"Cambridge romp home"

This year's Spring Golf Match took place in balmy Spring weather at the Taiheiyo Club, Gotemba Course, on Saturday, 16th March 2002, and was kindly organised by Guy Heald (Queens', Cambridge). The Cambridge's best four beat Oxford's by 30 (net) strokes thus bringing the abridged (records prior to 1989 are not available) history of the Varsity match to Cambridge 9, Oxford 10.

The Taiheiyo' Gotemba Course is one of the best golf courses in Japan and is well known for the Taiheiyo-SMBC-Visa Masters Tournament in which top world pros such as Mr Tiger Woods compete for big prize money. Fortunately we were not under such pressure and our 13 participants, including 2 guests from the Cambridge side, thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful landscape with Mt Fuji in the background throughout the 18 holes (regular tee: 6,818 yards with a 69.7 course rate). The fairways are wide and long but the course is strategically designed with several lakes and guard bunkers. The greens were subtle and fast with the majestic Mt Fuji ever present.

Mrs Ohtawa conquered the tricky greens and the rest of the field to come in as the winner on net scores. Peter Y. Sato (St Catherine's, Oxford) was justifiably delighted to return a two digit gross score, while none of the rest of the field broke 100. Very sad indeed. However, Sir Stephen Gomersall (Queens', Cambridge) must have been very happy with his golf on the day. In spite of the relatively high course rating, his score was second only to that of the winner and apparently was his best achievement ever realised (gross: 103) since he picked up a golf club for the first time three years ago. Unfortunately, many of us missed his fine congratulatory speech since, all of a sudden, most participants had to dash to the Club bus to catch the train back to Tokyo.

Participants were as follows: Sir Stephen Gomersall (Queens', Cambridge), Peter Y. Sato (St Catherine's, Oxford), Yoshi Shimizu (Worcester, Oxford), James Lawden (New, Oxford), Toshi Ohtawa (Addenbrooke's, Cambridge), Taka Hashimoto (Gonville & Caius, Cambridge), Tomo Imai (St Antony's, Oxford), Terry Nakamura (Worcester Oxford), John Sunley (Pembroke, Cambridge), Yasuzo Takeno (Worcester, Oxford), Guy Heald (Queens, Cambridge), Yoshi Ishikawa (Guest-C) and Mrs Hiroko Ohtawa (Guest-C).

2002 Summer Golf tournament will take place at the Hodogaya C.C. on Saturday, 6 July (Tee-off: 08:17).

(TN, edited by John Sunley and Guy Heald)