Monday was hot and humid as the Musketeers in their royal blue along with the Grenadiers in their Guards red shirts teed up for the first round of the Expatria Trophy. It was a close call and the results were 3 points each team.

Lunch was served — veal starter and free range chicken main — and the Captains announced the individual results along with the pairings for tomorrow's competition at Barbet.

So, round one and all square.

Sunday night was party night at Reg and Lucy's airparc home near Rabastens.
Their plane had been moved from the hangar to the runway and tables and chairs for 55 guests were arranged in rows. People brought their own 'covers'. There were candelabras, tea lights, table cloths and runners, place mats, an array of fine dining cutlery and crockery, cut glass and crystal. The winners of the best cover competition were James and Julie Hart who had a pirate theme complete with hats and swords. 

Drinks and a fine selection of canapés were served by Jackie's team of waitresses while Pierre the saxophonist regaled us with blues and jazz classics. All agreed the live music gave the event a special lift. The main meal was served as a buffet and tables went up in turn to  serve themselves with pork fillet in a creamy mustard and mushroom sauce, chicken kebabs served with a red pepper sauce, a superb roast potato salad, three bean salad and green salad. There was an ample amount for seconds and thirds for the hungriest before a regional speciality of apple croustade served with cream was brought to the tables by the waitresses.


As the sun went down so the breeze brought a freshness to proceedings. The two captains, Rob Jones and Mike Vickers announced the pairing for the Monday competition at Pallanne and there were many jingoistic rallying calls from the Grenadiers captain. Thanks were paid to Reg and Lucy for hosting, and to the food and drink team from Tillac. As people headed home to the backdrop of a firework display at nearby Rabastens we were all saying it had been the best Welcome Party ever.

Well, what a splendid day it was. The visibility was as clear as could be and on approaching Bagnères de Bigorre almost the entire chain of Pyrenees were in clear view. Eighteen Musketeers took to the closely mown fairways, but nobody beat their handicap. The greens were fast but on occasions a bit 'wobbly'. The rough was intense and particularly thick and lush very close to the greens. There was a huge advantage for those that could keep the ball on the short stuff. We all finished in good time and the banter on the sunny clubhouse terrace was it's usual banal, but nevertheless funny, standard.

As always the meal at Bagneres was really good — that, and the views are what keep us coming back.
The results are shown in full on the results page, but the top three were: 3rd with 32 points David Coles; 2nd on countback with 32 points Don Dawson and in first place the handicap secretary himself, Pete Giles, with 35 points.

We lunched on the terrace and Caption Rob presented a gift on behalf of the Musketeers of two bottles of Pellehaut's top red wine. There were several pleas to Roger to open it, but as the previous year's Decanter winner, Roy Sherwin, had followed the tradition of supplying wine for the Decanter, we had more than enough wine to go round.

Noud Janssen then made a special presentation to Roger. It was a mocked-up cover of a golf magazine showing a swarthy Roger Barton with a very professional follow-through and most of the cover lines referred to Roger. Everyone was in awe of Noud's creative skills and Pete Giles reminded us that Noud had done a similar 'special' for Pete's 60th birthday (see the Pictures page).

All in all it was a splendid day.

Sadly, when we returned home we received some tragic news from our dear friend Clive announcing the sudden death of his son. Our thoughts are with Clive and Jackie at such a difficult time. 

The first Friday in August saw the Musketeers take to the course in good numbers for the monthly strokeplay medal. The course was crowded by Pallanne standards mainly due to te number of visitors in the area for the Marciac Jazz festival as well as a visiting ladies competition.

There were 20 players including our one-time youngest Musketeer, Dominic Slaven, visiting from his new home in Scotland, and playing on one of his last opportunities before moving back to the UK, Keith Ridding. It was Keith who had the Champagne moment of the day when he holed his tee shot on the uphill par three 16th. In time honoured fashion he opened a bar tab and everyone helped him celebrate his achievement in liquid form.

But it was new member Steve Paterson who for the second month running came in with the best net score. Steve, who will not be living over here full time until his retirement later this year, managed to put his tee shot on the 7th into the lake, but scored a birdie with his second ball. He spurned the use of a driver and used a 4-iron for most tee shots and shot an impressive net 70 off his newly reduced handicap.

In second place was Mr Consistency himself, Greg Conley who, despite putting his opening tee shot out of bounds came in with a net 73. I had the dubious honour of playing alongside them both and estimate that my total number of putts for the round was equal to their two putting totals added together! At least I now know which part of my game needs the most attention.

The inaugural Musketeers Summer Matchplay competition was held in July this year. It was decided that we should try and complete the entire event between 26th June and 31st July — something we successfully achieved.


Sixteen players took part and the first round winners were Greg, Peter, Clive, Noud, John Rob, Mike and Phil. The second round saw Greg, Noud, Rob and Phil go through to the semi-finals. Greg and Phil won through and battled it out in atrocious weather conditions on Friday 31st July. At one point the match had to be suspended due to an overhead electric storm. After a coffee break the match resumed and at no point was either player more than one hole up. After 17 holes it was all square going down the 18th. This was one of only five holes where Phil did not receive a shot. Both players were on the fringes of the green for three, chipped on and had par putts. Phil's eight-footer lipped out — Greg's six-footer was sunk with aplomb to give him victory with the last putt of the match.


All agreed the format worked well and will be repeated next year.