What a difference a week makes! Last Wednesday shorts and tee-shirts were the order of the day which could be where some of the non-finishers went wrong. To compound things, many of us experienced a wait on many of the tees which is never good but especially when there is a biting wind. A combination no doubt of this and the fact that it was a medal round in the second week back since lockdown gave rise to 18 of the field ‘No Returning’.
Of course, none of this affected some people with early starter Ewan posting an unassailable 63 making him the winner of The Master Bowl. JohnA will be pleased that I checked he hadn’t in fact played off the yellow tee (in which case he would have been DQ’d with his HI). The additional shot allowance for the white tee elevated him to the runner-up spot with a better back 9 than RichardS, both on 65s. Alvaro pipped Julie for 4th place with 66s and I made up the top 6 topping the 4 on 68s, no doubt because my back 9 was 11 shots better than the front!

Another week and another eagle – with apologies to MikeS for not spotting that his 2 last week wasn’t on a par 3, but the 18th. This week was Alvaro’s turn with a 2 on the 15th.

Women

First Sunday back and it was the first leg of the spring meeting and what a weird day weather-wise. It really didn’t look as if the sun stood any chance of warming the day up at we teed off on the 1st, but gradually you could see layers being removed by everyone as the clouds cleared and the temperature went up warming the wind as it did so. Sadly there’ll be no tea & buns after next week’s event & it was a strangely low turnout considering that we had 20 for the last return. For some it was their first round back and for others of us it was just another sub-standard game – or perhaps I’m just talking about my own game rather than anyone else.
But there were 3 birdies out there – earlybird Ronnie on the 10th and Gina and Lia on the 17th. I doubt if you’d asked Lia after the front 9 how it was going, she’d have been very upbeat having just made it to double figures, or perhaps she just remembered how to play after that, scoring 21 points on the back 9 ending up 3rd. Gina’s score whilst not as good as her 37 midweek, was enough for her to finish in 2nd place with 32, but romping home on 36 points and 1st place was Jane.

Happy Easter

Men

Despite an early chilly start there was abundant sunshine for 1st round (of 2) Spring Stableford; for many it was a case of further unwinding from lack of golf due lockdown and adjusting to the pace of greens etc.

Saturday entrants Richard O and Rannesh were early leaders in the clubhouse with Richard winning 1st round 41 pts and Rannesh pipping Lee on countback for 2nd, both on 39pts. Paul Gre was alone on a commendable 38 with Barry, Russell and Richard B sharing spoils with countback 37s.

Nigel W excelled with the first eagle of the year at 17 – well done.

Playing Conditions Calculation came to +1 and was influenced by women also playing (only with handicap index 36.0 and below). We won’t have more than 1 PCC – it’s calculated by EG according to a formula. But be aware we are influenced by any other WHS acceptable scores recorded on the day at the park.

With 68 players in the sweep, 8 individual payouts to purse were made.

For many entrants it was the first time playing the Princes course after 3 months of 2nd wave Covid 19 lockdown. Unfortunately the warm ‘shorts’ weather earlier in the week had given way to cold winds from the north under a cloudy sky and it was decidedly nippy till the sun came out briefly in the early afternoon.

Going by the scores, most found the course decidedly challenging, or was it that we hadn’t played hardly any golf for 3 months? Only 2 of the 18 players matched the course’s pre-WHS SSS of 37 points, with Peter N. the overall winner on 38 points pipping Julian J. on 37 points; sweep prize allocation was Peter £12 and Julian £6.

The first competition back after lockdown saw the highest turn-out for a midweek comp with 70 entrants & of course with the machine at the Park still on furlough those with what they hoped were good scores, could be biting their fingernails to the quick waiting upon this missive.
Hopefully those at the top were the ones constantly practising their chipping and putting in lockdown, to make the rest of us feel a bit better about our performances and the greenkeepers look to have been feeling sympathetic to you chaps after the 3 month layoff with all those forward tees, although Gina gave most of you a good run for your money, making it into last place in the sweep. Timing her re-entry into the sweep with precision.
If we had been hoping for pristine conditions, we were sadly let down. The best thing was that it was dry underfoot and that there was definition on the edge of most fairways, but they themselves looked like it had been very wet and just dried out. Hopefully now they have all the staff working again things will improve — but it was a nice day, if not gloriously hot like Tuesday, and good to see lots of ‘old’ faces again.

So who won – probably just as well for Darren & Charlie that the leaderboard wasn’t operational as the final group of the day produced the winner on 41 points. Congratulations to Ben with a very even 20 out and 21 back. Darren’s better back 9 of 21 gave him 2nd spot ahead of Charlie who did it the wrong way round with 22 on the front, both finishing on 40. The next 3 all came in on 38, Diego obviously recovering from what we were told by the starter, to be a rather inauspicious start, spraying his first into the bushes on the left followed by one to the right.

As the results are only out now, WHS has done all it’s calculations, with no change to the PCC and quite a few changes to Handicap Indexes. Congrats Charlie, looks like you’ve dropped to single figures for the first time (in this system anyway).

With 61 players in the sweep, payment has been made to 8th place today

fyi – once the clubhouse is open we will ask you all to sign in before playing and record your scores before leaving the Park

Cold with a light breeze greeted the 59 competitors for the New Year stableford Sweep in pairs. A warm welcome to new members Dilip and Onursal who were first in RPGC to actually play in the comp on Saturday.

Scores never cease to amaze and this on Duke’s in winter with mud where good play is at a premium. Aung returned a blistering 44 points to win. Well done again to Aung – this time last year you had UHS handicap 41 but now after the round (one of your best 8 from last 20) your handicap index drops to 26.4.

In form new member Nafeez struck again 42 points , Keith a good’un 40, Ben D 39 with Pete H and Lee M commendable 38s. Best of women was Katharina 33 points – this was after the additional ‘Mixed Tee Adjustment’ for the red and yellow tee/slope combo of +1′. Results

With payouts for best 8 and separate women’s pool congrats to prize winners.