1st Team Tees off New Season away at BB&O.

New Season with Debutants and Legends returning

Men’s First Team Report

BB&O v Middlesex

Frilford Heath, 11^th May 2025

The first fixture of the season saw Middlesex take on BB&O on the Blue Course at Frilford Heath.  The Blue is the newest course at Frilford Heath but it’s maturing nicely and is already regarded as the club’s best by many members.  The weather was perfect, and the course was well presented.

The fixture saw a full debuts for Brett Harris and Thomas Randall both from Ashford Manor with Thomas also representing Middlesex U18’s last season and this season.  In contrast, Justin Phelps of Northwood started his 34^th season representing Middlesex and fresh from his victory at the Middlesex Legends match, Gary Clark of Pinner Hill, both bringing huge amounts of experience to the team. 

Dan Parsons, Niall Keogh of Sudbury and Andre Bothma of Northwood continued their county journey from last year and all led by Will Orridge of Enfield, the current Middlesex Men’s captain.

The foursomes kicked off in a cool crisp Oxfordshire morning with Justin & Dan taking the lead, followed by Niall & Will, Thomas & Brett and closed out by Andre & Gary.  The first two games were nip and tuck all the way round with never more than 2 holes between both teams.  Justin & Dan walked off the 18^th green with a well-deserved half with Will and Niall walking off the 18^th green securing Middlesex’s first win of the season.  Unfortunately, in the next two matches, the home team managed to capitalise early which led to the Middlesex pairs chasing holes for most of the match which saw BB&O secure victory. 

2.5 to 1.5 at lunch and all to play for in the afternoon singles session.

Gary was first out in the singles and secured a well contested half on the 18^th hole.  Justin continued on from the morning by securing a victory on the 17^th hole.  Dan was narrowly beaten on the 18^th following an excellent up and down from Lee Perkins of BB&O to close out the game.  Thomas bounced back from the defeat in the morning match to secure another Middlesex victory on the 18^th hole. 

So, after four singles matches, it was all square at Middlesex 4 -BB&O 4.

Niall was next out but couldn’t follow up on his foursome’s victory suffering defeat on the 16^th hole.  Will on the other hand continued his winning form by securing victory on the 16^th hole. 

Middlesex 5 – BB&O 5.

Brett & Andre completed the singles but in a carbon copy of the morning foursomes, Carl Banner & Rory Brown from BB&O took early leads in both fixtures which Middlesex were unable to recover from. 

After a closely contested match that could have gone either way,

BB&O secured a 7matches to 5 victory. 

The match was played in great spirt and Middlesex can take a lot of positives from the performance into the next match v’s Hertfordshire at Brookmans Park Golf Club on the 25^{th of} May. 

The players did themselves, their clubs and their county proud. 

Full Scorecard :