What a difference a week makes in the UK. Still No Brexit and today the field faced really chilly conditions (did we really move the clocks forward to face this weather?). It was so cool that Nick Rogers decided to wear long trousers today (BTW doesn’t cold weather have a negative impact on tennis elbows?). Looks like the conditions got the better of our Captain too …

Cold weather, swirling winds and men’s tees that had been moved slightly backward required some decent ball striking today. Evegeny VDG did just that. He struggled a bit on the way out (6 bogeys & 1 birdie). But an excellent back 9 (36 Gross) led him to a respectable 76 (69 net). Evgeny’s handicap drops to 6. He was joined by Kamil Naidoo (you couldn’t miss Tangerine Kamil today), Richard Inglis and Carmelo Di Salvo on that number. 1st lady today was Gina with a steady 70 net. Today also confirms the tradition that the ladies (almost) never win the Coronation Cup. The report started with the premise that good ball striking was required today. How about 71 gross? Chris Lordan put on a “Stripe Show”. His front 9 read as follows: Bogey-Bogey-Birdie-Par-Eagle (!) – Birdie – Birdie – Par – Bogey = 33 gross. 38 gross) on the back 9 with two more birdies bring his tally for today to 71 (64 net). Chris’ handicap moves back to 6. A good day at the office. Results…

CSS: 71 (Men) – 73 (Ladies)

Needless to say that Chris takes the lead in the Top Dog rankings. R1 Leader board…

Calm and dry but grey conditions allowed 52 competitors to focus on their golf for the Sweep competition. Scoring overall was good with CSS raised to 38 points.

Early player Prlab Barua held the lead until late in the day when Doug Donaghey retuned a stonking gross 80 and 42 points to win. No fewer than four on 41 had to be separated by countback: Pralab, Stephen Haworth, leading lady Susan Hempsell and Hassan Mouilah. Results…

Hassan shot level par 68 in his round and indeed was two under through 10. Well done indeed and Hassan earns Category 1 handicap @ 5.4.

Ladies

Today was a perfect day for golf and the second round of the Spring Meeting 4BBB. There was a great turn with 12 ladies in 6 pairs.

It was a fun and enjoyable day, the results were very close with all scores between 33 and 38 and anticipation building until the last scores were entered.

Congratulations to Joan and Sonia who won on 38 with a countback and a close second were Angela and Jessamie, with Ronnie and Caroline only 3 points behind on 35. Results…

Nibbles and prizes were the perfect way to finish after the game and lovely to have sunshine all day.

Men

A beautiful day at the Park today. Too bad some of us ruined it by playing golf (myself included). The course is slowly improving: less mud although the greens could do with a truer roll. Most of the field overcame some of the tricky pin positions on the back 9.

Carmelo Di Salvo went out in the last game and overtook everybody with a brilliant score of 43pts (21pts out & 22pts in). John Ahad also played in that game and took 3rd with an excellent score of 41pts. Wedged between these two is Paul Brown who played consistent golf (20 & 21pts) to claim 2nd. Mike Shabani had 3 birdies today. As usual he took out his driver on nearly every hole. But after walking off the 16th with 39pts he – for some reason – decided to play safe. He left the driver in the bag. Result: only 2pts on the last 2 holes. Charlie Whiteman and Nigel Ward complete the Top6 with nice scores of 40 and 39pts respectively. Paul Grand narrowly missed out in the Top6 despite a superb 22pts on the way in. Evegeny Vd Geest recorded an eagle on the 18th in his first competition with the club. A sign of more to come? Results…

CSS: 37pts

The overall Spring Stableford goes to Mister Consistent Luke Baker with a score of 75pts. Last week’s winner Kerry had a day to forget, opening the door for Luke.

Having roared in like a lion, March does indeed like going out like a lamb. There was a brief early vernal nip in the air but otherwise cloudy and pleasantly mild. Ideal for golf albeit still muddy in places.

A late card from Álvaro Garcia-Hoz won the medal with an absolutely amazing net 63 proved the worthy winner. Kerry Sargeant headed Oliver Khan on countback 66s. But Kerry shot the lights out on the more difficult back 9 – level par with two birdies. Results…

With 55% overall being within ‘buffer’, CSS was reduced by one from SSS (men 71->70, ladies and 73=>72). Having scored 41 points on Sunday, Kerry earns an additional ESR (Exceptional Scoring Reduction) of 1 – and now plays off 6 – a reduction of 4 from 10 this year Well done!!

Ladies

Fortunately the rain stayed away until we had finished our Spring Meeting Stableford competition on St Patrick’s Day with a good turn out of 16 ladies. It was a combination of both fresh and energising if also muddy and depleting.

Tenesi Karakaneva continues her good form with an impressive 39 points and a well-deserved handicap reduction, ten ahead of the next best lady Susan Smith, with Angela Flynn as a close third. Results…

Men

Less wind but more mud. Pick your poison. Looks like the field is really yearning for some better weather.

Kerry’s been puting in some extra practice by playing a few midweek competitions. Looks like the practice is paying off. An excellent score of 41pts (20pts out and 21pts in) puts Kerry in a very strong position leading up to Round 2 next Sunday. Kerry’s handicap drops from 10 to 8. Luke Baker takes 2nd thanks to a stomping outward 9 (22pts). James Anslow’s excellent back 9 (20pts) gets rewarded with 3rd place. Kamil is rediscovering a bit of good form to reach 37pts (he will regret the last 2 holes). Chris Lordan and yours truly complete the Top6. Results…

Oliver Maskell for once controlled his fade to drive the 18th green with his 3 wood. His eagle putt lipped out. The “Battle of the Shanks” between Mark Rosamond and Peter Osgood was won by Mark. I stopped counting the number of actual shanks on the back 9. Looks like the Men’s Captain will need a bit more time to get used to his new driver (full disclosure: his old one snapped in the boot of an Uber car).
Realistically Luke, James and Kamil are the only ones left with a fighting change to catch Kerry in Round 2 of the Spring Trophy.

CSS: 35pts

Pre-equinoctial gale ‘Gareth’ provided plenty of challenge but statistically not as much as winds for the past Sunday game. With just 23% within buffer CSS was ‘only’ lowered one from SSS 37 to 36 points.

Undeflected by the wind, Stephen Haworth shot a solid 40 points to win the sweep from a very creditable 39 from Kerry Sargeant (22 back 9). Pralab and Secretary Peter Harrington filled the frame in the winners’ enclosure with 38s. Stephen is cut from 17 to 16 whilst Kerry is just .1 away from getting back to a single figure handicap. Results…

Turnout was again good for midweek at 41.

Ladies

What a day the ladies chose for their first medal round of the year. The gale force blustery winds didn’t exactly enhance anyone’s game with the best score being a net 80.

A fair number of ladies withdrew leaving a small group of 7 with only one gross score below a 100. CSS went up 3 to 72 resulting in a reduction only round.

With two ladies recording 80, Tenesi Karakaneva took the honours with the better back 9 from Fiona Coombe. Results…

Men

This was probably one of those days when staying home and not playing golf would’ve been the right decision. The course was clearly showing signs of the rain of the last couple of days. When the rain stopped around 8.30 there was no reprieve whatsoever for the competitors. The wind decided to pick up some serious speed. Most of the holes played into the wind. Judging club distances proved to be very complicated. Lining up putts turned out to be tricky too. Only way to steady yourself was widen your stance and try as hard as possible to make abstraction of the wind. Numbers will back up these claims. Until Sean Thomas and Paul Brown recorded their scores the Competition was deemed to be “Reduction Only”.

Sean Thomas managed to “keep the ball in the middle of the fairway”. He did something else right: 39 on the way out and 35 inward – gross. An excellent 74 (62!!! net) earns Sean a massive 1.8 handicap cut all the way down to a new hcp of 10. Paul Brown recorded a very decent score of 68 net to claim second. Bruno, Mike, Richard and Kerry compete the Top6. Results…

CSS: 70 (you are reading correctly)

Blustery conditions prevailed and rain held off until the last few holes for the later games.

Alastair Whyte continued his run of good form to win the 5th Inaugural Trophy with 40 points one ahead of Bruno and two from Alexander. An early five points on the first hole held early promise for Jeremy Prescot. Results…

With 49% in buffer zone, CSS was raised from 36 to 37 points. Alastair is chopped from 29 to 27. No ‘Twos’ recorded.

Ladies

Guess we knew it couldn’t last and with the forecast predicting rain and wind, the ladies showed more grit than many of the men as their games were decimated whereas we lost only two participants.

Proving that teams of four do not always beat those of three, the threesome of Cheryl, Tina and Julieann were victorious today with a score of 70.3. Results…

Conditions were a lot more challenging than the last scramble as the wind and mud returned, which was reflected in the higher scores and lack of birdies – but it is a fun format enjoyed by everyone, even when none of the team can make a putt of any length!

Men

Despite ominous weather forecast 20 players decided to put on the waterproofs and take out the brollies to play some winter/autumn golf again (I must confess that I preferred last week’s weather).

Rain remained light throughout the day but the wind grew stronger as the day went on. Since PP was a no-show the first game was able to finish their round in 3.5h (quite a feat for a Sunday round of golf).

Tony Kopczak dropped the Inspector Gadget rain coat and looked like a decent player today: 18pts out and 21pts in, and enough to win today’s comp. TK’s handicaps gets cut 0.9 strokes down to playing handicap of 17. Alexander Krasnenkov looked like the real deal for 5 holes (level par gross). Then he decided to lay up on the 6th only to go OB. He steadied himself to finish the front 9 on 20pts. He played a steady back nine but he will deeply regret the missed par putt on the 18th. AK’s 2nd place gets rewarded with a new playing handicap of 12. Bruno ‘Rain Man’ Clerckx didn’t enjoy his front nine. But he lost all inhibitions on the way in. A score of +1 gross translates into 21pts and 3rd place. Tamas gets a mention in this report for a chip-in birdie on the 16th. Results…

Finally: how do you from hero to zero in one week? After winning the Winter Comp last week Martin Heinrich decided to game a set of players irons (won’t mention the name of the brand). The leader board tells the story.

CSS: 36pts (7/20 players in the buffer).