Warm and sunny summer conditions returned for the Autumn Plate – as bottom of results confirms with temp > 26C and barometer reading rising.

Gina won the plate with 39 points on countback from Richard B (last 3 holes) and Naveed (back 9). Gina’s back 9 21 points was only eclipsed by Pierpaolo’s 22.


Secretary Peter H had the misfortune of his electric trolley wandering into the drink at 18th. An MP4 video of the aftermath is attached (other videos are available). Apparently trolley still worked after ( with Glendale assistance) fished out but 6 iron left in water and mobile phone thoroughly soaked. Glendale sponsored a cup of tea.

Subsequently White Knight Kerry S came to the rescue retrieving Peter’s 6 iron (and pitching wedge ) back. He fished them out of pond .

The 2nd round of Midweek Club Championship were played in fairly benign conditions with a fairly constant breeze/wind ( I think – was in hospital for day) .

New member Justin W shot best net of the day 64 from Gina 67 and Ronnie 69; Jay was best 71 on countback (and lowest gross) from Jeremy R and Naveed.

The overall men’s scratch Senior Division was won by Jay pulling ahead of 1st round leader Stephen S with 151. The Junior Division was claimed by Justin R 174 from Stephen H 189 .

Overall women’s scratch winners was Gina 175 , 5 ahead of Ronnie 180 and Sheena 183.

The Midweek Handicap Trophy is ‘joint’ meaning that the men and the women challenge for the same cup.  The result was close and with his six under second round score Justin finished as the winner with a combined net 133, just ahead of Veronica Mitchell with her 134.  

In addition to the normal NRs for no card returned/ NRs at individual holes [medal comp] , Richard B was DQ for returning card with an incorrect score honestly reported as having played wrong ball.

Benign conditions prevailed for the B/H Plate- a (distinctly chilly) wind with northerly component fluctuated as temperature rose – see bottom of results report.

Late entrant Chris S proved the winner 41 points from Saturday entrant Marco V winning 2nd spot 40 on countback from new member Justin B. Yours truly held on to 4th with 39. Best lady Lia 37. Back-marker marking cards for hcap – peter H 17pts.

Chris S had a purple patch 5 through 7 – 3,3,3; mine lasted 1 hole -the 7th with a drive through to back of green and 1 putt for a birdie – swiftly forgotten at next hole – 9!

Next Sunday is the London Duathlon with Richmond Park roads closed to traffic- see details at https://londonduathlon.com/race-day/route-and-maps/full-duathlon .
Peter H will no doubt cover in his weekly missive but please allow extra time since roads open may be congested etc.

Pleasant late summer conditions prevailed with much sunshine and little wind for round 1 of Midweek Club Championship; this is borne out by local weather report at end of net results -top 24C and light breezes.

The net (doubles as Handicap Trophy rnd 1 and also sweep rnd1) winner was Julian James from the last game om 64 just edging Richard N on countback. A glorious 65 (but no sweep) came from Ronnie best woman with Richard O completing the top 4 on 66.

Chris J recorded an eagle at 14 and is 3rd man to do so this year – only Louis D and Ross H from Sunday contingent have done this. Well done Chris and I’d love to share a pint hearing how it was achieved!

The men’s scratch shows new member Stephen S 75, 1 ahead of Jay followed by Richard S 78 and Richard O 80. Just 1 NR from the Senior Division.

The women’s scratch shows Ronnie 86 just 1 ahead of both Gina and Sheena with Cheryl 10 further behind.

[Of technical interest Stephen transferred a UHS handicap of 1.0 from another club (as a single number with no actual underlying scores). This round was his 3rd with us and WHS handicap index is now 4.7 due to the math. Per attached pdf]

The Junior Division is tied with Julian J and Justin W each 88 followed closely by 89s from Stephen H and Richard No. 11 DQs/NRs from this Division.

The best scores analysis report attached should speak for itself.

Richard B rode out the impressive winner with 43pts [23 in the final furlong] Paul Gre returned an impressive 40 whilst Duncan T, Katherine K, Louis D and Tony K had solid 39s. Armi had 6 birdies whilst Katherina K and Secretary Peter H shared the 5 par 3 honours – 23pts.
The comparative advantage and Mixed Tee Adjustment of 5.1 in Wednesday’s Duke’s comp for women did not apply as usual in this round on Prince’s.

President Tim M welcomed all to the clubhouse and was so pre-occupied he omitted to sign his own comp’s card!

NTP prizes as below. Congrats to Silvia who simultaneously completed 3rd hcap card – hcap index 10.9.


1: Nearest the pin in 2 – Nick R & Silvia B
2: Nearest the pin – Joseph M
4: Nearest the pin – Cuneyt S
11:Nearest the pin no NTP marker
13 or 16 : Nearest the pin – James P
16 or 13 : Nearest the pin – Armi I
18: Nearest the pin in 2 – Henry L Chloe L

The number of DQs for not returning or not signing card is creeping up. Please bear in mind for future. With NTP prizes, DQ from competition would have meant loss of NTP prize; happily this did not occur this time.

The round doubled as round 6 of 7 for men’s Top Dog [ matchplay results to come] – this shows Rhys still in lead 25 from Cuneyt 20 and Louis 16. The detail report attached (not available on Masterscoreboard) shows points awarded in each comp by individual.

The main report of results shows showers at 1 and 3 am; enough to make the rough extremely wet in places and some areas still roped off due downpours (of was it previous week?).

Stephen H emerged on countback from Gina – both with very tidy 67s; Sarah came 4th from a Richard N regaining good form ;Cheryl, John P and Sheena again on countback 70s.

A high proportion of women in the field again took 5 of first 8 places. Last of 6 sweep prizes went to 10th position – shown in detail on prizes report.

The round constituted 2nd played of the Midweek Anniversary Accumulator with women taking 3 of 4 top places: Cheryl leading 137 from Gina 138,Angus 140 and Sheena 141.

The day was one of improvement weather-wise – with sun and wind increasing -see bottom of results. and Glendale had cut back some of the rough but e.g. 17th for men off whites still punishing.

The sun shone from the start for Louis with another good – indeed exceptional round of 62. Well done Louis – you earn an ESR adjustment of 1.0 for 20 rounds.
For those interested, all the info about ESRs under WHS are included in USGA handicapping rules extract attached.

Alison also played exceptionally but not ESR country; of the early starters Wonil and John C had 66 and 67 respectively. Gina flew the women’s sweep flag 5th with 68 just heading Tony K and Ant on count back. Ant incidentally had lowest gross of the day and added to his birdie tally by 4.

The competition was 3rd of 4 Jubilees in the Anniversary Cup which has Richard I the leader 208 from Mark B 215 and women’s handicap secretary Sheena 218.

For the men this was round 5 of the Top Dog with

Stats report attached gives other highlights.

Welcome back to summer golf. The sun is trying its best very to erase all memories of the wet weather. But there was still standing water in most of the bunkers. Wonder how the rough will react to extra water. It can’t possibly grow any thicker right?

Rick K caught fire on the back 9. 3 birdies enabled him to come home in a score of 31 gross (-2). Couple that to a tidy front 9 (39 gross) and you end with an excellent score of 70 (gross – 61 net). Best of the rest were 2 players on scores of 67 (net). Brian’s better back 9 award him 2nd place ahead of Justin. First woman of the day was one of the early starters, Caroline S. Looks like the 7.31 tee-time did relatively well (Justin was in that game too). Giles also recorded a 69 (net) but his back 9 couldn’t match that of Caroline. Richard and Jeremy R take places 6 & 7 with scores of 70 (net) each. Shout out to Pete G for his eagle on the 9th.

I had forgotten what a dry day at the park looks/feels like. Standing water at some places was a reminder of the heavy rain of the past days. Onto the order of the day.

Jeremy Ryan went +1 gross on the back. Over the last 9 holes he recorded a whopping 23pts. Combine to that to a solid front 9 and you end up with a score of 42pts and 1st place. 1st woman of the day was Hilary. She mirrored Jeremy’s score on the front 9. But her 22pts on the way in mean she has to settle for second place today. Peter Goodall as usual came out all guns blazing (21pts out). A decent back 9 and a total of 40ts earn him 3rd place. Clubhouse leader Naveed also scored 19pts on the front. But some trouble on the par 5’s set him back 2 points into 4th. Tamas, Brian and John all recoded 36pts. Countback rule decided that Tamas and Brian complete the Top 6.

Other highlights:

• Alastair scored a 5-pointer and 2 4-pointers
• the MW captain and Rick both recorded 3 birdies.

Results of the challenges:

• NTP 7th hole: Ned Shanklyn
• NTP 10th hole: the Midweek Captain himself (he birdied that hole)
• longest drive 11th hole (men): John Curry (Rick’s drive was longer but ended up in the rough)
• NTP 16th hole: Toby Hunt
• NTP in 2 18th hole (Women): N/A
• NTP in 18th hole (Men): Midweek Captain Henry

All winners will be contacted by the Midweek Captain.

Women

Well where to start! Last week seemed bad enough but today’s scores indicate that virtually everyone found it worse. Not helped of course by greens with standing water and at least one hole where there was no dry route to the hole, oh & of course the 5+ hours that we spent waiting on every shot on every hole.

The lowest score today belongs rightly to our 2021 Club Champ – Gina who fretted her way around the course, worried about the 7s on her card but sinking some very good putts along the way. Despite Sheena’s allegedly appalling golf, it was somehow good enough to retain the runner-up spot and these two were the only ones to not have an 8 or more on their cards.

In the end there were just 5 in each of the 2 divisions for the Handicap & Pembroke Cups.
Gina & Val ended on the same total of 153, but Val’s more balanced 2 rounds of 76 and 77 takes the Handicap Cup from Gina with the better back 18.

First week leader, Jenny, couldn’t hang on this week and was well beaten into 2nd spot by Ali who although rueing her visit to the bunker on the 16th takes the Pembroke Cup by 11 shots.

Someone suggested opening the fizz to get over the trauma, which seems like a good idea but Gina, Val & Ali can just celebrate.

Men

Showery conditions prevailed with a very heavy shower around 1pm.

Generally there was much casual water and of course the rough continued to wreak havoc with many rounds. Again the Junior Division had highest no. of NRs.

To the golf –

The overall and Senior Division resulted in a tie between Jay and George – both 147 for the 2 rounds; the winner is decided by an 18 hole play-off as results attached show. MS may show winner and runner-up incorrectly. Jay added 3 more birdies to his Sunday tally
Again tied forv3/4 position are Angus and Richard B – both 156.

The Junior Division had a clear winner – Paul Gre on 182 – 2 ahead of runner-up John Ahad and Louis 185

The Handicap (net) Trophy was tied – Rick K and George M both 138; I don’t think play-off needed but Peter H will confirm by Friday – . There were also ties for 3 & 4th Angus R and James P,
The Handicap (net) for round 2 doubles as the sweep report with Rick first of 8 sweep winners.

Finally, on a lighter note, a kestrel joined my 4-ball (last game) and can be seen in photo below atop my golf-bag.

photo courtesy of Marnix van Gelderen