Andy DevaneyEngland regained the Senior Women’s & Men’s Home Internationals at Royal St David’s, with the women closing early and the men rescuing a dramatic final day in the singles.
By the time England’s senior men headed into the afternoon singles against Ireland, they had turned a promising final day into something altogether less comfortable. They had lost every morning foursomes match and now needed to win five of the six singles to take the match.
So they did.
England’s 10.5–7.5 victory over Ireland completed an unbeaten week at Royal St David’s Golf Club and secured the Senior Women’s & Men’s Home Internationals, with both the Senior Men and Senior Women also winning their respective events.
Three matches, three wins, and rather more drama than the final margins suggest.
England’s men rescue the final day
There are easier ways to win a team match than losing every morning foursomes tie. England’s men chose not to explore them.
With five singles victories required, the afternoon became the decisive passage of the week. Matthew Stanford and Martin Young had already been two of England’s most dependable players, and both completed perfect records in the singles, winning all three of their matches across the event.
Stanford finished with four points from five matches overall. Young collected four from six. Their singles records mattered most when the arithmetic became unforgiving.
England Golf Senior Women’s Captain Janet Melville described the final day rather neatly: “It was like a helter skelter on the course on the final day!”
The women, by contrast, had done much of their damage earlier. They won all three morning foursomes against Ireland and then added two early afternoon points to secure their event, leaving the men to provide the late theatre.
Elaine Ratcliffe delivers five from five
If the men supplied the comeback, Elaine Ratcliffe supplied the cleanest individual record of the week.
Five matches. Five points.
Kerry Smith was almost as productive, taking five points from six, while she and Tracey Williamson won all three of their foursomes matches together. Julia Brook also won all three foursomes matches she played.
Sally Shayler went unbeaten across four matches, collecting three points. Her half-point on the final day was particularly useful: she won the final two holes of her match to secure the halve.
That sort of contribution does not arrive with much fuss attached to it, but team golf is often decided by exactly those stubborn little scraps of scoreboard territory.
An ace on 18 — and only half the match
The week’s most spectacular single moment belonged to Sophie Beardsall.
Playing foursomes with Anne Wheble on Tuesday, Beardsall made a hole-in-one on the par-3 18th to halve their match.
Golf can be an absurd game. Make an ace on the final hole and, in this case, the reward was half a point.
Still, there are worse ways to avoid defeat.
It also gave England’s week a moment beyond the tables and totals: the sort of shot that survives after the scorelines have started to blur.
Three wins leave no loose ends
England began by beating Scotland 11.5–6.5, followed with a 12–6 victory over Wales, then closed against Ireland with the 10.5–7.5 win that completed the job.
That final match carried most of the tension, but the broader picture was straightforward. England beat all three opponents and took the men’s and women’s events as well.
Melville added: “There was fantastic team spirit and fabulous golf – it was a wonderful team effort.”
At Royal St David’s, England had plenty of both. They also had an ace, a five-from-five star and a men’s side that discovered, rather late in the day, that losing every morning foursomes match did not necessarily have to ruin the afternoon.
