Orsett provided the setting for the first stage of this season's opening County event, the invitation Keating Trophy, where golfers were bidding for a top-16 place after two strokeplay rounds.
This saw them through to the matchplay part of the competition, which goes ahead, also at Orsett, this Saturday and Sunday.
There were 72 starters and the host club's hospitality was welcoming and generous. The course provided a formidable challenge with only five of the 144 rounds played equalling or bettering par.
Orsett's own Steve McAnally produced the best round of 68, four under par, to claim second place on 144 after an opening 76.
Leading the way, with rounds of 72 and 71, was Channel's Craig Housden.
Other locals to make it were Thorpe Hall's Jonathan Neal, who finished eighth with rounds of 74 and 75 for 149. Boyce Hill's Mark Stones was ninth with 76 and 74 for 150.
One particularly hard luck story concerned last year's overall Keating Trophy winner, David Peters of Thorpe Hall.
He came 17th with 152, being squeezed out on countback by Orsett's Mark Whitten and Darren Pegram, of Canons Brook, after both finished on the same total.
Published Thursday, April 10, 2003
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