After the sad events of the second half of the week the attention turned to golf again. Remarkable what a bit of rain can do. Fairways were lush (taking divots became rather common). The greens offered grip/zip and some speed.

Div 1 Results

Brendan Sullivan put together a remarkable round of golf. +3 gross on the way out (1 birdie on the 3rd hole) resulted in 21pts. But his back 9 was better. He came back in level par gross. Add the 25pts of his back 9 (birdies on 11 & 15) to his score on the front 9 and you get an astounding result of 46pts. Needless to say that he takes the win today. He will also get an ESR. Well done. Best of the rest in Div1 was Richard Smith  who put together a steady round: 20pts on front and back 9. Adrian Wells had the best front 9 of the whole field (23pts). Even though he matched Richard’s total his “softer” back 9 moves him into 3rd place. Dodgy Roger finished the back 9 strong to take 4th place with 39pts. Best woman in Div1 was Gina with a solid score of 38pts.

Div 2 Results

Normally any player would be happy with a stableford score of 42pts. But today Sean the southpaw misses out on the overall win. He has to settle for the win in Div2. Goran takes 2nd place. 6’s on the last 2 holes prevented him from improving on a score of 41pts. With quantitative precision he keeps chipping away at his HI. Sarita put together the best score on the par 5’s on her way to 37pts. By doing so she is the last player to earn some sweep money in Div2.

Sunshine and varying showers were the order of the day for the challenging bogey format for Fred Hawtree trophy. Major shower just after 3 o’clock.
The oak tree between 4th and 16th had been felled- see attached photos.

I always think it is good golf to be tied (all square’ in old money) but some astonishing golf was played by those ‘Up’, notably winner Giles Rawlinson 7 up and Alan Cobb 6 up.
Very early starter Mitch Cohen was laeader in clubhous for some time 4 up from Rob Dykes.

Best woman was Julie Ryan – Tied

Peter Goodall with 2 birdies was 5 up on front 9 whilst Giles held honours on back 9 . again 5 up.

Very breezy conditions persisted for the 2nd round of the Midweek Club Championship; despite no rain in the last week green grass patches expanded.

In the net for the day, Richard Young put into action all recent tips to win with a marvellous 64. He was chased by José Manuel Gomez and Rob Smyth 65s (Rob shooting 2 over par gross 73 with 5 birdies); José had 2 10s but otherwise excellent round which earned him an ESR of -1.0 and a cut in HI from29.4 to 27.1.

The midweek Handicap Trophy was tied with 131s from Rob Smyth and Hilary Casey 131s. Mike Sands and Mayumi were amongst chasers with both sixties rounds on 134.

In the overall men’s scratch the deserved Senior division winner was Richard Back 147 from Rob Smyth 148; the Junior winner being Roland Godfrey 173 from Colin Price 175.

The women’s scratch was won by Silvia Bortoli 161 with Sheena runner-up 169.

The wind ran counter to normal direction; green shoots of grass recovery were evident and as on Prince’s seeded grass in new drainage channels had germinated with rain earlier in the week.

Brendan Sullivan off 12 was the winner of the Bank Holiday Plate with an excellent 43 points just beating Robin Thomas on the back 9. Excellent golf. Curiously, WHS awarded Brendan a -1.0 ESR but HI didn’t change [‘hard cap’ ?] whilst Robin cut from 18.5 to 17.5. George Taylor and James Parker followed with very good 40s.

Best woman was Jayne 37 with 22 points on back 9. In the last game the author scored most on the par 3s [9pts] whilst another Paul (Kamerling) joined Kerry Sargeant and Richard Back with a ‘Two’ – only Russell also had a Two on 10th.

The quality of the golf today was excellent. And it has to be said that the pace of play was pretty decent too.

Senior Division

Naveed went out early. 3 birdies set him on course for a very tidy 71 (gross) to become leader in the clubhouse. 2 other early starters (John Perkins and Rob Smyth) came pretty close but couldn’t better Naveed’s marker. Richard Owen as per usual posted an excellent round on Prince’s. None of the late morning starters threatened Naveed’s gross score. The last remaining threat were the pm starters. And the sting was clearly in the tail. Strong of his win in the main CC RIchard Back managed to record no less than … 7 birdies. Scores of 34 (gross) on the front 9 and 32 (gross) on the back 9 give him a reasonable cushion for Round 2 next week. Jay must absolutely hate hole 10 on Prince’s now. Rather uncharacteristically he experienced the same problems as in the main CC. Despite that costly misstep he remains within touching distance of Richard B.  Silvia put in an excellent round and is first woman today (no trophy for that unfortunately).

Silvia leads women’s round 1 scratch 76 from Sheena 83′

Junior Division

Roland ended front and back 9 with birdies to take a 1-shot lead into next week. Colin made a good birdie on the 6th to fully remain in the hunt. Chris Jones and Pat Dalton are a further shot back. Not surprisingly the field is much tighter in the Junior Division.

Nett Results/Handicap Trophy

Results are a bit different re: the MW Handicap Trophy. Hilary is keeping up her recent good form by posting an incredible score of 58 (Nett). Richard B is a close second with his score of 60 (Nett). John Perkins and Naveed are a bit further back on Nett 63’s.

Conditions were cooler than of late with sunny intervals extending to sunny periods. After rain a week or so ago random bounce was not quite so pronounced and still plenty of run.

The deserved winner of the President’s Putter with an immaculate 45 points was Susan Smith and she also earned an ESR with HI dropping from 17.8 ->15.7. Ryan Jones led the challeng with and excellent 42 pts with Silvia and Charlie Whiteman 40s Charlie’s 40 included 2 ‘blobs’. Brian McMahon had best back 9 – 23 points.

There were novelty NTP par 3 prizes as below
NTP 2nd Louis Dickey
NTP 4th Tim Rose
NTP 11th Paul Kamerling
NTP 13 in 2 Richard Inglis
NTP 16th Roger Rojas

The competition was the 6th of 7 for the men’s Top Dog:
Senior division is headed by Richard Smith 24 pts from Ryan and Richard Owen 18s
Junior division is a 3-way tie on 24 points for Duncan, Goran and Charlie Whiteman.

Avoiding the forecast showers proved a bit more straight forward than expected. The apocalyptic forecast of the Met didn’t materialise. So luckily the field was spared thunderstorms. Truth be told the late morning starters experienced the heaviest downpour. But everybody made it to the clubhouse without too many problems.

A stellar performance (24pts on front and back 9) by Adrian Wells was the biggest highlight of the day. On top of some sweep money Adrian will also receive an ESR. Best of the rest was John. The MC had had a very rewarding couple of days. After a thumping in the Bontor he put up 19pts on way out and 23pts on the way in to take second. 3rd place goes to Rob. But his scores on the 6th and 18th will leave a very bad taste in his mouth. Oliver was a late starter and struggled through the downpour. But his perseverance gets rewarded with a nice 4th place finish. Toby is keeping up his good recent form and is the last of the players on 40+ points.

Anther hot day – and the author stayed away.

Conditions suited the day’s winner of the Golden Jubilee – Sheena with a net 63. She stamped her authority at beginning of both 9s with birdies at first and10th. Sheena shrugged off another -1.0 ESR (first on Captains’ Day last year with HI reduced from 14.5 to 12.3.
3 behind were Goran 66 on countback from Mike Shabani. Former captain Kim shot lowest gross 68 and last week’s winner Nick continues to impress {with Louis] on back 9 -39.

This was 3rd of 4 Jubilee rounds and the Anniversary Cup sees John Morris leading 204 from 3 on 206 -Mike Shabani, Sheena and Oz.

Divisional Top Dogs for the men show Richard Owen leading Senior on 18 from Oz and Richard Smith 16s. The Junior currently has a tie – both Duncan Taylor and Goran with 24 pts.

A small field met on the scorched ground of Princes today to compete in the August Midweek Monthly Meda [August Desert Classic].

Playing early to avoid the heat proved a sound strategy for quite a few players (numbers 2-5 in the rankings today went out before 8AM). Second observation is that the women in particular seemed to deal pretty well with the conditions (suppose the extra run didn’t hurt). Maybe this explains why a lot more women signed up for the sweep than usual.  Pralab survived bogeys on the final 3 holes to take the clubhouse lead with a score of 63 (Nett – 78 Gross). Pat Barbour came in 3rd with an excellent score of 64 (Nett). Giles and Pat were 1 stroke further back with 65’s (Nett). Hilary seems to keep up her recent good form to finish alone on 66 (Nett). Gina had the best back 9 overall. But no-one was a match for the best thing to come from Canada since Bryan Adams, Wayne Gretzky, Pamela Anderson, maple syrup and poutine (the spelling is correct – it is a dish) (FYI: ranking is totally random) . Ann Gardner shot a remarkable round of 61 (Nett) to steal today’s honours. Her result could/should’ve been better had she been able to avoid an ugly 7 on the 18th hole. You probably saw Oliver copying Omar Sharif/Lawrence of Arabia by showing up all dressed in white today.

MW GMT ranking: Tamas (335), Gina (339), Peter G (344) Mayumi (350).

Humidity increased as temp nudged 29C for the Midweek Captain’s day – and there was a wind with which to contend; sunny intervals developed into sunny periods.

The individual winner with an outstanding 46 points [26 out!] followed by Chrs Jones (24 back). It was a pleasure to welcome best woman Mayumi Takahashi into the winners’ enclosure (24 back) In 4th position on countback was Ronnie from Rob Wilhelmsson and Seymour. Both Ronnie and Chris Newman had a couple of birdies whilst Teddy had the only 2 on 10th.

Captain Henry arranged some novelty challenges :

Nearest the Pin (NTP) after 2 shots – Hole 2 Pralab Barua
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 7 Paul Giles
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 10 Henry!
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 16 Angus Robertson

Henry also arranged a mystery [random draw] teams comp with all 3 stableford points counting. A separate results report file is attached confirming the team of Pat Dalton, Chris Jones and Rob Wlhemsson to be winners 125 pts 9 clear from ante-post favourites Seymour, Ronnie and Sheena.

6 shared in sweep and with some non-participants 9th place earned last prize.