The annual match between the RAF Development Team and the Army, supported by valued sponsor PriDE, was again held at the exceptionally well prepared Studley Wood GC in Oxfordshire on 25 Jul 11. A relatively young and inexperienced RAF team was keen to test their skills against a very strong and experienced Army side, which potentially included 5 members of this year’s Army Inter-Services team. As glorious conditions prevailed throughout the day, scoring was expected to reflect the excellent conditions; early exchanges in the morning’s 4-Ball Better-Ball suggested that pairings would need copious amounts of birdies and in some cases eagles to win holes and therefore their match. The Army fielded 3 strong pairings at the helm and they didn’t disappoint as they produced some fine golf to overcome the RAF pairings of Nat Simpson/Brian Molloy, Jase Parr/Ian Robinson, Alex Stones/Adam Thornhill. However, fine performances and victories from Mark Rushforth/Aaron Ashberry and Dave Pretorius/Danny Dickson ensured that there was only one point separating the teams going into the afternoon singles. The Army sent their Inter-Services players out first and despite some battling performances from Nat Simpson, Brian Molloy, Ian Robinson and Alex Stones they just couldn’t match the quality of their opponents. However, comprehensive wins for Adam Thornhill, Aaron Ashberry and Mark Rushforth, together with a win down the 18^th by Jase Parr made the match score 7-6 to the Army with the final 2-matches still on the course. Unfortunately Dave Pretorius and Danny Dickson couldn’t emulate their victory from the morning and finally succumbed to some excellent golf by their opponents. In the end a narrow 9-6 defeat (see full results) to an exceptionally strong Army team was a moral victory for the RAF Development side; especially when you consider that the RAF team had no past or current Inter-Services players in their ranks. Particularly pleasing was the performance of the debutants, which coupled with the performance of regular members of the RAF Squad, reflects well on the current strength in depth of RAF golf and suggests that all is well for future Inter-Services.

Thanks must go to Colin Yates for the smooth running of the day, and to Cass Singleton for hosting the event's generous sponsors, PriDE, in the guise of Richard Thornley, PriDE's Head of Business Planning. As well as sponsorship for the event, PriDE very generously provided a Scotty Cameron putter to the lucky holder of the winning raffle ticket, which on this occasion was held by one of the Army team.

Words: RAF A Team captain, Jase Parr