The vernal nip continued with temperatures falling Saturday through Sunday.

Truly inspired golf from Brian McMahon won the Plate – Brian shot level par going out and a total of 43 points. Well done! Charlie Whitemam was back to form with 40 points just pipping Joe Gonclaves on the back 9. Best woman Katharina 38.

Well done indeed to Julian James on 17th with eagle; he clambers aboard the Eagle tree .

Traditionally where the women invite one of the chaps to play with in an American Greensomes event – in reality many sign up individually and are then paired off!

Scoring seemed especially high, finishing with two pairs on 49 points. The winners getting 26 on the back 9 to seal their victory.

Susan and Nigel were the pair to take it from the women’s and midweek captain’s pairing of Sheena & Henry who only managed 25 on the back 9. Having been out in the first game they sat at the top of the leaderboard until almost the end and were quietly confident (to no avail). 2 points behind and probably fairly confident of a win as they got back to the clubhouse were Cheryl and Roger.

6 pairs recorded scores of 46 or better so definitely a good scoring day. The 2021 event was won with a mere 45 points.

As pizza and chips along with a drink on the club were consumed, prizes were awarded to the top 3 places and the women’s captain thanked everyone for participating in this fun event (especially when she came 2nd)

A mild, cloudy morning turned into a glorious warm sunny day for golf on the Prince’s course. This seemed to suit the lower handicappers in the field. At the moment, the greens and fairways are in the best condition that they will be all year but finding your ball in the rough, or getting out of it if you are lucky enough to find it, is becoming a major problem.

Late entrant Peter Goodall, who decided to ‘play’ rather than spend time on the driving range with his new driver, was our winner with 40 points, playing off 11. Peter’s 3 birdies on the 6th, 8th and 10th were the highlights of another very solid round from him.

In 2nd place was even later entrant, Naveed Manazir, who went out in the afternoon with Peter Flint and scored 39 points, playing off 8. Naveed birdied the 3rd, 5th and 11th holes and his 19 points out and 20 points in round was a welcome return to form for him.

In 3rd and 4th places, both with 38 points were Pralab Barua and Richard Owen, Pralab winning on countback. Pralab, playing off 16, had 21 points on the back 9 with a birdie on the 16th and it’s good to see him back in the winner’s circle. Richard’s highlights, playing off 12, were birdies on the 4th, 12th and 14th with ‘only’ 20 points on the back 9.

Sweep payout to top 4 (£8, £5, £3, £2).

Summer golf was a distant memory today at the Park. Sub 20 degrees temperatures, occasional rain showers and swirling/strong winds had more similarities with golf in October/November. 4 players dealt rather well with the conditions and recorded at least 40pts. A further 12 players managed to record at least 36pts. The rest of the field fared not as well.

Richard Owen went out in +2 gross. A nice birdie on the 9th hole brought his points total on the way out to 24pts! He recorded 3 more 3-pointers on the first 4 holes of the back 9. Holes 14-16 were a blip, 1 point on each, but better than what happened on the 16th tee. Richard managed to lose his first ball in the jungle on the right … after bouncing off the ladies’ tee-marker. He recovered with two 5’s on the last 2 holes. This enabled him to close the back 9 with 18pts.

A group of 3 players finished with 40pts. Another Richard (Hodgkinson) took 2nd place, thanks to a better back 9. Kim Chaffart managed to repeat Sunday’s horror show by recording another blob on the 15th hole, however a timely eagle on the 17th allowed him to hold of Angus. Uli will regret the 7 on the 12th and bogey on the 16th. Tamas was one-putting nearly every green on the front 9 on his way to 23pts. But an 8 on the 12th and blob on the 15th dented his charge on the back 9. Shout-out to the club captain John Ahad for recording the only “2” of the day. Richard H takes the lead in the Founders Cup (114) ahead of Juho (107), Richard O (104), Gina (103) and Kim (101).

Saturday entrants enjoyed best of the sun and temperature per bottom of results report. Yet best on Saturday was 39.

Women

With the Committee Cup deferred to later in the year, there was just a sweep for the women today – though the prize pot of just £12 didn’t make for early retirement. ( A number were away playing Whitewebbs). For the Sunday entrants it was always going to be a longshot that you’d get anywhere near Gina who chose to play on Saturday and seems to have found a very purple patch scoring 44 points. With the bizarre workings of WHS her 8 below handicap score only cuts her by a shot where previously this would have been 8*0.3 = 2.4 cut.

Men

Some superb scoring on Sunday came from Colm Ivors to win 46 pts 23 out 23 in with a ‘blob’. Peter Goodall gave chase 45 – 21 out with a ‘blob’ and 24 back; Gunnar shot very consistent 44 with 22 out and in.

This was a qualifier for NAPGC – entrants in attached report.

Incessant heavy rain made it miserable weather for golf and only 5 hardy souls, of the 10 that signed in, completed their rounds.

Winner was Andrew Watson with an excellent 35 points; runner-up on 33 points was Phil Martin, but all those who finished scored well, considering the conditions. Sweep payout to top 2.

Irrespective at what time players teed off, everybody enjoyed near perfect golfing conditions. Very mild temperatures and gently swirling winds (except may be on the 16th). A large proportion of the field must have enjoyed the extra roll on the fairways. The better players probably appreciated the fact that the greens seemed to become more receptive.

1st place today goes to Oliver Khan. He combined a steady front 9 (18pts) with an excellent back 9 (23pts – matched by Paul Green and only bettered by Tony Barnett. Early bird Gina is first woman today, runner-up with 41pts. Sheena, the Woman’s Captain, matched Gina’s score but “only” had 20pts on the back 9. Richard Owen had multiple birdie putts on the front 9. He still recorded 22pts on the way out. He then finally birdied a hole on the back 9 (the 14th). Unfortunately for him  he lost out to Gina and Sheena on countback. Richard Young is the last player to record 40pts. Chris Jones looked like a lock-in to match/beat that target but an ugly NR on the 18th prevented him from finishing higher than 8th. Michael Gallagher and Phil Martin complete the Top7 and take the last Sweep positions. 

Paul Giles would’ve finished 2nd today but he committed the cardinal sin of not signing his card.

Today was a throwback to those days when waiting on every tee for every shot was commonplace on a Sunday – it evidently started from first thing as there were messages from those out before the clubs who could see what was happening (or not) ahead. But it was just such a lovely day weatherwise to be out there so long unlike Wednesday when we got soaked.

Women

Another case of beware the injured golfer. As author, your captain could give you a blow by blow account of the round – but it wasn’t very exciting. What was more surprising was that all 3 in the game (Cheryl, Katharina and Sheena) seemed to be pretty much level pegging on hole by hole scores. Cheryl says it ws down to lucky bounces which obviously made the difference and that was before she knew she’d been beaten by 1 shot into second place…. as we have a Whitewebbs match next weekend hopefully we can keep it going. (Footnote: sadly we didn’t!

Men

Nuisance rain on Sunday morphed into annoying rain for later participants But there was good golf throughout.

Ian Humphreys shot an amazing 56 on Saturday with just 2 over par through 9th; it was back to normal in a GPS round on Duke’s for Ian on Sunday. But Ian earned an ESR -1 adjustment going back to his earliest (16th) WHS round.. Nigel Ward had a super 60 for second and there were 61s from Goran, Brian (& best gross), Joe , Paul Green and Justin. Overall PCC remained at zero.
Congrats for 3 Eagles -Henry L-B 9th, James P 12th and Kevin P 17th.


This translates to divisional results:
Senior – Brian 1st Joe 2nd
Junior – Ian 1st Nigel 2nd


Also 3rd round of Grand Medal Trophy – Colm lead 193 but menacingly close behind on 200 is Paul Grand with Robin 204 and Peter H 205.

A smaller than usual field played in today’s sweep, for a combination of reasons – regulars on holiday or playing elsewhere, late cancellations due to work and doctor’s appointment, Spring Matchplay matches taking place and unfortunately Chris Rudkin had to ‘retire hurt’ after 6 holes. Nevertheless those who did play enjoyed a fine sunny day with a strong westerly wind.

The ‘Richards’ won the day with Richard Owen scoring 38 points and Richard Norden with 33 points. From reports of the matchplay between Peter Goodall and Peppe, they would have taken 1st and 2nd slots if they had played equally well in the sweep. Sweep payout to top 2 (£6, £3).