It was a cracking match between the Baltic Exchange and the Cardiff Exchange. The venue for this year was a new one, de Vere Wokefield Estate, which had a testing golf course with an excellent hotel in the grounds. 

A new format was trialled this year, which proved to be successful. Instead of playing 36 holes on Saturday, the match commenced early afternoon on Friday with 18 holes of foursomes match-play and a further 18 holes of singles were played on Saturday. As usual on the Sunday there was 18 holes of greensomes with a Baltic player partnering a Cardiff player, which was drawn live during the Saturday dinner.

Click here to view the full galllery of images from the BEGS vs Cardiff Exchange match.

Due to a shortage of numbers Friday’s foursomes started with a 2 ball of Nigel Whaler versus Will Thomas, who perhaps is capable of launching shots the furthest distance but not necessarily on the fairway. Towards the end Will was 4 up with 5 to play. Nigel turned on the style and snatched a gentleman’s half. The next match was a 3 ball because of gearbox problems in Bristol leading to the withdrawal of Gareth Lloyd. Jeremy Brewer & Simon Smollett took on Mattie Pathmanathan and in a back & forth match it too ended in a half. Skipper Trevor Marsh partnering Malcolm Walker managed to beat the Fairweather pair of Stumpy & Paul, nudging Baltic ahead overall 2-1. The two Marks of Ravenscroft & Rowe also beat their opposition of John Pryce & temporary Cardiff man Kevin Robins, so the Baltic were now 3-1 ahead. Simon Cox & Graeme Cooper had a good match versus the Sanders pair of skipper James and regular player Scottie, with Cardiff edging this won to peg the score back to 3-2. The final match was President Gemmell & John Simister versus Robert Atkin and another Baltic loanee of James Pendered, with Cardiff winning this match to level the score. Thus the Baltic retained the Jubilee Bowl.

It had been a long round for everyone and there was not much time to freshen up for dinner and some well earned beverages together with some pool challenges.

Suitably rested and after a good breakfast the Saturday singles were played in 4 balls with the traditional captain’s duel in the first group together with President Robert versus Kevin who again was loaned to Cardiff. A strong start by Cardiff saw them win the Captain’s match, thereby securing the Douglas Smith Cup and Cardiff won on the 18th in the other match. Overall, Cardiff were now 5-3 up. Mark Ravs was playing Scottie and Jeremy was taking on the long hitting Will in match 2. Scottie won his match with the other being halved, Cardiff were now 3 points in the lead. Baltic needed to get more points and Malcolm Walker did just that by edging past Robert Atkin in a close match and Graeme Cooper played very well to beat Paul Fairweather, the deficit was reduced to 1 point. Next up was John Simister who was beaten by John Pryce, but Simon Cox played consistently to overcome Hon Sec Stumpy, Baltic now had 6 1/2 points just 1 behind Cardiff. In the final 4 ball Hon Sec James Pendered was thrashed by Rich Williams, another player capable of prodigious drives, which meant the final singles was a dead rubber, however Nigel Whaler fell to James Egan. The final singles score was a win for Cardiff 6 1/2 to 3 1/2 and an overall victory for the Erlebach Cup by 9 1/2 to 6 1/2 for Cardiff.

During the Saturday dinner, there was the traditional live draw for partners in the Sunday greensomes. Each captain drew a player from the opposing team to play together over the final 18 holes this time playing stableford. We only has seven pairs playing the final round and this year the scoring did not hit the heady heights of 2023 when the winners amassed 42 points around Royal Porthcawl. The competition was just as intense, with four of the pairings scoring in the 30’s. In third place was Graeme Cooper & Rich Willliams on 31 points. Runner’s up and recipients of the silver tankard were Jeremy Brewer & Temporary CEGGER Simon Cox with 34 points. But the winners of the Claret Jug were Nigel Whaler & James Sanders who scored a creditable 36 points.

Congratulations to the Cardiff Exchange on out-playing the Baltic, at least with Baltic halving the foursomes and retaining the Jubilee Bowl it was not a complete whitewash.

Next year’s match will be the 100th meeting of the two societies! Very appropriately the venue will be Royal Porthcawl Golf Club and it will take place over Friday 16 May-Sunday 18 May 2025.