There’s No Place Like Home?

  There’s no place like home? That’s not necessarily the case with the GAP Team Matches.

  When it comes to the annual inter-club competition, most competitors would subscribe to the mindset of keeping it close when on the road and wining it all when they’re at home.

  With week one in the books, the 2006 Team Match season has begun in the opposite direction with nearly half of the 312 visiting squads emerging victorious, a trend that has become somewhat commonplace over the last three years of this three-week quarrel.

  "The myth in golf that all you need to do is keep it close when you’re on the road hasn’t really come to fruition in the first round in recent years," said Mark Peterson, Executive Director of the Golf Association of Philadelphia. "Rather than just keeping it close, a good percentage of those visiting teams have consistently come out on top."

  Commonwealth National Golf Club’s Team Match Captain, John Robinson of North Wales, said he tries to field a team of mostly tournament-tested players and most of them as the visiting team.

  "The goal is to create an equal opportunity to win at home as well as on the road," Robinson explained. "A player who’s a three handicap overall will usually play at or lower than their handicap at home and higher away. When you play at home, you are more comfortable and confident in every shot."

  The past three years have seen at least 36 percent of the visiting teams winning in week one. The 2004 and 2005 seasons had 113 and 110 wining visiting teams respectively, while this past Sunday, 129 of the 312 visiting teams laid claim to victory.

  Although there is no one thing that can explain this trend in the GAP Team Match play, it can be safe to assume that while there still is no place like home, visiting may not be as bad as some say it is.