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.

Contrary to expectations Glendale (or their contractors) chose to perform some (much needed) drainage works on the first 2 holes on our competition day. Unfortunately the works started after the early starters went out. As a consequence we are forced to make today’s competition a Non-Qualifier. But as previously players are welcome to submit their scores a General Play Scores. Please reply to this mail if you want us to take care of this input.

Onto the order of the day:

Russell had 3 birdies today. He recorded 16pts (over 7 holes) on the way out. The start of his back 9 was a bit shaky: he recorded no points on the 11th hole (blame an ugly 7). But he bounced back brilliantly with a birdie on the 12th. In total he netted 22pts on the last 9 holes. Kevin had a sub-par front 9 (14pts). But he more than made for that on the way in (23pts). Colm recorded the same points total but the countback rule awards 2nd place to Kevin. Jeremy Prescot copied KP’s method: 13pts (out) + 23pts (in) on his way to 4th place. Pralab had a solid round (15 +21pts). Brian’s back 9 was quite diverse: 3*1pt, 4*3pts and 1 4-point play.

Midweek Winter Competition: Mike Jones (114), Tamas Ladacs (112) .

Dukes Midweek Eclectic: R. Dykes (67), B. Colley (69), B. Ransom (70)

Early frost melted to give a largely sunny [and again dry] day with sun gradually gaining elevation. Towards end of round it became distinctly chilly with a cold breeze.

Good for scoring then and n weeks since Duke’s playing all 18 holes.

Women

Guess no one was too keen on the conditions and weather today and despite the fact that yesterday was pretty windy, Gina who played then takes this weekend’s comp with 31 points.

In the accompanying eclectic, with holes 8 & 9 previously out of action scores weren’t calculated but unsurprisingly (if you look at recent results) Gina is also in the lead in this – by some large margin with just 1 round to go.

Men

Cuneyt, playing on Saturday [6 entrants was the worthy winner 40 points on countback from Brian McMahon; Another Saturday entrant Dilip was third alone 39. Jihum, Julian (again) and Ross completed the first 6 line-up on 38 points.

This was the penultimate round of the Duke’s Eclectic with Richard Inglis om a commanding lead of 60.2 from Brian Ransom 65.2- but possibility remains that winner may emerge from those with no scores at 8 and 9.

The round also constituted 5th in Winter Competition with Roger Rojas leading 115 from Julian and Secretary Peter 114 then Adrian and Tony 113s.

Performance stats reports below

What a difference a couple of dry days can make. Most of the standing water has gone (except for the 1st and 18th fairway and some more remote areas of the course). Holes 8-9 were even open on Duke’s. And to top it all off there was even a slight chance to get bounce/roll on certain patches of the fairways. Add “milder” temperatures and some forward tees and you had a cocktail for some low scoring.

Juho is today’s clear winner. 24pts on the back 9 set the bar pretty high for anybody. Richard N takes 2nd with an excellent score of 42pts. The hottest golfer of 2022 James put in another stellar round to take 3rd (23pts on the way in). Something lit a fire under Alan today (surely not something that will be confirmed coming Sunday?). 4 birdies (yes 4) enable him to finish 4th. Richard O put in another solid round on Princes (although he will have nightmares about the 1st hole). Jenny and Sheena take 6 and 7th respectively.

Midweek Winter Comp (TBC)

Peter Goodall (115), Mike Jones (114), Julian James (113), Tamas Ladacs (112)

Midweek Eclectic Princes

Peter Goodall (58 Net), Richard Owen (61), Jeremy Ryan (63)

Another grey but dry day [see men’s results for bland temperature plot] after many days/weeks on no real rain produced perfect scoring conditions.

Women

As with all these scrambles, the scores end up very close and could not have been much closer today. Ali was the only member of the first game in the clubhouse when others got in & despite declaring otherwise it was probably to let us know that they had a birdie on the 18th, which was in fact her tee shot, her 2nd shot & her 3rd shot which has resulted in them winning today’s event courtesy of the back 9 being a better score.

Now that’s been duly reported! Congrats to Jayne, Susan, Doreen & Ali for what was of course a team effort,

Conditions were definitely drier underfoot today but not exactly what has been described in the intro para as being ‘perfect for scoring’.

Men

The target was set on Saturday by Sean Julliard on 59 which seemed unbeatable until James Goh strolled into the clubhouse on Sunday with 58! Sean shot just 2 over par 70 whilst James at 73 was just 5 over.
Sean is cut from 10.1 to t.6 whilst James cut from13.9 to8.5 assisted en route with a -1 adj ESR. Best absolute gross just 1 over 69 from Ross Hood .

The rest of the field included many good scores but the overall Playing Conditions Calculator [PCC or CSS adj. in old money] was zero. Stats reports for the 2 days attached.

Gunnar and Adrian shot magnificent 62s whilst Patrick Murphy (fresh from the sun and warmth of Costa del Sol) and Robin Thomas 63s.

Indeed, 27 from 55 cards were in 50s or 60s.

Divisional Medal results reflect the above with James winning Senior (low handicap) Division and Gunnar the Junior Division.

The 10:33 grouping were challenged by Glendale’s Frederico at the 2nd tee par 3 to be nearer the pin on green than him. Frederico narrowly missed the green but the competitive trio all landed on green with Mark Bean just 1 inch from hole. Photos attached of Mark’s achievement, a Glendale voucher and the trio proudly sporting their vouchers. Note the immaculately clean trolley and brand new golf bag of the Handicap Secretary in group photo.

Frost early melted and eventually the sun came out. Men’s results report shows an interesting double temp. peak -2:30 and 8:00 in the evening. Mud, some mats and bobbly greens persisted. Holes 8 and 9 were out of action.

Women

Looking at the scores it seems no one was too keen on the conditions out there today and most would have been finishing by the time the sun came out in force. Late starter Gina appears to have taken advantage and was the winner on 27 with Katharina and Monique 2 back on 25.

Recording ‘hole not played’ rather than no score is still causing some confusion but fortunately for those concerned the scorecard is still king!

Men

Brian Ransom shot a stonking 38 points [with 23 back 9], 3 ahead of folllowing35s divided by countback : Nigel Ward, Kim, Colm and Ryan. Captain Kim leads the birdies tree with 3 YTD. Kerry mastered the par 5 with birdie.

In the associated Winter Competition Roger Rojas on 115 has the advantage from Secretary Peter .

In the Duke’s Eclectic Richard Inglis is our leader 67.3 from Brian and Russell 69.1s.

A shortened round of Winter golf for the field today. Luckily the rain held off a bit start of the week. Add that to the reduced (very) low temperatures and the field played a course with substantially less standing water. But the mud was ever present and the greens were tricky (bumpy and slow).

Allan Cobb recorded decent score going out (15pts – that result was matched by 4 other players – curiously most of them were also early starters). He then continued his strong performance by recording the best score on the back 9 (17pts). So quite logically he wins today’s competition. Richard Norden and Angus finished 2pts behind Allan. Countback rule awards 2nd place to Richard (the birdie on the 16th didn’t hurt). Notwithstanding 2 birdies Angus has to settle for 3rd. Julian had a solid round (15 + 14) to take 4th place. 5th place goes to Brian. The women didn’t quite enjoy today’s conditions. 1st woman today was Cheryl in 12th place.