The revived Baltic Exchange Golfing Society versus the Japanese match took place on Tuesday 4 July at the Seve Ballesteros designed Shire London in Barnet.  James Pendered reports.

Front row from left: Alfred Casset (MOL), Hase san (Marubeni), Tsuneto san (Iino Lines), Freeland san (AM Nomikos), Mark Jackson (BEGS), Nakabayashi san (Triton Navigation BV), John Madden (BEGS) Back row from left: Guy Bartleet (BEGS), Henry Smith (MOL), Adam Goodman (BEGS), Nick Meer (BEGS), Glyn Jones (NSS), Seki san (NSS), Tim Walsham (BEGS), M Ravenscroft (BEGS).

On a day of brilliant sunshine, there were also some moments of brilliance on the course. Playing a gentle nine holes in the morning, each team won two matches thereby going to the lunch break tied at 2-2.

A full 18 holes were then played on a cloudless day with the greens remaining very tricky both for the approach shots and putting. Mark Jackson & Guy Bartleet won their match, edging the Baltic ahead by a point.

The next match went to the 18th with the Baltic one hole down and John Madden managed to hole a lengthy putt to win the hole, thereby rescuing a half point.

In the third match due to two consecutive birdies, the Baltic needed to win the final two holes just to half the match, which proved to be too much of a task as the MOL pairing of Alfred Casset and Henry Smith won 2&1.

With the match tied again at 3½, it was all down to the final match of Tim Walsham & Nick Meer playing Nakabayashi san and Freeland san with the latter pulling it out of the bag and sealing a victory for the Japanese and thereby winning the match by a point 4½ to 3½.

A really enjoyable day with the match played in a very friendly spirit, hopefully this will become a permanent fixture on the Baltic golfing calendar.