A reduced field met with some pretty poor golfing conditions. The rain of the last couple of days had created a lot of casual water on the fairways and in the bunkers. Some of the greens were pretty soaked too (thankfully we didn’t play on Duke’s today).

Damian Hackett decided to finish 2017 on a bang. He went out on 16pts but really came alive on the back. An impressive 21pts on the last 9 holes sent him onto victory today. Mr Steady himself Brian McMahon closed on 36pts together with Toby Hunt and Martin Heinrich. Brian’s 20pts on the back 9 earn him 2nd place. Martin in particular will regret the 18th hole where he probably let victory slip from his grasp. Paul Green and Kerry Sargeant complete the Top6. 1st lady today is Tenesi (33pts). Final shout-out goes to Lia who recovered from a miserable front 9 to net 20pts on her way in. Results…

CSS: 37pts (Men & Ladies). No handicap changes and just one DQ.

Still conditions with early mizzle allowed competitors to focus on their game. James Barker pulled a real cracker of a two under par 68 with 42 points to clinch the competition. His back nine 30 included three birdies for 22 points. Well done indeed James! Sushant Lall was 2nd with 41 points and Alan King had a great round but blobbed 18 for 40 in 3rd position. Jayne Maxwell led for the ladies with 38 points with Lesley Mason a point behind. Results…

James has an unassailable lead in the Wednesday Birdie Tree 2017 and is challenged to birdie 13 or 18 (either course). Results…

A big field braved arctic temperatures. Play was even delayed for 20 minutes because of the fog. The early starters also had to deal with frozen greens. The greens were defrosted when Oliver Maskell went out. So he barely had any excuses for using up 11 (!) putts on the first … 3 holes.

Peter Osgood bounced and skated his way to the clubhouse lead with 36pts (just 16pts on the back 9). Taking a picture of the Christmas hamper (that actually belonged to Putney Park) was a classic case of hubris by the clubhouse leader. The challenge had to come from the late morning starters. The tandem of Heinrich and Karakaneva felt pretty comfortable in the icy conditions. Superior back 9’s allowed both of them to push Peter Osgood off first place. Steve Cross scored 18pts on the back 9 to relegate Peter to his final spot of 5th. Alan King’s tally of 35pts earned him 6th place. Today’s winner came from the very last game. Anis Driaa was the only player to play better than his handicap. 37pts (19 out and 18 in) earn him victory today. The ladies didn’t really enjoy today’s conditions: the next lady is Jayne Maxwell in 10th place. 3rd lady is Lia back down in 22nd place. Results…

CSS: 35pts (Men & Ladies)

An impressive list of handicap changes. Please take note of your new handicaps.

Finally:

• Barry: the blue scorecard box belongs to Putney Park! Our scorecards go in the green box!
• Ray: it would be good to once in a while sign your scorecard
• There even was a player who left his scorecard in the green box without recording his score on the computer. I know you all want to do your Christmas shopping but it literally takes 2 minutes to record your score on the PC (unless you record the stableford points instead of your number of strokes, correct Joan? The stableford score did look quite impressive it has to be said).

Rain and forecasts of more discouraged many potential competitors, but the weather did not deteriorate as expected.

A sparkling 40 points earned Jeremy Thompson the midweek Champagne Chase fending off Kim Chaffart’s 38 (still with some fizz on back nine 20 points) and David Vines’ 36. Well done to Jeremy who is cut to 14. Results…

The event was postponed due to poor course conditions. See two photos taken from the club house. Photo 1… | Photo 2…

Mild conditions prevailed with an increasingly moderate breeze. Despite recent dry conditions, mowing machines seemed to have created some mud on fairways which will only be exacerbated with rain predicted from storm ‘Caroline’.

Steady play was the order of the day for the December medal. Congratulations to Chris Philip-Jones for a fine 66 and a cut to 12. Tidy 67s from Jeremy Prescot and Brett Colley earned 2nd and 3rd positions. Results…

CSS: 67 (Men) – 69 (Ladies)

Ladies

After a drizzly start 3 teams of 3 enjoyed a mild day and a fun team competition of ‘Pink Ball’. Players took it in turns to play the pink ball with points for that ball being doubled. The best ball of the other two players also contributed to the team score. The two best pink ball holes of the day were Jayne’s birdie for 8 points on the 11th and Susan’s birdie for 8 points on the 14th. The runaway winners were Sheena, Lia and Caroline S who didn’t have a birdie but scored consistently well over all 18 holes. MVP of the day was Sheena who had 8 pars and an individual score that would have seen her handicap cut had we been playing a qualifier. The winning total was 115, second place 105 and third place 100. No pink balls were lost so the threatened points penalties were avoided. Results…

Men

The monthly medal competitions ended with a bang. The field (or at least a very big part of it) took full advantage of the milder weather and tore Prince’s apart. The early starters had some trouble to get going. After the initial tee-shots there were no less than 8 players together on the 1st fairway! Neither of them could mount any real challenge.

On another note. If you want to know what it feels like to play golf: check Jon Cooper’s scores on the 15th and 16th hole. Numbers speak for themselves (Kerry Sargeant made a valiant effort too on the 7th and 8th hole).

The late morning starters were on fire. Eric Lit had every reason to be happy with his score of 64 (77 gross). Unfortunately for him his score was bettered by the very next group. Oliver Maskell eagled the 14th on route to a 63 (76 gross). But the best was yet to come. Chris Lordan and Alex Kransnenkov were in the same game and pushed each other the whole way round. End result: 61 (70 gross) for Chris and 63 (79 gross) for Alexander. Phil Flanagan’s excellent 64 earns him 4th spot. Habib Amir (79 Gross) completes the Top6. In the same process Alexander and Oliver earn ESRs of 0.5 strokes. Results…

CSS: 67

Golfing conditions remained pretty grim (I don’t think I was the only one who couldn’t grip my clubs “properly” at the start of the round). On top of that the fairways were fairly muddy. This was partly offset by a) (cold) winds helping (slightly) on the 5th, 9th and 12th and 14th hole and b) the men teeing off from the yellow tees (should’ve read the notice board Jay …).

Chris Phillips-Jones was in a league of his own today: 3 birdies (2nd, 12th and 18th), points scored on all 18 holes and 23pts on the back 9 allowed him to finish on 42pts. CPJ’s handicap gets cut by a very impressive 1.5 strokes. From now on his stroke allowance will be 13. Mark Andrews gave CPJ a serious run for his money. Unfortunately he scored no points on 2 holes. Still 40pts (21pts out and 19pts in) is a very good result. Mark’s handicap drops to 17. Jack Evans started out slowly (16pts out) but came alive on the back 9 (21pts) to finish 3rd. Jon Cooper sprinted around the course (he was finishing his 3rd pint when the next games came in) to match Jack’s score. Countback pushed him into 4th. Charlie Renton and Jeremy Ryan complete the Top6. Results…

CSS: 37pts (Men) – 36pts (Ladies)

Team event

Team Blue (alphabetically ranging from Mark Andrews to Peter Jagger – average stableford score 29) beat Team Red (CPJ to Cheryl Woodhouse – average stableford score 28.71). Winners of the team event will be contacted individually.

Ladies

Winter is definitely doing its best to hamper good scoring from the ladies, starting as we did today with frozen ground and ice on the greens. It was at least another beautiful sunny day overhead and we had some internal warming on the 7th tee as the ladies’ committee, and more particularly Habe Crocker, supplied us with mulled wine and mince pies. Several scores improved from the 7th onwards!

It was nearly another QRO, but with 33 points, Sheena Harrington managed to play in her buffer zone and CSS went up 2 to 34 points. Susan Smith and Doreen Dolby both scored 30 points, with Susan taking 2nd spot with the better back 9. Results…

Men

The field didn’t enjoy the best golfing conditions. The early starters faced some frozen greens (the 3rd to name just one) and icy temperatures. Starting late(r) clearly proved to be the better course of action. Darren Enthoven went out really early and set the pace with 33pts. How tough were the early morning conditions? When the first couple of games finished around 1.45pm Lee Marshall was the only player who had actually played to his handicap (36pts). CSS at that time was estimated to be 33! A whole list of players struggled to score double digits points (on either front or back 9). Damian Hackett finishes in the Top6 with just 33pts. Today’s comp would’ve been reduction only had it not been for the late morning starters. Three of the 10.00 am starters Tony Kopczak, Alexander Krasnenkov and Stephen Mason managed to stay within their respective buffer zones and sneak into the Top6. The only player to play better than his handicap was Chris Lordan. His score of 37pts earns him victory and a handicap cut of 0.6 strokes. His new handicap now stands at 9. Well done. Results… 

CSS: 34pts

Mild but very windy conditions prevailed with mud in places. A ‘Waltzing’ team competition was complemented by an individual non-qualifying competition. All players played from the men’s par & SI for the team event but (due to the software) with ladies receiving 2 shots whilst the individual comp was as normal with no such shot allowance.

Due to the incidence of playing numbers Peter Osgood and Toby Hunt were selected at random to partner Jeremy Ryan & Paul House and Michael Choo & Peter Harrington respectively.

In the team event, two teams each had 79 points with Paul House, Jeremy Ryan and Peter Osgood winning on countback from Kim Chaffart, Alexander Krsnenkov and Tamas Ladacs. Team results…

Peter Osgood won the individual comp on countback from John Curry – both 39 points with three birdies – and John being level par at the turn. Results… | Analysis…