Welcome to the 25th playing of the Wedge Trophy! Who would have thought, 13 years ago that from such a humble gathering of mates, one of the most highly anticipated golfing fixtures on the calendar would be born. Complete with commemorative ties, logod golf balls, team jumpers and a speech by the Deal club captain. Heck, even the food was good!
So as the teams met in the bar that fateful morning at Royal Cinque Ports, wading through the smugness of our own collective accomplishment – the home team had a score to settle.
The only misstep by the home club in the morning was neglecting to lay out the red carpet on the stairs for the highlight reel of talent ascending them. Roberts, Biggs, Gates, Earley, need I go on? These are not just men, they are part of Wedge mythology, their stories will be heard for a thousand years (or an absolute minimum of 2-3 years).
Team Deal
Front Row L to R – Patrick Glynn, Samuel Mason (ATTDC), Michael Hedges (Captain of Team Deal), Jake Spearpoint, James Flashman – Fox
Back Row L to R – Thomas Biggs, Chris Wood, Tommy Farrell, Alex Cork, George Donoghue, Oliver Daws, Duncan Pike, James Earley
Team Walton
Front Row L to R – Sam Smitherman, Andrew Berryman (WH WT VC), Charlie Waud (Captain of Team Walton), David Payne, Peter Roberts
Back Row L to R – Nicholas Russell, John Carroll, Mark Shaw, Nic Gates, Finlay Hutchinson, Stephen Tillie, Matthew Webster
Once the gladiators had assembled, it was time for the rather fun, elaborate activity of picking the pairings for the morning. The ping pong balls of destiny provided us with some cracking pairings, before being precariously balanced upon some tees suspended in some astroturf (would have been real grass at a proper golf club). With the groups decided, it was time to hit the links:
- Williams and Hedges (RCP) beat Carroll and Smitherman (WH) 2&1
- Gates and Shaw (WH) beat Cork and Dawes (RCP) 1up
- Farrell and Wood (RCP) beat Roberts and Webster (WH) 3&2
- Earley and Pike (RCP) beat Tillie and CYW (WH) 5/4
- Donoghue and Biggs (RCP) beat Hutchinson and Stevens (WH) 1up
- Spearpoint and Flashman Fox (RCP) bt Payne and Berryman (WH) 6&5
- Waud and Russell (WH) beat Mason and Glynn (RCP) 1up
For those who struggle with basic arithmetic, as many of the home side do, all this added up to Deal taking a commanding 5-2 lead going into lunch.
After some posh-looking, delicious fish and a few pints of Guinness to make up for the calorie deficit, we were back out there for the deciding matches. The clubhouse was abuzz with questions. Could Deal hang on to their lead? Would a famous Michael Hedges speech inspire his side to victory? Which side is Michael Hedges on again? Could we get back to the clubhouse in time for the rugby? Where was the pudding?
Despite Walton Heath heroically clipping the afternoon session 4-3, it didn’t prove enough to overcome the massive lunchtime deficit and Royal Cinque Ports won the day, having the great honour of winning the 25th Wedge Trophy.
And so it was time for a new tradition, the LVP is selected by the losing captain to present the winning side with their victory juice (in this instance, some delightful Waud Wines English Sparkling with a characteristically healthy margin applied). Naturally, picking the LVP from such an elite group of stars is no easy task, however the committee put their heads together and were inspired by some old Buddhist wisdom – “When in doubt, it’s probably DP”. Somewhat unnecessary as in hindsight there really was very little doubt.
A stoic, gracious DP loaded up our new Wedge tray (Wedge Tray-phy…anyone? No? Fair enough) and made sure the winning team was well watered, in one of the classiest moments of the day, he even walked around the Aisher Room offering free refills to the thirsty crowd (Aside – we seem to have created an unusual tradition where the losing side gets to lift the trophy first. Just another notch on the bedpost of legacy I suppose.)
A thoroughly enjoyable dinner ensued, followed by some charming speeches, poetry and some classic preserves-based humour. The local taxi drivers refused to take us into town (too good looking / expensive to insure, presumably), which made for a razor-nippled walk to a nautically themed pub. The pub did its job in separating the wheat from the chaff (it turns out Thomas Biggs is 100% chaff). That left only the finest kernels to continue on, it turns out some nameless members of the party were even quite good at grinding!
A new day dawned on Sunday morning, some fragile looking gents emerged from various crevices throughout the seaside town. A plethora of facial expressions perfectly summarised the range of raw emotion on display; from the desperate, broken, exasperated faces of the losing Walton team, to the desperate, broken, exasperated faces of the winners.
So as your humble correspondent staggered out of his car having only made it 15 minutes down the road to the Dover McDonalds, he reflected quietly in the accessible bathroom – what a brutally fitting celebration of everyone’s favourite fixture in the calendar.
Here’s to the next 25 Wedges. I, for one, can’t wait!
Andrew Berryman
WH WT VC
