The largest gathering of 20 Tenby Rabbits (apparently a group is a ‘fluffle’!) in the last few years spent a very pleasant four hours or so on the course to battle for the Gwyn Tibbs Trophy and also try to make a final surge up the Winter League table to get their names engraved for future generations to marvel at when the Rabbit history is re-read in years to come, writes our links reporter, Warren Hacker.

As the Medal players found on Saturday (well played Ian J (Tom’s lessons again!) and Grant - nett 65 and 69s meaning handicap cuts) the fine, windless conditions meant a good score was possible (if you hit it in the right place and ‘things went for you’).

We welcomed another new Rabbit - Tony Ensom - who went off in the company of Gareth Davies in the first twoball, to be followed by six threeballs, which were arranged in reverse league table order, meaning the final group away were the top three, who all knew what they had to do, but the smart money would be on the leader holding his place - maybe!

The first threeball off contained Ian Williams, captain Paul and Phil C with a couple notching two four-pointers each, all scoring 30-plus and two (off new handicaps) scored 36 - their bests of the winter, with one getting 20 on the back nine - only three people managed that or better.

Next off were Bill B, Senior Eclectic winner Adrian and Rees and again a couple scored four pointers (three between them), two got matching halves in their 38 and 34 and one didn’t do much on the back nine to leave them with the lowest threeball total score.

Shaun, John B and Chris teed-off after them, with one getting the second best front nine of the day with his 23, before fading on the back nine, two got two four-pointers each, one got 20 on the back and one just managed over half his front nine on the backside.

The fifth group saw vice-captain Steve W alongside the two money-men, Wyndham and his back-up treasurer Mark, with a couple of them getting a four-pointer, one scoring matching 17s on each half and the other showing that his lessons from Tom also worked as he scored VERY well.

The penultimate group had secretary Peter accompanied by Ian J and defending champ Grant and this was the only group not to see a four-pointer, but all three nearly got into the 30s, with Grant managing one of the two blob-free cards of the day.

The final group saw Steve C with Eclectic leader Robin and Mike. Their front nine combined score was a huge 64 (which obviously emphasised their undoubted talents) and one was ahead of his target of 46 points on the front half, before hitting sand and losing his luck later on. Six four-pointers came from this group and their back nine total of 54 was also the best of the day and there was the other blob-less card - but had our leader held on to his 10-point lead?

The Gwyn Tibbs Trophy was won by Wyndham after his humongously large 45 points (and he didn’t score on the 15th!) and he got a handicap cut of 1.8 (plus a bit of money to soften the blow) down to 16, with Steve C the runner-up on 41 - to reduce his handicap down 0.6 to 15.

In third place was Robin after his 39 points and John B in fourth on countback (from fourothers - Bill, Mike, Grant and Shaun) with his 38.

Three twos were slotted to share the roll-over twos pot - Steve C on the sixth, John B’s tee-shot on the 17th rattled the pin before he potted his putt and Mark finished with a flourish by birdieing the 18th.

All in all, 15 Rabbits scored 31 or more - promising news for the upcoming Summer League.

There were 12 ‘improvers’ on the Eclectic, with Ian W up seven (his seventh card), Bill (also his seventh) up three, Gareth, Paul and Adrian up two, with up one from Rees, Shaun, John B, Wyndham, Mark, Steve C and Robin, which meant Tom ended up fourth on 62, John B third on back six, with Adrian just failing to complete a Seniors and Rabbit Eclectic double by losing out to winner Robin on back nine (33 to 31) after they both finished with 63 (the same as winner Grant last year!).

Climbers in the league’s final table were Phil up two to 17th, Bill up four to 14th, Shaun up one to 12th, John B up one to 10th and Wyndham up three to fifth, all of which confirms that Mike held on to his lead as his overall score went up to 309 (to equal Grant from last season), but his margin of victory was reduced slightly from 10 to seven as runner-up Robin just pipped Steve C on countback (Robin’s highest score was 43), with fourth-placed Grant five back on 297.

The winning name of Mike Williams will appear on the Winter League Shield alongside many illustrious Rabbit names (some there more than once!) of the past (recent and some more distant!), while at the other end of the scale, the name of captain Paul Crawford will be appearing on the Wooden Spoon for posterity (the rules state a minimum of eight cards are needed to ‘qualify’ for this honour), despite saving his best golf to the last day - in fact Ian W, John B, Steve C and - obviously - Wyndham had their best score on the day.

John Payne and Adrian were the only two of the total of 24 players not to get a ‘podium or booby’finish - with Peter being the only player to get all four! We had 13 different winners - Ian J won twice, Wyndham three times and our qinner Mike was Top Rabbit five times; there were 12 different runners-up- Ian J and Steve C (three times each) and Robin, Grant, Chris, Mark and Tom the other multiple ‘silvers’ (twice each); 11 bronze winners - Bill, Robin and Steve C (twice), Mike, Grant and Peter (three times), with Steve W being third four times. We also had 11 different ‘booby winners’, with Paul C doing it twice and Ian W and Rees doing it four times each.

There were 33 twos during the winter - 18 players managed at least one, with Grant, Ian J and John B doing it twice, Adrian three times, Mike and Steve C four times, but ‘King of the Twos’ was Mark, who managed it five times - and he was the only one to do it on all four par 3s (twice on the 17th!). The sixth was birdied nine times, the 12th four times, the 18th three times and the ‘easy’ 17th 17 times!

In total over the 20 weeks (we missed three due to the weather), there were 264 cards and we scored 8,369 points, plus 112 from our four ‘guest appearances’. The Rabbits shared £596 prize money, with the top five ‘earners’ being Ian J (5th), Mark (4th), Paul C (3rd), Steve C (2nd) and Mike top - by £1!

The final event of the winter is the Rabbit yellow box Medal next week where there will be a trophy for best gross (Joe S Williams Shield) and best nett (Duffy Cup), so there may be more handicap cuts reported in the paper next Friday - we shall see!