The third outing of the East Kent Masonic golfing season took us to Redlibbets golf club near Sevenoaks in late April to do battle with our friends from West Kent and challenge for the Kent Silver Salver which was presented by Bro Richard Lukes in association with WBro C.J. Smith & Bro P A Kelly.  The competition dates to 1991 and was being contested for the 27th time having been resurrected and won East Kent in 2023.

West Kent hosted the event and selected the venue which saw 34 masonic golfers take to the fairways in a battle of West V East.    Unusually, East Kent were at a numerical disadvantage with West Kent managed to field 19 players to East Kent’s 15.    To keep everyone involved, the format would be a Stableford competition with the winner of the Kent Salver being decided by the total points scored by the top 12 players from each side.

Sports, and especially Golf, like Freemasonry, teaches us the value of integrity, respect, and fellowship, especially when addressing the ball from that tricky lie.

As the scores trickled in, the writing was on the wall for East Kent with as Bipin Patel, Paul Noutch and Andy Humber from the West Kent team came in with scores of 35, 36 & 33 points. Fortunately for East Kent, it was a marathon and not a sprint as Paul Ames, Adam Lawrence & Ashley Lawrence came in with 39, 37 & 36 points respectively.

Realising it was now a close contest, the secretaries huddled together to look at their top 12 scorers and assemble the totals.

In the end, it was a relieved victory for East Kent who retained the trophy.  The top 12 from East Kent scoring 373 points to the top 12 from West Kent scoring 339.    The main difference was that the worst qualifying score from East Kent was 27 points and West Kent had 6 players who scored less than 27 points.

After a hearty meal of steak and ale pie, West Kent Captain Peter Richards then presented the individual prizes.  As 3 players from each team were in the top 6, it was decided to have a 1st, 2nd & 3rd from each province.     There were also awards for nearest the pins on the par 3’s and the longest drive on the 16th hole.

Lastly, the victorious, East Kent Captain Chris Metherell thanked Bipin patel and captain Peter for organising such a superb event and presented the captain with a souvenir East Kent masonic golf towel as a memento of the day.

For the Full Results Click here