This year was in fact the ninth occasion the Championship has been played over the great links at Royal Birkdale and the first time since 1998.

The extremely difficult weather conditions due to the showers and very strong winds saw the standard scratch rise to 70 at Rive Rocks on Saturday.

I am delighted to report that our current club champion Dave Stafford shot an incredible nett 63 – gross 65 – beating his own club course record.

In this exceptional round of golf Dave hit all the fairways and didn’t veer into the rough or bunkers.

Dave was paired with the Australian Adam Scott from the Open whose closing round of 61 in the Qatar Masters has taken him to the top five of the world rankings. Scott also won the prestigious Players Championship in Florida in 2004. Adam Scott shot 74 in his second round at Royal Birkdale 74 + Stafford 63 = 137.

The runners’-up in our match on Saturday after a card play off were Todmorden’s very own handicap secretary John Whitham nett 72 and his partner from the Open Camilo Villegas 65 = 137. Hopefully Mr Whitham shouldn’t be too busy this week adjusting the handicaps … well certainly not at Royal Birkdale!

My oh my that man puts in a lot of work for Todmorden Golf Club, we can’t have him going over there.

Interestingly the rising young Colombian star only squeezed into this year’s Open because American Kenny Perry pulled out because he didn’t fancy playing links golf. One wonders what Mr Perry would have thought of conditions up at Rive Rocks on Saturday.

I would think Villegas would be rather pleased Perry pulled out as together with Adam Scott they picked up the prizes at Todmorden Golf Club.

Well, surely that has to be some consolation for not winning the Open! I should add we do have our very own replica claret jug and even a mini one for our runner up!

The “2’s” of the day were attained by John Hodson, Simon Hemmington,Terry Taylor and Russ Waring.

Halifax, Huddersfield and District Rabbit Golf Association League

In the league match against Meltham Golf Club at home Todmorden lost one match and won the other (lost by one/ won 3-2). Because Todmorden won the second match by a greater margin they pick up the bonus point and subsequently win the match against Meltham.

Todmorden are lying in joint second place in the league at the moment with three matches left to play. Two of these forthcoming matches are against the league leaders so I guess it’s going to be tough at the top boys.

Ladies BAPWAP

Would you believe so far this season the ladies have had flag competitions, waltzing competitions and this week we had wait for it … a BAPWAP competition.

Quite frankly I didn’t know what they were talking about!

“A BAP….. what”, I asked.

“A BAPWAP Kathryn” was the reply.

“Oh right”, I said, but still none the wiser. Obviously my reply wasn’t very convincing but then I did at least get and explanation.

“Its ...