe how good we really are.
England delivered magnificently and showed their full potential. Adam Carson who has wonderful short game and Jonathan Bell who has a very strong long game seemed to be an ideal pair to lead us off in the foursomes. Some great driving by Jonathan and superb putting by Adam saw us home by 3/2.
We then saw Eddie Pepperell, the master tactician when it comes to match play. He displayed just how to bury an opponent by beating Magnus Bruhn 6/4.
Next on the course was Tom Lewis, who had nervously fallen behind by three holes after eleven. However, as we know Tom is an extremely talented player and showed a real determined spirit by wining 2/1 over Robert Kokicinski.
Max Smith had arguably the hardest match against Niclas Carlsson, a very experienced and Sweden’s number one player. Max showed what a great International player he has become with three stunning birdies over the last three holes to win 2 up.
This left Chris Lloyd who played some scintillating golf, reminiscent of the previous week at Nizels, covering the first fourteen holes in six under par to beat Joakim Lagergren 5/4.
I am still at odds to explain how we did not beat Germany. Most of the officials and other Captains said, “You are the best team here”. The facts are that we were not and Denmark were crowned worthy winners and our congratulations to Captain Leif Kjeldsen and his team for a great all round performance. We wish them well in the World Boys Team Championship in Japan next year.
My thanks go to Stephen Burnett, Assistant director of coaching who kept everybody informed at home with his very professional video clips of play during the week. His commentary was brilliant and we now have our very own Ewen Murray in our midst!
