A glorious summer day, for the 5th round of the Midweek Founders Cup!
Below the final result sheet and some additional competition related reports.

It was the first midweek comp this year on Dukes with a choice for the men about whether to tee off the white or the yellow tees.
The field split roughly half, with a slight majority on the yellow side.

Oliver made best use of the rapidly increasing firmness of fairways and greens, closely followed by Reiko.
The top five results are all in a range between 38 and 36 Stableford points and interestingly we had no ‘outliers’ in the 40s this time.

A good turnout of 73 for Captains’ Day – the odd shower/ spots early but otherwise sunny intervals and a cool wind for mid-June.

Best score came from new member David Grace with 46 points (22 out 24 back) but depicted as DQ since must have 6 completed WHS scores before can win comp under RPGC rules.
So Will Balakrishnan the winner on 37 points on countback from the in-form Kerry Sargeant; Will returned a fantastic one under 35 par gross on the difficult back 9 off whites whist Kerry kept a six off his card for his 37 despite 2 ‘blowouts’ .A steady 36 points from Joe Gonclaves edged Captain Uli Katte [3 birdies] on countback whilst Paul Kamerling shot 35 points and indeed was 1 under par gross after 6.

Of interest 38 men played off white tees with 21 yellow.

For the women there were indeed some good scores -with Sheena Harrington winning on countback 34 points from Gina Jillett and next fresh from foreign lands was Avi Murphy 33 points.

Thanks to Cheryl for the ‘libations’ on 10th tee….

Novelty prizes were as below (I think correct but original flags in white cupboard).

Junior
Gunnar Sundberg 18
Richard Inglis 1

For the men this doubled as round 2 of the ‘Top Dog’ by division.
Leaders per report below:
Senior
Kerry Sargeant 16
Mel Dunn 12
Will Balakrishnan 12

The course and weather combined to make very pleasant playing conditions. The greens were more like true greens that we could putt on with confidence.
Scores generally were good but not exceptional. Both Fhorkan Uddin and Alex Braun scored 22 points on the back nine with Fhofkan edging out Alex on a countback of the last 6 holes. Alex must rue not scoring on the first hole.
A similar story for third place with Russell Stewart taking it from Chris Rudkin on a last six hole countback.

A very pleasant summer’s day for the Platinum Jubilee – first of 5 in the Anniversary Cup. Sunny with a breeze not cloudy with northerly wind of late.

Conditions on Duke’s proved very difficult with the thick rough meaning many lost balls and time searching etc. 12 hole scores of 10 or over were recorded and 22 ‘No Returns’. No doubt the WHS Playing Condition Calculation overnight will reflect this.

The winner was Chris Mellish off 12 with 72 – Chris went out in 35 but back in 49 inc. an 8 and 9; next were three 73s from Umran Ali (7 & best back 9), Mike Assender (12) and Robert Carlile (14). Next was early starter Bernie McDermott 74. Best woman Silvia Bortoli off 10 – 78.

Playing his 4th WHS round was Tom Laybourn with creditable 72 off 32. [6 needed for comp win eligibilty].

The course was in good condition and the weather held fine with a modest breeze.

Jose Manuel Gomez had a steady round 18 out and 19 back for 37 with a no score on 16th. Kevin Prendergast headed the group of 5 players on 36 despite hitting the tee board on the first tee and almost rebounding into the pond in front of the club house and not scoring on that hole along with a blob on hole 9. Raymond Esin had a steady round but recorded a blob on 16th.

This was the 4th round (of 6 ) in the Founders’ Cup which sees Gina Jillett the leader 127 from Peppe Monterosso 116 with Peter and Sheena Harrington now both 115.

Mainly dry with a stiff breeze and sunny intervals. Fairways had been cut wider but balls still difficult to find/hit just in the rough. Good turnout of 52 for the Spring Bank Holiday Plate.

Women

Alongside the plate, the women were playing the second leg of the Committee Cup which had to be re-scheduled after rain closed the course for the original first round.

Sheena and Jenny were a few shots ahead of Cheryl after the first 18 and they extended that difference in today’s round. Commentary below shows Sheena’s round was enough to keep her at the top for most of the day so no surprise that she ended up 9 points ahead of Jenny to win the cup.

Mixed

‘Birthday Boy’ Gunnar Sundberg celebrated with 41 points to win and secured best front and back 9s [back shared with Alison Chadwick] – 20 & 21 points respectively in spite of a ‘blob’ at 14th. He overhauled the long-time clubhouse leader Sheena Harrington who had the better back 9 [20] on countback for 36s from Serhat, Suhail and Paul Kamerling.. Birdies proved hard to come by so well done to Aidan and Louis for scoring 2.

The threat of rain discouraged a number of players who had entered the competition from playing and the start sheet was almost constantly being updated. However, the main threat of rain did not materialise although conditions were extremely tough if one strayed off the fairways into the very wet rough and usually resulted in a lost ball!!
The fairways had been cut and the 1st cut area had been widened to assist but the overnight rain still make life difficult.
Scoring was unsurprisingly on the low side but Richard Norden showed everyone how to play the course with a fine 37 points.
Mention should also go to the two players who managed to get a two on the par threes.

After 3 rounds of the Founders Cup Bill Norman is in the lead from Gina Jillett.

Women

Staying out of the rough was definitely the secret today & one that Sheena appeared to manage for the front 9 with 20 points and then came the back 9!! Jenny though scored 19 of her points on the back as she kept it down the middle. For the first time since last year playing on the full 18 holes of Duke’s was a salutary reminder of the effect that not only the rough but the ditches can have on your score. Now we have to hope for some hot days to burn off all that grass where there are no doubt a lot of golf balls nestling down.

Men

Overnight cloud cleared quickly to leave a bright sunny day with variable wind for the Summer Cup.

Very tough conditions on Duke’s with thick rough sometimes just off fairways with attendant time looking for balls many of which were never seen again.

Greg Wright had predicted winning with his ‘bandit’ handicap before being apprised of our 6 rounds first rule (& today’s results has seen his handicap cut by several shots). With the better back 9 the system showed that he would have won from Paul Kamerling both with 37s. Paul is therefore the winner of the Summer Cup.
Umran shot a super 36 points with a gross 78 off 7 and Iker Lanzagorta had the best front 9, 20 pts with 35 points overall. Well done to Aidan, Sam and Will for their 3 birdies.

It was the second day of bright sunshine in a row, when we played the second round of ‘The Founder’s Cup – E. Bailey’ competition.
Even first sightings of golf shorts were made … 😉

The Duke’s course had been closed for almost 5 months and was still in a less than ideal state: narrow fairways, with punishing high grass left and right … lead to extended ball searching and a rather slow round.
And, unfortunately, because of the 5 temp greens, the competition had to be changed to ‘non-handicap-qualifying’!
But it was good to play on Duke’s again, after such long ‘abstinence’!

Gina and Justin both played later in the afternoon and managed to navigate the difficult course very well to come in with respectable over-30-points results. Gina clocked a stellar 20-point back 9 to take the win!

On Tuesday May 7th, BrianR and UliK played their Surrey Golf Foursomes match against London Scottish.
After the usual initiation rites (both had to borrow the mandatory post-office-red shirts), the game proceeded, in beautiful spring weather.
It went up and down, in the end LS were 1up on the 18th tee.
Our team managed to claw back that last hole and went on to win on the first extra hole.
Next opponents will be either Drift GC or Couldon Court GC.