Spring golf made a (very) welcome return to the park. A large field enjoyed great weather and a course that is gradually being prepped by the greenkeeping team for a summer onslaught. The condition of the greens was a bit more debatable. But all in all scoring proved to be excellent today.

MW Captain Henry L-B set the early pace with an excellent score of 40pts. 2 birdies were offset by an untidy 7 on the 8th. Another early starter Wonil was just 1pt behind Henry. Henry’s score held for most of the day. Toby was the only player able to improve on the MW Captain’s score. 21pts on the way out and 20pts on the way in make him today’s winner. First woman of the day is the Woman’s Captain with a very steady 38pts. Usual suspect Peppe racked up another Top6 finsh. 22pts on the back 9 certainly helped (that score was matched by Handicap Secretary PaulG and Tony B.).

No less than 5 players ended with 38pts. Alan and Pralab being the last 2 players to end  “In the Money” (. Reiko and Ronnie confirmed the return in force of the female contingent (hope you saved some birdies for next week Ronnie). If Paul Brown would the sheer number of birdies on the 16th (7!!!) today he would probably never come back to the park.  Best front 9 goes to Alan King who needed only 8 holes to record 22pts!

Very pleasant early Spring conditions with drying worm-casts, sun and breeze. Greens were noticeably faster then we’ve experienced in recent months. UV levels matched by temp in results report plot.

Very good golf with countback placing Ulli 1st from Oz – both super 42s. John Cho 3rd 41, Martn Hay 40 with Gunnar (welcome back Gunnar) and Captain John39s. Junior Ethan maintained form 38 with previous captain Kim.

A shout out and congrats to John Cho who recorded the season’s first eagle at 9th.

Weather forecast convinced quite a few players to tee off early. The plan seemed to work like a charm especially when the rain intensified during the course of the day.

Juho, Alan and Gregory all set the early pace. But the honours go to two 9am starters. Peppe had a shaky start (DB – Bogey). But regained some impressive composure to finish the front 9 at +5 gross. His back 9 also showed some shaky patches. But he couldn’t regroup in the same way as on the front 9. He finished on 86 gross (66 Nett). This score proved too much of a hurdle for most players. Colm used a strong back 9 (40 gross) to better Peppe’s score by a whopping 4 strokes. Birdie on the 14th didn’t hurt.
First woman today is Cheryl Woodhouse. Lowest gross score was posted by Rob.

Breezy overall with spots of rain Sunday per bottom of results file and some run was available; last game got what sun there was. Ditch/trench across 9th fairway made an interesting feature:

Junior Ethan Ford crafted a professional 40 points to win the Plate and had 4 3s inc. one birdie at par 4 11th. Ethan will no doubt improve! Duncan Taylor had excellent back 9 22pts. Kerry Sargeant returned an excellent 38 pts with 1 over par on front 9 and 2 birdies. Kerry shared front 9 honours with Henry L-B. There were good 37s from Kim, Ulli and Robert C as well as 36s from Damber, Keith C and Paul K.

Spring golf made a  very welcome return to the park. The Royal Parks deciding to cut trees today was not really part of the plan. Therefore we had to run the competition over 16 holes. Milder temperatures, sunshine, faster greens, better looking fairways and some decent golf were all present. Pity that access to the clubhouse itself was rather limited.

But see photo afterwards of new layout and floor covering

Onto to the main talking points. 3 players recorded 37pts. Chris Rudkin was the best thanks to his 21pts on the back 9 (only matched by Paul G). Brian started with a birdie and maintained an excellent level of golf over the first 7 holes (18pts). 2nd place is a nice return for a steady back 9 (19pts). Alan King was playing like a man possessed on the way out: -1 gross through 6 holes. A DB on the 7th didn’t stop him from scoring 20pts on the way out. He recovered after a wobble on the 10th hole to come home with 17pts. Angus tightens extends his lead in the birdie tree with 3 extra birdies (2nd, 3rd and 17th). 5th place goes to the Women’s Captain today. Pralab and Allan benefit from the women not taking part in the sweep (cf. attachment). The game of Alan King, Alvaro Garcia-Hoz and yours truly managed as a group  to record 5 birdies on the first 7 holes.

The competition also constituted final round of Midweek Winter competition and associated Duke’s Eclectic. Juho Lim and Pralab share the honours on 115 with Mike Jones and Secretary Peter Harrington joint runners-up 114. The Duke’s Eclectic champion is Richard Owen 59.2 with Angus Robertson and Brian Ransom close on his heels at 59.6 and 59.9 respectively.

Now that storms Franklin and Eunice are a thing of the past a large field enjoyed decent playing conditions (except for some standing water and usual muddy spots).

Pralab went out early and set a very decent target of 40pts. That score held for most of the day. Richard H and Juho came close but have to settle for 3rd and 4th respectively. The only player beating 40pts was Julian. He torched the back 9 for 23pts (his only 1-pointer came as a result of a 6 on the 12th hole). As an FYI: the best front 9 belongs to Russel (22pts – cf. Best Score Analysis Report).  Cheryl was the only one other player recording 23pts on the back 9 (guess 5pts on the 14th didn’t hurt). A bit of last minute scorecard drama was resolved so she takes 5th place.  Chris Rudkin and the MC take 6th and 7th respectively. Looks like in general the women faired pretty well playing off the yellow tees (I believe the only nasty surprise came on the 12th tee).

There’s just one round of the Midweek Winter Comp left – next Wednesday twinned with the Inaugural Trophy; latest position is in attached [software cannot cope with bespoke requirement which insists that best 3 from 8 but at least one round must be played on each course].

A new leader has emerged – Pralab Barua!. His 40 yesterday replaced 30 on Prince’s advancing him 10 points from previous 105. The laws of maths apply but if I were a betting man I would tip Julian James [a course and distance winner] who only needs to have 34 or better to lead Pralab.

Of course the winner could be someone with just 1 score from each course so far.

MW Winter Comp: Pralab (115), Mike J (114), Peter H (114), Julian J (113), Tamas (112) Juho (112). Last round of the MW Winter Comp will be held next week. MW Prince’s eclectic goes to Peter Goodall

Strange conditions at the park today. The field enjoyed mild temperatures. But the rain of the last days had created lots of areas with standing water. It even forced the greenkeeper to close 2 holes. The greens were very receptive. Although it was a surprise not having to face any temporary greens. Distance control was tricky today. There was very little roll (believe that quite a few tee-shots must have plugged on the fairways). The swirling/gusty winds made things even more complicated.

It was a case of one man v the rest today. The men’s secretary took the course apart today with an outstanding score of 38pts. 17pts on the front 9 was already quite a feat. His 21pts on the back 9 look even more impressive since he didn’t score any points on the 17th. The best of the rest was Alan King. It has to be said he had to use the countback rule to claim 2nd. Riding high on his nomination to the club’s main committee he recorded 14 and 19pts. Yours truly took 3rd. Brian Ransom used an excellent back 9 (20pts) to steal 4th place from Richard O.  Only 3 birdies were recorded today. Four of the hardest holes were on the back 9. The 5 most difficult holes today were (in descending order): 12th, 14th, 13th, 6th and 17th. Jeremy Prescot managed to score 2 4-pointers today.

Looks like Rob Dykes wins the Duke’s eclectic (TBC).

Forecast rain started 1 o’clock per main results report with some sunshine preceding. So later games caught the rain on the back 9 . Saturday and early games escaped dry. 37 turned up for Sunday.

Other events conspired to keep most of the women away from the course – so no report for them this week.

Overall winner with a tidy 67 was Sean O’Sullivan with the in-form Gunnar chasing with 69; Julian James again performed 70as did Cuneyt.

Senior Division Medal winner was Toby 73 and Junior Sean. Bucking the normal trend, the Senior Division had far more NRs than the Junior despite less entrants.

A large field enjoyed pretty decent playing conditions: forward tees, mild temperatures, quite a bit of bounce & roll on the fairways and faster greens.

Early starter Chris Newman came in with a net score of 56. Turns out he put the bar (too) high for the rest of the field. Peppe put up a valiant effort. But his putter was stone cold today (a tap-in birdie on the 15th was a rare exception).  Unfortunately he came up just short with a net score of 58. 3rd place goes to Rudkin (despite 2 snowmen). Jim Deissler was the best of a group of 60. His 2 birdies on the last 3 holes allows him to (ab)use the countback rule to finish 4th. The men’s handicap secretary finishes 5th. Despite an eagle on the 3rd hole Brett Colley loses out Seymour for 6th. Some other highlights: Jeremy started with 2 birdies but his last 4 holes were less inspiring. New Committee member Alan King was on fire on the first 6 holes (1 under gross). Let’s not discuss the next 11 holes.

Early rain cleared earlier than forecast – at 09:30 according to plot at bottom of men’s results attached, sun came out with UV peaking shortly after midday. The author received a very poor weather forecast and did not play but apparently drainage operations were much in evidence 1st / 18th.

Women

What an interesting set of results and conditions on the morning after the club dinner. At least the rain went away, but that wind was somewhat strong and gusty.
A hazarded guess that Cheryl was the designated driver last night because those who imbibed quite freely at last night’s dinner did not appear to enjoy a great day on the course today. Certainly Gina’s score today does not match with her horde of trophies she gathered last year whereas Julie had a mere shandy all night. Prosecco to blame perhaps??
But that’s the golf gods for you – a few weeks ago Julie walked off after 5 or so holes as she struggled to hit the ball whereas today she won with 33 points. 3 ahead of both Cheryl & Jenny.

Despite her unusual poor result today, Gina still improved her eclectic score to move further away from the rest of the field. With the vagaries of WHS Susan has actually gone backwards as her handicap had a small cut, but is still in 2nd spot with 1 round to go.

Men

The winner proved to be Saturday entrant Richard Owen 40 points from Justin Wildman 38 with Brian McMahon and Paul Kammerling 37s. Richard went out in 22 points , Paul 21 with birdies at 4 and 8.

Winter Comp round 6 results are attached – manually retouched (at least 1 round from each course has to count and the HM software does not cater for such a bespoke feature so on MasterSoreboard the report is for rough guidance only) – Roger currently leads 115 from Julian and secretary Peter 114s. Colm, Tony and Adrian are in touch – 113.

The penultimate round of Prince’s Eclectic reveals Colm leading 57.3 from Roger 62.1 and Ed 62.8.