W.W.G.S.
Portugal 2019
Though not an "officially sanctioned" Wearside Wanderers event, most of the players at our annual end of season trip are Society Members therefore I have added this new section to our website.
The 2019 trip is the seventeenth year of this event and the sixth I have played on. For this years trip we returned to the beautiful fishing town of Alvor, about 45 miles from Faro Airport. To spice things up a little the organiser John Ford changed the format bring an element of team play into the trip. He also changed the scoring system meaning each round winner or winners got 1 point, second 2 points, third 3 points and so on. The overall winner was the player with the lowest total score.
As last year we played the following courses -
Vale da Pinta - Played as three, 4 man teams with the Stableford scores combined. Pinta is a beautiful parkland course set on the outskirts of the town of Portimao.
Palmares - Played as six pairs matches with the better Stableford score on each hole counting. Our second visit to this scenic course, set on the outskirts of Lagos. The complex at Palmares comprises of 27 holes with three distinct 9 hole courses, the Praia, the Alvor and the Lagos. For this visit we played the Lagos 9 first, a tricky parkland course with views across the town of Lagos. For the back nine we played the Praia 9, a tough links style course set down on the costal strip by the sea.
Boavista - Once again we played as six pairs matches but with both Stableford scores combined. Boavista is is another parkland course and it is also Paul Marshall's "home" course.
Gramacho - Played as an individual Stableford competition. For me Gramacho is the pick of the courses played this year, a stunning parkland course located adjacent to Vale da Pinta on the outskirts of Portimao.
After four days of great golf the new format meant we needed a tiebreaker to provide a winner as two players finished on 10 points. Dave Sanders and Eddie Harrison tied with Eddie coming out ahead thanks to a better "back 9" score at Gramacho.
For a link to the score cards and full results in Excel format please click HERE
Last but certainly not least a big thank you from everyone involved must go to John Ford for once again organising another fantastic trip. Sadly the COVID19 Pandemic put paid to our November 2020 trip along with the trip to Turkey so let's look forward to next year, with a bit of luck.
