A dry, humid, sunny morning becoming more cloudy and windy as the day progressed.

Scoring was good with 80% of the field scoring points in the 30s. A group of three 38s were looking like taking the honours till Charlie Haines stepped up and entered his score of 40 points, his first ‘win’ with the club. Charlie’s round started with a blob and suffered another blob on the 14th but otherwise was extremely solid. Paul McGrath and Craig Johnstone’s 38s, both ‘early birds’, took 2nd and 3rd places respectively and Seymour Laird followed up his 2nd place on Wednesday with a countback 4th today.

Best front 9 was Seymour’s 21 points and Charlie had the best back 9, also 21 points. James was tops on the three Par 3s (9 points). Richard Owen was within inches of an Eagle 2 on the 9th and Rob Wilhelmsson joins Richard Back at the top of the Friday Birdie Tree.

Sweep payout to the top 4 (£10, £6, £4, £2).

A reduced field enjoyed excellent golfing conditions. Enjoyable temperatures, not the slightest threat of rain were a welcome change to the recent golfing conditions. Recent rains had rendered the greens a lot more receptive than during the previous months. So today felt more like a round of target golf rather than links golf. There was still more than enough roll/bounce on the fairways. But judging distances into the greens wasn’t as tricky as 5-6 weeks ago.

Seymour Laird carded an outstanding score of 62 (Net). This was even more remarkable since he was +5 (gross) after 2 holes. But he steadied himself. The remaining 16 holes were taken care of with a score of +12 (gross). His only regret can best be described in his own words: “I should’ve signed up for the sweep”. Places 2-3 go to early birds and some of the better ball strikers in the club. Both Naveed and  Ross recorded 4 birdies today on their way to scores of 64 (Net). Naveed had the better (net) score on the back 9. So he takes 2nd place. Places 4-5 go to the other players in my flight (good things seem to happen to people in my flight …). Uli had brain freeze on the 1st hole (7). But he showed great poise to record a score of 66 (Net). Alison’s decision to sign up for the sweep really paid dividends today (don’t think HMRC will tax your sweep payments though). 2 snowmen are the only blemish on her card. Else she would’ve challenged for the top honours.

2 shoutouts:
– An Gardner birdied 2 par 3’s today (a first)
– Richard B birdied … 5 (!!!) holes today

MGMT:
Chris R 362, Gina 368, B Norman 368, Graham C 375, R Owen 379. But Pralab with 4 recorded results and a score of 279  is in prime position.

A quieter day after storm Antoni yesterday but still breezy.

Women

The women seemed to be playing a different course from the men who seemed to have no problems today but the scores were all so different from 2 weeks ago and not in a good way!

But well done to Hilary who kept her body warmer on for the whole round which was perhaps the secret. She nearly blew it on the 18th but was fortunate to find her first ball under the trees on the left, rather than being where her 2nd went which was OB, but looking at the 5 shot margin she would probably still have beaten Lia but ended up with 72.

Men

Henry L-B continued his winning form from Wednesday to triumph with a net 63 – winning overall and senior division; Henry was just 2 over par on the back 9. He was pressed by Will B with a remarkably consistent 66 sharing back 9 honours. 3rd in the senior division was Michael Hayden 67.

The junior division was close with 64s from Oz and Capt. John Ahad. Oz just won on countback. Third was Gerard with another good round – 65.
This was the 6th Grand Medal round of 8 and senior division leader is Will B, 12 ahead of Tamas with 328 points; the junior is headed by Duncan 345 from Dilip 349.

A somewhat cloudy but dry day with not much wind and receptive greens led to some good scoring.

Top of the leaderboard was Rob Wilhelmsson with an excellent 43 points and a gross score of 72. Rob had the best front 9 (20 points), the best back 9 (23 points) and 3 birdies along the way. In 2nd place with 40 points was Justin Wildman, playing alongside Rob in the first group, and just pipping 3 players on 39 points: Peter Miller, Richard Norden and Naveed Manazir. Naveed had 3 birdies in his round but it was Peter Miller who grabs 3rd place on countback and scoops a small sweep payout. (£11, £7, & £4 to the top 3 respectively)

Rain had been forecast for the midweek August plate – reduced field accordingly.

Mainly dry for early games but blustery and odd heavy showers developed before continuous rain caught later games.

Early starter Henry L-B had the right idea -after 2 birdies Henry stood 2 under par on the 4th tee [10points] and finished with 37points David C also had good start – being one under par after 3 holes [also 10 points] but was just nipped on countback on the last 3 holes.

Justin W prevailed with best back 9 19 points . All best to Mayumi – think last round in UK.