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).

Golfing conditions were not optimal. Dry fairways made bounces unpredictable. Even though the greens were a bit more receptive it was still very tricky to hold the greens. The gusting winds complicated things more. To round it all off the greenkeepers’ prayers were answered. Towards the end of play the floodgates opened. The later starters needed their waterproofs and umbrellas.

Richard Y had a steady round (18pts on the front and back 9). Other players ran either hot or cold over 9 hole stretches. So no-one was a match for Richard’s consistency. Juho had an excellent front 9 (20pts). After recording 36pts over 16 holes he looked a lock for a decent score. But unfortunately he didn’t record a singular extra point. 2nd place and the leader position in the ranking of the MW Founders Cup are his. Tamas was in the same game as Juho and also recorded 36pts. He and Richard H had an excellent score of 21pts on the front 9. Despite 3 blobs on the back 9 Tamas still beat Richard H on countback to take 4th. A strong back 9 (19pts) takes Jeremy to 5th place. Peter had an ugly front 9 but was on fire on the back 9 (22pts).

As mentioned: Juho takes the lead in the ranking of the MW Founders Cup.

A large field enjoyed dry and very warm, sunny conditions and the course looked more like a links than a parkland course, with bone dry fairways. The greens had been watered and were slightly receptive, although landing the ball short and rolling it onto the green was the better strategy.

A lot of players recorded scores of 23pts or more on the easier front 9, however our winner, Mark Bean, took full advantage of the conditions to record 4 birdies on the back 9 (over the stretch of just 7 holes – 12th to 18th) recording 24pts on the way in. That strong back 9 helped him to beat a Saturday starter, Dilip Mailvaganam, who’s round was a mirror image of Mark’s: 23pts out and 20pts in. He would probably like to play the 18th again – an untidy 7 was one of the very rare blemishes on his card. Martin Hay also recorded a very strong front 9 (23pts) but he too stumbled on the 18th. Dave Chilvers and Richard Owen take 4th and 5th respectively with very decent scores of 40pts. Nigel Ward and James Anslow are the last players finishing “In The Money”. Suhail was in a very good position to leapfrog Nigel/James (he had 36pts teeing off on the 17th), unfortunately for him he walked of the 18th with a scorecard still on 36pts.

The first Saturday event of the year saw just 9 pairs playing. This is a mixed random draw event, so you don’t find out who your partner is until just before the event – & hope that you’ve drawn a good’un

It was good to see all the games coming in so swiftly one after the other with no large gaps anywhere – must have been a consequence of all that good play out there.

As this is a comp with awards at the annual dinner all the cards and technically should have resulted in a DQ for two pairs – thus raising the finishing place of those of us lower down the order. However as both have finished just outside the prizes I have left them but can’t check their scores.

Needless to say, the winners with an outrageous 49 points are HIlary & Colm (who were probably disappointed on the 5 holes where they scored less than 3 points) and 5 points back on a very good score of 44 was Joan & John who as first out sat there at the top of the leaderboard for most of the day.

Bacon rolls with tea/coffee before play were the order of the day, followed by a drink afterwards as we gathered for the first social event.

It was a lovely warm, sunny May day, reminiscent of the weather that we had in the first lockdown in May 2020 and definitely ‘shorts weather’.

Peppe continued his recent good form and was today’s winner on 38 points. The foundation to Peppe’s score was his front 9 (22 points with a birdie on the 6th); late round nerves must have crept in with blobs on 16 and 18, so just 16 points on the back 9 – or did Sheena remind him he was playing in the Hawtree on Sunday and not to overdo it today (?). 2nd and 3rd places were decided on countback; both Richard Hanna and Sheena had 36 points with 20 points out and 16 back but Richard really torched the final 3 holes (9 points), with an eagle 5 on the 17th. Sweep payount to the top 3 (£8, £6, £4).