Yesterday’s dramatic conclusion to the 2015 Owen McMicking Plate proved that the old adage “It ain’t over till it’s over” is still as relevant today as it was when it was coined many years ago.

This event, which is for the best 5 out of 8 Monthly Medal scores from March to October has a habit of throwing up the unexpected, and this year was no exception. Going into yesterday’s final round of the event Tom Sorrell held a 4 shot lead over Doug Clemann, a 5 shot lead over Peter Hartigan, and a 6 shot lead over Glenn Marsham, Geoff McDonald, and Jon Smith. Nick Lafferty was next, but a massive 10 shots behind Tom.

In the final round yesterday, none of the leading three players, Tom, Doug or Peter improved on their high scores of 77, 75, and 78 respectively, leaving the door open for some other contenders. Not only did they see the door open, but they barged through! Geoff McDonald’s 70 improved on his high score of 75 by 5 shots to fall just 1 shot short of Tom’s 358. Jon Smith, by virtue of a 70 improved his score by 6 to draw level with Tom, while Nick Lafferty, with a brilliant 69 improved his best 5 round tally by an amazing 10 shots to also draw level with Tom!

This left the leaderboard at the completion of the competition as follows:

So, at the completion of the event we had 3 players – Nick Lafferty, Jon Smith and Tom Sorrell- finish with the same best 5 round total of 358. Only two years ago we had a 4-way tie in this event after which the Men’s Golf Committee resolved that in future years there would be only a single winner. They determined that in the event of 2 or more players finishing with the same best 5 round total the event would be decided by count back. The count back procedure agreed upon was that the players 5^th card of the best 5 to qualify would be used, then the 4^th, 3^rd etc until we had a winner. The respective 5^th card to qualify scores for Nick, Jon and Tom were 69, 70 and 70, so by virtue of his better 5^th card to qualify Nick Lafferty is the winner of the 2015 Owen McMicking Plate. Congratulations Nick!!!