Back-to-back 3-2 losses for Bathurst – their latest coming against Forbes on Sunday – has taken them out of the running for the title.

It was a nasty case of deja vu for the Bathurst team who went down to Forbes at the Cowra Golf Club with the exact same scoreline as last year.

The latest loss leaves Bathurst on 0.6 points and too far away to catch Forbes (2.7) and Cowra (2.6) with just one pool match remaining.

Despite playing a fantastic standard of golf the Bathurst team were outclassed by a Forbes team who were also finding the greens with ease.

Scott Matheson defeated Pete Nixon 3 and 1 while Ben Mackey found Bathurst’s other win with a 3 and 1 success against Andrew Dukes.

Forbes number one Scott Betland shot four under par to see off Ben Cummings to the score of 2 up.

Daniel Bayley (2 and 1) was too good for Darryn Bruce and Mark Collits (5 and 4) had a strong win against Julian Curran.

Bruce was floored by the high standard of golf on the Cowra course and believed his side were unfortunate to still not be in semi-final contention.

“Scotty played some fantastic golf, probably the best Bathurst pennants performance I’ve seen for some time,” he said.

“Ben Mackey finished on two under … and he played superbly. He was hitting it long and finding the greens all day. Dukey played well but Ben was playing some of the best golf I’ve seen him play.

“He had a couple of bogeys towards the end but he was four up with four holes to play.

“We worked out that between us we hit 15 birdies … but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.”

Bathurst’s division two team bounced back from an opening round loss to score a 4-1 victory over Forbes.

Paul Abbott, Tony Forster, Darren Small and Adrian Haines won their matches. Casey White almost made it a Bathurst whitewash but was defeated on an extra hole.

The Bathurst division three team have continued their dominant run through the competition with another 4-1 win.

Division four’s struggles continued but there was a silver lining for the Bathurst group.

“Cooper Starkey was my pennants player of the round,” Bruce said.

“He’s just 11 years old and playing amazing golf. He was the only winner in his division and he won it on a second extra hole.”