It was good to play the full 18 holes on Dukes, now that the recent prolonged dry spell has allowed the 8th fairway (and other previously areas of standing water) to dry out. Even the sun came out, although a freshening cold wind set in as the afternoon progressed.

The winning score (40 points) was posted by Ryan Jones, who started with a birdie 3 on the first and largely didn’t look back, although blobs on the 14th and 16th spoilt what would have been an outstanding round. Just behind (39 points) was the in-form Peter Goodall who had a very strong back 9 (3 over par, 22 points), with a birdie on the 12th – not good enough to overcome Brian & Colm in their friendly matchplay with partner Seymour though. Yours truly was 3rd with an ever-steady 37 points (no birdies or blobs) and in 4th and 5th places, both on 36 points, were Adrian and Brian respectively.

Best golf of the day was played by Rob Smyth, who was doing a 2nd card for handicap. Rob par’d the front 9 and played 8 of the back 9 holes in 3 over par, just making a mess of the 11th by hitting 2 tee shots OOB.

Sweep payout to the top 3 (£7, £5, £3)

What a difference a couple of dry days can make. Most of the standing water has gone (except for the 1st and 18th fairway and some more remote areas of the course). Holes 8-9 were even open on Duke’s. And to top it all off there was even a slight chance to get bounce/roll on certain patches of the fairways. Add “milder” temperatures and some forward tees and you had a cocktail for some low scoring.

Juho is today’s clear winner. 24pts on the back 9 set the bar pretty high for anybody. Richard N takes 2nd with an excellent score of 42pts. The hottest golfer of 2022 James put in another stellar round to take 3rd (23pts on the way in). Something lit a fire under Alan today (surely not something that will be confirmed coming Sunday?). 4 birdies (yes 4) enable him to finish 4th. Richard O put in another solid round on Princes (although he will have nightmares about the 1st hole). Jenny and Sheena take 6 and 7th respectively.

Midweek Winter Comp (TBC)

Peter Goodall (115), Mike Jones (114), Julian James (113), Tamas Ladacs (112)

Midweek Eclectic Princes

Peter Goodall (58 Net), Richard Owen (61), Jeremy Ryan (63)

Another grey but dry day [see men’s results for bland temperature plot] after many days/weeks on no real rain produced perfect scoring conditions.

Women

As with all these scrambles, the scores end up very close and could not have been much closer today. Ali was the only member of the first game in the clubhouse when others got in & despite declaring otherwise it was probably to let us know that they had a birdie on the 18th, which was in fact her tee shot, her 2nd shot & her 3rd shot which has resulted in them winning today’s event courtesy of the back 9 being a better score.

Now that’s been duly reported! Congrats to Jayne, Susan, Doreen & Ali for what was of course a team effort,

Conditions were definitely drier underfoot today but not exactly what has been described in the intro para as being ‘perfect for scoring’.

Men

The target was set on Saturday by Sean Julliard on 59 which seemed unbeatable until James Goh strolled into the clubhouse on Sunday with 58! Sean shot just 2 over par 70 whilst James at 73 was just 5 over.
Sean is cut from 10.1 to t.6 whilst James cut from13.9 to8.5 assisted en route with a -1 adj ESR. Best absolute gross just 1 over 69 from Ross Hood .

The rest of the field included many good scores but the overall Playing Conditions Calculator [PCC or CSS adj. in old money] was zero. Stats reports for the 2 days attached.

Gunnar and Adrian shot magnificent 62s whilst Patrick Murphy (fresh from the sun and warmth of Costa del Sol) and Robin Thomas 63s.

Indeed, 27 from 55 cards were in 50s or 60s.

Divisional Medal results reflect the above with James winning Senior (low handicap) Division and Gunnar the Junior Division.

The 10:33 grouping were challenged by Glendale’s Frederico at the 2nd tee par 3 to be nearer the pin on green than him. Frederico narrowly missed the green but the competitive trio all landed on green with Mark Bean just 1 inch from hole. Photos attached of Mark’s achievement, a Glendale voucher and the trio proudly sporting their vouchers. Note the immaculately clean trolley and brand new golf bag of the Handicap Secretary in group photo.

A cold and frosty morning greeted all players with the early greens hard as ice, making approach shots extremely difficult. With heavy cloud cover, it never really warmed up but at least nearly all the standing water was gone from the Princes course, the muddy areas were largely frozen and there was bounce and run on offer occasionally.

These tricky conditions were seemingly no problem for Richard Norden (42 points) who continued his recent good form with 22 points out and 20 points in. Runner Up was Chris Rudkin (40 points) who also had a very steady round (19 out, 21 back) – shame about the triple bogey 16th and double bogey 17th. In 3rd and 4th places, both with 38 points were Jeremy Prescot and Julian James, respectively.

Frost early melted and eventually the sun came out. Men’s results report shows an interesting double temp. peak -2:30 and 8:00 in the evening. Mud, some mats and bobbly greens persisted. Holes 8 and 9 were out of action.

Women

Looking at the scores it seems no one was too keen on the conditions out there today and most would have been finishing by the time the sun came out in force. Late starter Gina appears to have taken advantage and was the winner on 27 with Katharina and Monique 2 back on 25.

Recording ‘hole not played’ rather than no score is still causing some confusion but fortunately for those concerned the scorecard is still king!

Men

Brian Ransom shot a stonking 38 points [with 23 back 9], 3 ahead of folllowing35s divided by countback : Nigel Ward, Kim, Colm and Ryan. Captain Kim leads the birdies tree with 3 YTD. Kerry mastered the par 5 with birdie.

In the associated Winter Competition Roger Rojas on 115 has the advantage from Secretary Peter .

In the Duke’s Eclectic Richard Inglis is our leader 67.3 from Brian and Russell 69.1s.

A very cold and frosty morning turned into a lovely sunny winter’s day, no doubt softening the frozen mud as the rounds progressed.

Today’s clear winner was Oz Doyle (36 points) amassed from the 16 playable holes, 4 ahead of Dave Chilvers and Seymour Laird, who both ‘played to handicap’ with 32 points. All of the top 3 had very similar front 9s (13 or 14 points), but Oz’s better back 9 (22 points) with 3 pars and a birdie was the difference.

Sweep payout to the top 3 (£7, £4, £3)

Even though you could qualify the last few days as “drier” there was still an abundance of mud and standing water. Add to that icy temperatures at the start of the comp and course was not really there for the taking.

Peter Goodall took full advantage of his distance to tame the course. He combined 20pts on the way out with 22pts on the back 9. His round could even have been out of this world had he not recorded 3 bogeys in the last 4 holes.

Best score on the back 9 goes to Julian. He recorded 23pts on the way home to take 2nd place. The men’s secretary had a consistent round of golf (19+20pts). But the countback rule awards him “only” 3rd place. None of the players in the Top3 recorded a “blob”.

Alan Cobb, Uli and Mike Jones all “played to their handicap” and recorded 36pts. Tamas’ flurry on the back 9 (22pts after only 13pts on the front 9) landed him just shy of the Top6.

As a consolation Tamas takes the lead in the Midweek Winter Comp (110pts). Mike Jones (108) and Peter Harrington (107) are the closest competitors at present. Peter Goodall takes the lead in the Midweek Prince’s eclectic (nett score of 62).

After Saturday’s rain it was good to have the sunshine., but this coupled with mud caused a number of balls to be lost – either in flight or on the ground. Most greens were very bobbly and some mats in play had just a large rubber tee/ no hole to insert tee; it is hope that Glendale will pay attention to these important details.

Women

Reiko who scored a very good 30 thought she might have won today, little knowing that the first game had gone directly to drinking without passing the computer, but the mud didn’t seem to have affected either Susan or Gina which could be the reason for celebrating. Susan posting a score we more expect to see in the men’s comps in winter rather than the women’s and with 40 points is today’s winner.
5 points back is Gina who is consistently good these days and got 35 off her playing handicap of 10, birdieing 2 of the par 3s.

For most of us today, it was just good to be out on a gloriously sunny January Sunday, such a contrast to yesterday!

Suffice to say that these 2 are top of the eclectic, but in reverse order – Gina’s highest score is now a 5, so good luck to the rest of us in the last 2 rounds in attempting to catch her.

Scores were all allowed today despite some using ‘winter rules’ in the rough forgetting that in a qualifier this is not permitted – a result of generosity from the Christmas NQ events causing confusion

Men

Scoring was pretty good with three 42s – separation by countback placed Pierpaolo from Colm from Roger; 4 41s followed from John P, Leo, Adrian and Secretary Peter [again in the frame].

Peirpaolo had a consistent 20 out, 22 back whilst Colm started with 2 birdies and Roger shot level par front 9 and had just 1 blob on card. More stats in best scores report.

The 3rd Winter Comp round shows Roger in the lead 115 from Peter 114 and Adrian 112.

The 2nd Eclectic on Prince’s shows Roger leading 63.1 from Colm 64.3 and Kerry 64.7. As always, an eventual winner might emerge from the large numbers in the ‘NR’s’ pack, after subsequent rounds are played.

Morning sunshine prevailed for the early holes, although the cold temperatures and areas of standing water on parts of the fairways and surrounds on the Princes course made it a typical winter round at Richmond Park. The clouds rolled in around midday but everyone completed their rounds in the dry.

Richard Owen had ‘one of those rounds’ (total 42 points) especially on the greens on the front 9, which was completed with 1 birdie and 6 pars for 23 points. The back 9 was more routine (19 points), with just 4 pars.

2nd and 3rd places, both with 40 points, were Richard Norden and Peppe Monterosso respectively. Richard had a great back 9 (23 points) and it was only the blob on the 9th that held him back from winning overall. Peppe had a steady 19 points out and 21 points in with 6 pars overall – a good result for someone who hasn’t played for several weeks.

Brian Ransom (39 points) was 4th with a very steady round which included 6 pars and a birdie on the 3rd hole – shame about the blob on the 1st hole.

Sweep payout (£7, £4, £3) to the top 3.

A shortened round of Winter golf for the field today. Luckily the rain held off a bit start of the week. Add that to the reduced (very) low temperatures and the field played a course with substantially less standing water. But the mud was ever present and the greens were tricky (bumpy and slow).

Allan Cobb recorded decent score going out (15pts – that result was matched by 4 other players – curiously most of them were also early starters). He then continued his strong performance by recording the best score on the back 9 (17pts). So quite logically he wins today’s competition. Richard Norden and Angus finished 2pts behind Allan. Countback rule awards 2nd place to Richard (the birdie on the 16th didn’t hurt). Notwithstanding 2 birdies Angus has to settle for 3rd. Julian had a solid round (15 + 14) to take 4th place. 5th place goes to Brian. The women didn’t quite enjoy today’s conditions. 1st woman today was Cheryl in 12th place.