It felt like winter had returned with much colder temperatures, a strong south-westerly wind and occasional light rain. The significant rain on Wednesday night had soften the fairways and greens and there was less bounce and run than recently.

The unpleasant conditions kept the scoring to modest levels, except for our winner Richard Norden who posted 41 points, with an outstanding 24 points on the front 9, including a birdie on the 9th. In 2nd place (38 points) was Paul McGrath; a steady round with 20 out and 18 points in. Uli Katte and James Deissler both got 36 points to take 3rd and 4th places, respectively; Uli started slowly but got stronger as his round progressed, whereas James was the opposite, except for his birdie on the 16th.

It was great to have Teddy Holt back playing with us again and to have Pralab, Graham and Ed ‘in the mix’, rather than 2 hours ahead.

Sweep pay out to top 4 (£10, £8, £5, £3)

A buggy tour of most of the holes on The Duke’s and Prince’s courses was undertaken by Peter Harrington and Richard Owen as part of the club’s ongoing liaison with Glendale’s greenkeeping staff.

The distances from tees to the start of fairways were measured, the extent of the ‘rough’ was inspected, together with the state of the bunkers, the course marking of out-of-bounds and no-play areas and other hole-specific features.

To state the obvious: players made things look (very)easy today. Nearly 20% of the field recorded 40pts or more. Suppose a PCC adjustment is on the cards. [Ed : 0]

Jim D birdied 9 and 11 today. He had 23pts on the first 9. His score of 22pts on the back 9 would even have been better had he not PU’ed on the last (!) hole. Victory and an ESR are well deserved. Jim is also the first winner in 3 weeks not to have been accompanied by Alan K or yours truly. But I suppose both of them were with Russel S in spirit.  He is keeping up his good form. Another +40pts score  is in the books. Thanks to 24pts on the back 9 he edges Terry into 3rd place (Terry recorded 19/23pts on front and back 9 respectively). Colin had another steady round to claim 4th with 42pts (20+22pts). The bionic man Peppe choose an early tee-time. Turned out to be very clever choice: 41pts and 5th place. Yours truly is the last player finishing “in the Money” (the score on the 16th still hurts …). 1st woman today is the incoming Women’s Captain: Cheryl. Peter G’s tee shot on the 6th finished 30yds short of the green. He then managed to chip in for an unexpected eagle.  

A hot sunny and humid day for the Shaw Cup on Prince’s.

Mark Bean shot a convincing 42 points to win with 22 on back 9 – 2 birdies inc long par 3 13th. Well done Mark!
Earlier, Dilip was the clubhouse leader on 41 with 23 on front 9 including a ‘blob’ but offset with 2 4 pointers. Best woman Susan Smith just edged Charlie Whiteman on back 9 – both 39 points Susan’s back 9 was excellent – 22 points 5 over par.
PCC remained at 0 but Mark enjoyed a full shot cut with HI down from 11.6 to 10.6.

For men this was 3rd comp in the ‘Top Dog’; per attached a new leader has emerged – Toby. He leads on 14 from Dilip, Raymond and Ross all 12 with points from JQR and Shaw.
The junior sees Dilip now in a strong lead on 26 points from Onursal 12 and Gregory 11.

It was another ‘hot day in the sun’ on hard fairways and fast greens (if you were fortunate enough to stay out of the rough)!

After his success the day before on Glendale’s Airlinks course (45 points), Brian Ransom cruised to another victory with 38 points (16 points out and 22 points in). One would think that this ‘return to form’ by Brian would see his handicap reduce, but in fact WHS has increased his index from 18.3 to 18.6 overnight. Brian only won by countback from the ever steady Colin Price, who had 20 points out and 18 points in, with a birdie 2 on the 16th. In 3rd place was Pat Barbour, with her first ever gross score under 90 (88 in fact). Pat had 37 points and WHS has rewarded her with a 0.2 Index cut from 18.6 to 18.4 (she’s now lower than Brian !!!).

There were also some other good scoring performances as shown on the report attached. Rob Wilhelmsson 3 birdies, George Parker best front 9 (22 points) and Veronica Mitchell best back 9 (23 points).

Sweep payout to top 3 (£10, £7, £4)

On a blisteringly hot day, a group of 12 Richmond Park golfers went to Glendale’s London Airlinks course for an exploratory away day, supported by the fact that annual Glendale subscribers can play one free round per month on any of their 7 golf courses.

After some last minute changes to the team set up, due to traffic problems hitting two of the players, three teams of 4 players teed off, playing 

• an individual stableford competition, and
• a team comp, counting the best two stableford scores per hole.

The course was links-like (as its name promises), short but tricky, with a few hard, blind doglegs and with greens at least twice the size of those at Richmond Park, but rather forgiving rough. Very enjoyable!

The teams were named the Lions, Tigers and Panthers and came in like this:

Brian Ransom won with a whopping 46 points, not bad after a month-long scoring slump and considering that he didn’t even like the course 🙂

The Lions took the team price, with a convincing 100 points, narrowly beating The Panthers with their 99 points.

Thanks everyone for joining and see you all soon!

Founders Cup – Mrs Millidge (5/6) 

The day belonged to the 9am starters. Just like last week the winner played with the duo of Alan K and yours truly. Alvaro had an excellent front 9. But the middle of the front 9 was really interesting: birdie on 5, a double digit score on 6 followed by … a birdie on 7. That roller coaster returned 21pts going out. His last last 9 holes were less volatile. But the 18pts on the back 9 and the fact that he was awarded 13 (!) shots today were the perfect assist to today’s win. Chris R was the best of the rest. He seems to thrive in the MW Founders Cup (more on that later). 37pts are enough for 2nd today (he will regret his scores on holes 17-18 though).  First woman of the day is Pat. Her 19pts on the way in edge her past the Men’s Secretary (who will have regrets about the 17th …). Seymour is a deserving 5th today. 6th place belongs to the person who was expected to show up in orange today. What happened to the Rickie Fowler trend Cheryl? Due to some people opting out of the sweep the payouts reached out to Richard Y and Chris N respectively.

MW Founders Cup Standings (TBC)
Chris R (142), Gina (140 – doens’t hurt when your previous low score of 20pts drops off today), KSC, RIchard Y and Peter H (all 132). So it’s a 2 horse race.

Humid conditions for the JQ Robertson but predicted rain didn’t arrive until after play.

Well done indeed to the overall winner Raymond who shot an amazing 44 pts – 22 out and 22 in with one ‘blob’. WHS applied an ESR of -1.0 and he now 10.0 from 12.4.

Two women followed – Jenny 41 [front 23] and Alison 38 [22 back with 3 4 pointers inc 17^th and 18^th]. Dilip beaten on back 9 also 38pts.

For the men this was 2^nd competition in the ‘Top Dog’ order of merit. In the senior division Raymond shares lead 12points Ross Hood ahead of Joe G and Toby each with 8. The junior has clear leader Dilip 14 from Onursal. See attached report.