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A band of Awali Golf Club representatives ventured beyond the safe shores of their home course last weekend, heading to Abu Dhabi for the sixth instalment of the annual inter-club match play against Al Ghazal Golf Club to compete for the Hindmarsh Trophy.
The windy weekend proved eventful and in terms of the result, AGGC gave the AGC visitors a total pasting, achieving a home victory to the tune of nine games to zero. Historically, the 2010/11 season saw the first occasion of a match-play competition between AGC and Al Ghazal, hosted by Awali in January 2011.
For this first match, Keith Hindmarsh was a member of the AGC team and donated a trophy for the event, the Falcon Head Trophy. However, during the 2011/12 season, he died suddenly following a short illness.
The next occasion of the match was held in January 2013, hosted in Abu Dhabi. Just prior to this, the AGC Committee decided to honour Keith’s memory, with the renaming of the Falcon Head Trophy to the Hindmarsh Trophy.
Last year Al Ghazal had the audacity of winning the event on away turf, the first time a home side had lost. So AGC had dented pride to recover from in this 2017 rematch, and the respect of those members not playing in the event to be regained.
To better their chances, AGC thought, the biggest ever contingent made the trek, 18 players in all. But it was not to be. For the visitors, noteworthy attempts to salvage the day were made by partners Nicki and Dave Bailey, and Phil Trueblood and Liz Kaila, as they managed to hold their own to the very end, losing on the last hole. The other seven matches were, ahem, not quite so close.
