It was a relatively warm and sunny autumn day and the course was in good condition, although the greens needed cutting (very slow).

Regular Bill Jennings recorded his first ‘win’ with the club, 38 points and the strongest back 9 of anyone in the field (23 points). Well Done Bill !!
In 2nd place, just one point behind was Adrian Norris; a remarkable result with 4 blobs on his card. 3rd and 4th places, both on 35 points were Adrian Wells and Ed Robinson, respectively. Most players found the back 9 easier than the front 9; best front 9 was by Seymour (20 points). Rannesh birdied 2 of the par 3s. The surprise pairing of Gerald and Seymour easily saw off Uli and Richard Owen in their pairs matchplay side competition, 3&2.

Sweep payout to the top 4 (£10, £7, £3 & £2)

The fairways still offered plenty of roll. But to use an understatement: the greens have seen better days. They were very receptive. But unfortunately that also meant that the putts had a harder time to hold their lines (still no excuse for what happened to yours truly – see below). The swirling winds made club selection tricky. That being said scoring proved excellent for the players with higher HI’s.

Graham C’s comment about his round was: I am pretty chuffed. He damn well should be: 21pts (out with a PU on the 3rd) and 23pts in (birdie on 11 didn’t hurt). On paper nobody came close. Expect an ESR and a massive drop in your HI. On paper Richard N seemed a distant second. But he torched the front 9 for 23pts. A couple of bad holes brutally ended his rally on the back 9. Dave C and Brett C both ended on 39pts. But Dave had the stronger back 9. So he finishes 3rd. Our Glendale Liaison Officers PDH and Richard O matched each other scores (Richard birdied the 5th – aka SI2). But 1pt difference on the back 9 breaks the tie in PDH’s favour.

Other bits:
– yours truly topped/knife/held his tee-shot below the wind (last description is quite a reach) on the 7th hole  to land his ball to 1 foot of the cup. I then managed to gloriously miss the putt. A par never felt more hollow than today.
– Jeremy P recorded 17pts on the front 9. Not really worth the mention right? The amazing thing is that recorded those points even though he PU’ed on 3 holes!

Scoring proved excellent in the Silver Jubilee – final round of the Anniversary Cup.

Ed Hall’s extra practice last Wednesday paid dividends today. He went round in 41 and 45 (gross – 31+34 Nett). That proved just enough to hold enough Kevin P. KP recorded 2 birdies on the front 9. But he softened a bit on the last 9. Alan K’s good run of form continues. After a solid front 9 (40 gross) his progress was halted momentarily by a lost ball on 12. But he still managed to be the sole player with a score of 66 (Nett). The Men’s secretary played a solid round of 69 (Nett) to claim 4th. Jim D finished 1 shot further back. But he’d do anything to be able to just play the last 2 holes again. Let’s just say that more respectable scores on 17/18 would’ve moved him a lot closer to the Top2. Michael H and Sean O’S are the last to finish “In the Money”. George T had the best gross score. Deborah P carded the best woman’s score.

Anniversary Cup Standings
Cheryl W (210), Katharina K (215), Lia D (217) , Michael H (217), Ian B (217), John P (219)

A thankfully dry day following the heavy rain earlier in the week.

Late entrant Jose Manuel Gomez had a another good round and was the clear winner with 43 points, three clear of George Taylor in 2nd place (40 points) and with Gerard Ouattara 3rd (39 points). George had the best front 9 (22 points) and Jose & Gerard the best back 9 (23 points). Jose’s handicap was trimmed by just over a shot to a new Low Index of 22.1.

Uli Katte and James Deissler (recently returned, like Gerard, from warm weather golfing in Spain) were 3 shots back on 36 points. Only 3 birdies were scored, by Brian, George and Mitch.

Sweep payout to top 3 (£14, £9, £5)

Summer golf looked like a distant memory today. The floodgates opened when most of the players were on the home stretch. Scoring was a bit different today since the ladies SI’s were used. Note: some players served double duties and showed up in a couple of pairings.

Alex B and Ian B torched the course. A birdie on 6 set them up for a great score of 25pts on the front 9. The back 9 of 23pts assured them victory. Richard N and Bill N (and not Matt H as indicated in the report) finshed just 1pt behind Alex/Ian. Bill N also teamed up with Richard H to record 23pts on the front 9 and 24pts on the back 9 to take 3rd place. 2 birdies for Brett C/Mike J on the back 9 were just not enough to crack the Top3.

Looks like we struck lucky as the golf at Wentworth had a rain delay of an hour. Presumably there was a lightning threat.

Women

Not the Autumn meeting that we expected but a Texas scramble is always a fun format – ignoring the stress of having to take a set number of tee shots. and the lack of players overall no doubt contributed to our sub 4 hour rounds.

The greens were certainly trickier than usual with all the criss-crossing and work on them. Am sure both games had putts bouncing there way across the greens, but Reiko (having run up the path to make the tee in time) knocked in a long putt on the 1st for an opening birdie for our team, so perhaps they helped here. Good birdie 2 on the 11th for the team of 3 – not sure anyone in the other team made a green on any of the par 3s.

The team of 4 played the step-aside version, meaning that whoever’s shot was taken, although playing a ball for the next one, could not have the outcome used when deciding on the following shot until the green was reached, finished with a nett 63, playing the back 9 to par to beat the other team by 3.

A token prize will be awarded in due course!

Men

Yet another competition on Prince’s and some exceedingly good scores.

The winners of the greensomes format Burgess Cup are Giovanni & Alex J with 49 points – 26 points on the back! They obviously gelled well together in Alex’s first comp with the club; a late challenge came from Gunnar & Charlie with 46 points [25 on back 9]. An excellent 43 came 3rd from the team of Gregory & treasurer Peter.

Assuming the work on the greens was done prior to Friday the field would have had to contend with the diamond crossings and bumping along the greens that was experienced on the following Sunday. It obviously didn’t bother all of the field with Leigh taking 1st spot on 41 closely followed by Russell on 40 and Bill taking 3rd spot on countback from Ian on 39s.

Sweep payout goes to those 4 (£10, £6, £3, £2)

Before we get to the order of the day: what in heaven’s name was the Glendale staff thinking? ….
But is much more enjoyable to talk about today’s golfing highlights.

Richard B’s round can be stripped down to its raw numbers: 4 birdies – 1 Hole In One (our reporter first erroneously mentioned  that RB aced the … 17th – Now that would’ve made it to Skysports/Golfchannel and the youtube golfing celebrities channels – That reporter who also played today’s comp won’t be named/shamed. But her first name starts with a G …). Back (no pun intended there …) to Richard’s round: 34 (gross – out) and 35 (gross – in) is pretty hard to beat. Well done RB. Sweep money has been credited. Expect an ESR this night. Colin Price’s excellent round of 66 earns him a well deserved 2nd place. Another Richard (Richard S in this case) overcame 2 DB’s on the front 9 with a solid back 9 to take 3rd. Alex B had an excellent day. But his scores on the last 2 holes prevented him from bettering his 4th place finish.

MW Grand Medal (TBC):
Chris R (357), Bill N (362), Gina J (366), Colin P (370)

Another hot and sunny day for the Autumn Plate; indeed a week in the 30cs – a record apparently.

Again excellent scoring on Prince’s. Ashley Stephens being first with 47 points and after 11 WHS qualifying rounds and ESR adj -2.0 HI cut from 31 to 24.5 .Cedric came a close second with excellebt 45 and sees his HI reduce after 9 WHS rounds and an ESR adj of -1.0 from 22.3 to18.6.
Mark B played some excellent golf also with 45 points. Mark had 1 over par back 9 and 25 points – and also had an ESR of -1.0 bringing his HI from11.0 9.0. Adran and ED sj=hot some super golf with44s.
Caroline was best woman 43 and Jenny scored 25 points front 9.