2022
2022
Friday Sweep
It was nice to see a good number of women playing on a Friday and Jayne, in the first game out, was heading the leaderboard for a long time until Richard N. (in Game 5) returned to the clubhouse.
Richard Norden’s 48 points, 23 out and 25 back, 9 pars and gross 80 was a continuation of his recent good form and just too good for anyone else to beat. Jayne almost matched him with 23 points out and 8 pars overall but an uncharacteristically untidy blob on the 17th left her with 42 points and 2nd place.
James Deissler, in 3rd place, had a very steady 40 points; 21 points out, 19 points in, 4 pars and no blobs and in 4th place (38 points) was Pat Dalton, who was going really well on the back 9 until he blobbed the 16th and 17th holes.
Sweep payout to top 4 (£9, £7, £5, £3).
Founders Cup – Mrs Millidge (5 of 6)
Looking at the results it looks like the RPGC players seem to benefit (a lot) from the extra distance. The roll on the fairways was ever present. Controlling fringes/greens seemed less of an issue for most players. If only Glendale had a large water reservoir to soften fairways, fringes and greens … (may be they should’ve copied PDH’s idea about the reservoir on the 12th fairway …).
Back to the order of business. 1st person to hand in the cool badge (too much listening to Absolute radio on the way to the golf) is yours truly. I had to play my 3rd shot on the 1st hole from the green side bunker … from the 1st hole on Princes. Now that you all had your 5s of fun we can mention some real golfing highlights. 4 players managed to score 42pts. Even though he was invited/urged not to take Duke’s apart Tamas did the opposite. 2 birdies, 20pts on the way out and 22pts on the way in. Just enough to take victory today. Peppe covered quite a bit of ground of the Duke’s course. But somehow he also scored 42pts. His round was the mirror image of Tamas’ round (22+20). Chris Rough had 2 birdies on the front 9 en route to 23pts. An ugly 7-8 finish on the last 2 holes means he only finished 3rd. Stephen had an outstanding front 9 (26pts). Alas he scored no points on holes 10&14. This halted his march to (certain) victory. Julian and Chris Rudkin are the ultimate players to finish “In The Money”. Shout-out to Silvia who had 4 birdies (3 of the 5 Par 5’s) today.
Tamas (157pts) also takes the provisional lead in the MW Founders Cup ahead of Juho (151), Mayumi (148) and Richard O (143).
Quite surprisingly Hole 18 played as SI2 today (cf. Competition Scoring Analysis).
Please find attached a PDF report of the results, Best Score Analysis and Competition Scoring Analysis.
Captains’ Day (Top Dog Event 2 of 7)
Fresher conditions prevailed in contrast to the heatwave on Friday, Some truly excellent scoring but still 13 NRs.
Following the precedent of Sheena’s 57 last year in the event, Fiona Coombe returned an amazing 60 to win and had an ESR of -1 (almost -2.0) with h’cap reducing from27.8 to 25.5 – well done Fiona! Improver Goran took second place whilst countback separated Patrick Murphy from Charlie Whiteman with 64s. Patrick and Charlie both had 9s – on 4th and18th respectively.
Prizes for the 1st and 2nd placed men and women are awarded by their respective captain at the annual prizegiving dinner.
The Captains set some challenges as below. A drink and chips were on offer for everyone after their round.
MEN:
Putting challenge – Roger Rojas, 23 putts
Nearest the Pin in 2 (hole 6) – George Taylor
Nearest the pin Hole 16 – George Taylor
Longest Drive on hole 12 – Andrew Watson
WOMEN:
Putting Challenge – Avi Murphy , 29 putts
Nearest the pin (hole10) – Monique Hubaille
Nearest the pin in 3 (hole 8) – Sylvia Bortoli
Nearest the pin Hole 16 – Nobody.
Analysis of some scores reveals 3 38s (3 over par) for some also-rans : Kim, Kerry and Richard Smith.
This was the 2nd event in the men’s’ Top Dog’ [attached] showing Goran and Duncan Taylor tied 12 points with Patrick and Toby 8 points.
Clapham Common Round 2
This year’s second round match in the Clapham Common Shield and Ellis Cup was played against Perivale Park golf club. In a high scoring game, Perivale were the winners 244 vs 226. Incredibly high scores were posted by the 3 Perivale ‘home’ pairs over two laps of their 9 holes course : 44, 44 and 48 points, so although the Richmond Park home team were a total of 11 points up on Perivale’s away team, it was just not enough. In fact, Perivale’s total team score of 244 was considerably higher than any score posted in the games played for the 2021Clapham competition!
Midweek June Plate
A reduced field enjoyed near perfect golfing conditions. The high temperatures created some extra carry. And even the fairways and greens they offered a (surprisingly) nice combination of extra roll and sufficient grip on the putting surfaces. As a result scoring overall proved to be very competitive.
Kim Chaffart neither had the best front 9 nor the best back 9. But 20pts out (despite an ugly DB on the 7th) and 21pts (with a lucky birdie on the 12th) put him 1pts clear of runner-up Pat Dalton. 3 players finished on 39pts. The countback ranks Chris, Richard and Jeremy in places 3 to 5. Julie Ryan just finishes out of the Money Spots but she recorded the best back 9 (22pts). Susan Smith on the other hand netted the best front 9 (22pts also). Alan C will have some serious regrets about his No Score on the 18th hole. In a preview of Sunday’s Captain’s Day the Men’s Captain, John Ahad, used an excellent back 9 (21pts) to edge out the Women’s Captain, Sheena. Let’s get ready for the Sunday rumble! 2 eagles were recorded today. Colm opened his round with a bang by scoring a 2 on the 1st hole. Nearly half (5pts) of his points total on the way out (11pts) were recorded on this hole. Richard Young managed to score 5pts on 2 holes. A birdie on the 5th initiated an excellent finish on the back 9. An eagle on the 14th unfortunately ended his run on the back 9.
Rickmansworth Match – 1st leg
Maybe there were some nerves on the first tee, with only one of 4 players in the first game managing to find the (correct) fairway, but at the end of the day it was a perfect (dream!) result for RPGC – a 6-0 win. So we just need half a point in the 2nd leg at Tricky Ricky in September to win back the cup in this annual men’s match.
Our first pairing of Henry L-B and Richard Inglis reached the 13th hole with a comfortable 4 hole lead. However, they lost the next 3 holes in a row (with shots being given to Ricky) and became really tense when the match went back to Even/All Square on the 16th. But a strong birdie-par finish put the first “yellow” point on the board.
Game 2 became the showcase of an unsung hero. Roger/Tony K. won 8 holes. 5 of those wins can be credited to … Tony. He even birdied the 12th (for the equivalent of … 5 stableford points). Ricky was no match. So RPGC won 3&2 and went 2-0 up. Mike Shabani and Kim went in the 3rd game. 6 wins in the first 8 holes and an ugly slip-up on the 9th meant a 5 hole lead at the turn. Holes 10-11 were halved and after a loss on hole 12 the pair closed out the match with wins on holes 13 & 14: a 6&4 win, making it RPGC 3 : Ricky 0.
Whereas the first 3 games may have looked “comfortable” for RPGC, the last 3 games had much more ebb and flow to them. In game 4 Nigel Gaymond and Sean Thomas were in a quite a fight over the front 9 but the back 9 totally belonged to the men in yellow as they stormed to a 3&2 win. RPGC 4 : Ricky 0.
Richard Back & Justin Wildman, fresh off an early exit from the RPGC Men’s pairs KO, stormed the front 9 with 25 stableford points equivalent and held it together RPGC its 5th point.
The final pairing of Angus and the 3rd Richard in the RPGC team (Richard Owen) were ‘erratic’ on the front 9; all square after 3, 3 down after 6 and back to all square after 9. The momentum of holes 7-9 was then consolidated by wining holes 10 and 13. A loss on the tough 15th hole created a bit of tension, but a birdie by Angus on the 16th and a birdie by Richard on the 17th sealed their win. RPGC 6 : Ricky 0.
June Monthly Medal (GMT R4 of 8)
A mixed day weatherwise with gusty wind offset by warm sunny intervals. The sun definitely shone on our team in home leg friendly versus Rickmansworth GC( ‘Tricky Ricky’) winning 6-0.
Women
No debate over today’s winner who finished a mere 6 shots ahead of everyone else. With a net 64 Lia is the clear winner of today’s medal and will receive a .6 reduction to her handicap index tomorrow.
Well played Lia!
Men
A ‘prile’ of 64s headed the field with Raymond Esin winning on countback* from in-form Julian James from a sparkling Richard Young. Dave Chilvers followed with a glorious 65. Best Scores Analysis report shows an extraordinary back 9 for Raymond 1 over par 34 with 2 birdies.
Best gross on the day – Ross Hood.
Divisional results confirm Raymond winning Senior medal from last week’s winner Joe Gonclaves 66 whilst Julian James and Richard Young both 64s separated by software on countback.
This was 4th round of Grand Medal Trophy which reveals Peter Harrington now 272 ahead of Paul Kamerling 274 and Julian James 279.
*An academic departure – for medal (regular strokeplay) countback gives hall handicap for last 9, 1/3rd for back 6, 1/6th for last 3 and 1/18th for last hole. For stableford or bogey (still strokeplay) the points/ holes won already takes account of handicap. Medal far less likely to give tie after 18 due maths involved. One-off report attached for those interested.
Mitcham Friendly – 1st leg
With both teams struggling for players, it was down to 3 pairs from each club to play the 1st leg of the 2022 friendly which was at Mitcham on day warm enough for tee shirts and shorts as shown below and Richmond coming away with a 2-1 lead,
We had a good high/low combination in all three pairs, but for Sheena & Fiona who were playing the Mitcham captain, Emma and Sarah it was not enough. 3-0 down after 3 holes they held on to the 17th but a net par for Emma sealed their win. Jayne and Ann meanwhile had a romping 8-7 win to enjoy the remainder of the holes with no pressure. Our final pairing of Veronica and Deborah also won fairly comfortably 5 and 3.
As ever it was a very enjoyable day out and good to see some familiar faces from previous encounters. The return leg at the Park is on 30th July.
Friday Sweep
It was a warm, early summer’s day, with a bit of a south-westerly breeze, and scoring on the Prince’s course was generally good, with almost 80% of the field scoring at least 30 points.
The winner, Graham Cull, on 39 points was just one ahead of Jeremy Prescott, in 2nd place. Giles and James both scored 37 points but Giles snatched 3rd place with a better back 9, although James birdied the 11th.
Founders Cup – H Prendergast (4 of 6)
The field faced some variable conditions. Especially the winds became stronger during the course of the day. On top of that the winds changed directions more frequently for the 9am starters.
None of this takes away any credit of Jay’ performance. A stable front 9 (18pts) was followed up by a splendid back 9 (22pts – 35 gross). He needed this strong stretch to hold off 2 competitors. Tamas’s round as a mirror image of Jay: 22pts (out) + 18pts (in). But he will have some serious regrets about the 17th hole (no points scored). Kevin (Prendergast) does know to chose the right moment to peak. Playing a good round of golf during a competition remembering someone called … Prendergast. You cannot make this up. He torched the front 9 (24pts). Unfortunately he didn’t record any points on holes 11-12. He then settled down. A final tally of 16pts on the back means he “only” finishes 3rd. The Men’s Secretary recorded 3 4-pointers en route to 39pts and 4th place. Early starter Paul Green and Jeremy Ryan also finish on 39pts. The countback rule awards them 5th and 6th place respectively.
Provisional Standings MW Founders Cup: Juho Lim (145pts), Richard Owen (143), Gina Jillett (140), Jeremy Ryan (139), KSC (136).