A family argument that became a Livery fixture. Twenty-two teams, sixteen companies, one evening at Puttshack.

Most father-and-son business partnerships find somewhere to put the friction. Glyn and Chiles Cartwright found a putting green.

Glyn is a Marketor. Chiles is an Entrepreneur. They also run a business together, which means the boardroom disagreements and the family ones are, on a good day, the same disagreement. In 2023 they settled on a civilised outlet: an annual crazy golf match between the Worshipful Company of Marketors and the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs, played for a trophy with the family name on it. Inter-livery rivalry, if not quite intergenerational peace.

It didn’t stay a two-company affair for long. The Cartwright Cup has since grown into an all-comers Livery crazy golf challenge, and on Wednesday 21 October it returned to Puttshack at 1 Poultry with 22 teams from 16 Livery Companies. The City is spoilt for choice when it comes to indoor golf, but there’s something about a course with no respect for handicaps that brings out the competitive streak in otherwise dignified people.

The original contest first, because it’s the one with the family name on it. The Entrepreneurs beat the Marketors and hold the Cartwright Cup for a third year running. Glyn may want a word with Chiles about that.

Then the wider field. The Entrepreneurs 1 team won the team competition outright with 1,630 points, taking the overall title from the Insurers, last year’s winners, who finished sixth on 1,475. The Founders were second on 1,575 and the Furniture Makers 1 third on 1,554, with the Makers of Playing Cards and the Actuaries 1 completing the top five. Several places came down to a handful of points.

The individual prize went to Duncan Simms, Clerk to the Company, with 575 points. That’s 87 clear of AJ Shaman of the Founders, who took second on 488. Nobody has asked Duncan where he finds the time to practise. Nobody intends to.

Drinks and pizza carried on long after the last putt.

2027 will be the fifth Cartwright Cup, and if this year’s numbers are anything to go by, the room will be fuller still. Golf, full-size and miniature, turns up across the Livery calendar more often than you might expect. If you’d like to play, or put a team together for next year, contact Chiles Cartwright at chiles@ecoproof.com.