Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Friday Sweep
Another hot, but not too hot, mid-summer’s day and the Duke’s course was there for the taking for many of the participants.
Unsurprisingly, it was a lady (Veronica) who beat allcomers, with 45 points (following on from Lia’s winning round on Wednesday – 50 points !) – it’s tough keeping up with the ladies in the summer and doesn’t bode well for the upcoming men vs ladies Bontor matchplay in 3 weeks’ time (Saturday Aug 6th).
Ronnie’s round was good on the front 9 (20 points with 1 blob) but really took off on the back 9 (25 points with a birdie and 5 pars). I believe Ronnie was playing with Rannesh and Rob Wilhelmson, who both scored 42 points and came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Rannesh ‘only’ had 18 points on the front 9 with 1 blob but super-charged the back 9 with 24 points, including a birdie 4 on the 12th. Rob had a more balanced round, 22 on the front and 20 on the back 9 – he was probably feeling the heat from Ronnie and Rannesh on the back 9.
Lowest gross score was 76, by Mike Horsthuis.
Sweep payout to top 3 (£6, £4, £2)
Claret Jug
One of our team captains uses the following catch phrase quite often: “May the Bounce be with you” ; that was certainly the case for most of the field today. Few players will deny that the extra carry/roll provided by the super dry fairways helped out today (on the other hand it had to be said that if you caught a bad bounce you could end up recording a VERY high score on a hole). The greens proved to be trickier/slower than Sunday. All that being said today’s scoring was excellent.
Former Women’s Captain Lia Donath recorded a fantastic score of 56 (Nett) (or if you prefer to use Stableford terms: 50pts!!). That’s what scores of +5 gross (front 9) and +3 gross (back 9) will get you. Great result.
Four players in the Top6 went out early; 2nd and 3rd places go to 2 early birds. Normally a score of 60 (Nett) will seal the win, but today Peter Goodall and Richard Owen only get runner-up positions. Small consolation is that Lia didn’t enter the sweep.
Jeremy Prescott was the 1st player of a group finishing on 61 (Nett). Quite a feat since he recorded double digits on the 6th hole and finished with a 7 on the last hole. Mike Jones had a solid front 9 but a few ugly scores on the back 9 prevented him from improving on 5th place. Mitch and Jeremy Ryan take the last “Money” positions. Richard Back had the lowest gross score today (71 strokes); he amazingly dropped 4 shots between holes 2-4. But he took the back 9 apart (-1 gross).
Kelso Hamilton Round 4
Richmond Park beat Thames Ditton GC in their quarter final match on the Duke’s course, progressing to the Semi Final.
In blistering hot conditions, the Richmond pair of Uli Katte and Richard Owen ‘saw off’ the challenge of Thames Ditton with a 5 & 3 win.. Although we were giving them 5 and 7 shots, Richard’s birdie on the 1st, followed by Uli’s birdies on the 2nd and 3rd holes, settled the nerves and gave us a cushion lead, which was maintained throughout the round with some sparkling play, particularly by Uli (who was individually level par gross on the front 9).
Friday Sweep
A large Friday field, 20 in the sweep, +4 playing pairs matchplay, +2 doing cards for handicap, endured blistering hot conditions with only a slight cooling wind. Apart from tees and greens, the course was brown and baked dry with players reporting “hitting further than they had ever done before” due to the endless bounce and run, however scoring remained modest (perhaps because Seymour was playing matchplay and not repeating the net 63 he scored on Duke’s on Wednesday).
Top of the leaderboard were 3 players all on 37 points. Continuing his recent good form, James Deissler was the countback winner, from Rannesh in 2nd place and a rarely seen (on a Friday!) Peter Harrington in 3rd. It could have been so different if Stephen Haworth (36points) hadn’t blobbed the last hole after taking 3 off the tee or if Peter Fisher had entered the sweep (as he scored 46 points off his full handicap).
Sweep payout to the top 3 (£10, £7, £3)
Midweek July Medal
A decent turnout for a round of links golf in Central London. There is a saying in golf that goes like “Every good round starts with a double bogey”.
Peppe took that a little too literally; he DB’ed the 2nd and the 3rd holes. The rest of his front 9 was more peaceful, except for a DB on the 8th, which meant that he went out in 42 gross. 2 more DB’s followed on the back 9 but a miraculous par save on 17 (tee-shot in the rough, second barely advanced by a couple of feet, a third shot that landed in the rough left followed by a routine Up & Down) and steady par on the 18th allowed him to finish with an excellent round of 63 Nett (85 gross).
Uli must have grown a few more grey hairs ; quite remarkably Peppe needed the countback rule to win today’s comp. Seymour had an excellent front 9 (42 Gross – 29 Nett). A score of 48 Gross (34 Nett) meant he came just short today.
The Handicap Secretary Paul Grand finished 1 shot back in 3rd. Hawtree members Susan Smith and Lia Donath take 4th and 5th respectively with scores of 66 Nett (more concerns for the respective Hawtree Captains).
Early bird Mike Jones also finishes on 66 (Nett) but let a likely victory slip through his hands on the 17th. Despite an 8 Gina Jillett managed to finish her round with a 67 Nett. There was an incredible number of players putting up some very inflated scores on single holes. The club captain John Ahad was part of that gang (the 17th will give him nightmares).
Kim Chaffart’s round finished on the 6th hole with his ball up a tree.
In the MW Grand Medal Trophy Peter Goodall takes the lead (he is the only player at the time being to have recorded 5 scores). He is followed by Tamas Ladacs and Gina.
Friday Sweep
It was a pretty reasonable day for golf, with perhaps an occasional few drops of rain. Playing off the yellow tees (for the men) didn’t prove as ‘easy’ as many may have thought, with only 1 of the 14 men scoring better than 36 points – perhaps the bounce and run was difficult to control.
Our winner, and the only man to tame the course, was James Deissler (42 points) who started the front 9 with 2 pars, started the back 9 par-birdie-par and overall had a very solid round. His only real challenger was Ann Gardner (41 points), who also had a very steady front 9 (18 points) and strong back 9 (23 points). In 3rd and 4th places were Seymour Laird and John Ahad both with 36 points. John excelled on his front 9 (22 points) but double bogeys on the 11th and 12th and blobs on the 14th and 15th really spoilt a good start. Seymour, on the other hand was a slow-burner on the front 9 but scored 21 on the back 9.
Hawtree Trophy Round 3
The Richmond Park ‘B’ team captained by Veronica progressed through to this year’s Area Finals with a win against Farnham Park. Unfortunately the Richmond Park ‘A’ team lost to Wexham Park, who now play Richmond Park ‘B’ in the Area Finals.
Friday Sweep
It was nice to see a good number of women playing on a Friday and Jayne, in the first game out, was heading the leaderboard for a long time until Richard N. (in Game 5) returned to the clubhouse.
Richard Norden’s 48 points, 23 out and 25 back, 9 pars and gross 80 was a continuation of his recent good form and just too good for anyone else to beat. Jayne almost matched him with 23 points out and 8 pars overall but an uncharacteristically untidy blob on the 17th left her with 42 points and 2nd place.
James Deissler, in 3rd place, had a very steady 40 points; 21 points out, 19 points in, 4 pars and no blobs and in 4th place (38 points) was Pat Dalton, who was going really well on the back 9 until he blobbed the 16th and 17th holes.
Sweep payout to top 4 (£9, £7, £5, £3).
Clapham Common Round 2
This year’s second round match in the Clapham Common Shield and Ellis Cup was played against Perivale Park golf club. In a high scoring game, Perivale were the winners 244 vs 226. Incredibly high scores were posted by the 3 Perivale ‘home’ pairs over two laps of their 9 holes course : 44, 44 and 48 points, so although the Richmond Park home team were a total of 11 points up on Perivale’s away team, it was just not enough. In fact, Perivale’s total team score of 244 was considerably higher than any score posted in the games played for the 2021Clapham competition!
Rickmansworth Match – 1st leg
Maybe there were some nerves on the first tee, with only one of 4 players in the first game managing to find the (correct) fairway, but at the end of the day it was a perfect (dream!) result for RPGC – a 6-0 win. So we just need half a point in the 2nd leg at Tricky Ricky in September to win back the cup in this annual men’s match.
Our first pairing of Henry L-B and Richard Inglis reached the 13th hole with a comfortable 4 hole lead. However, they lost the next 3 holes in a row (with shots being given to Ricky) and became really tense when the match went back to Even/All Square on the 16th. But a strong birdie-par finish put the first “yellow” point on the board.
Game 2 became the showcase of an unsung hero. Roger/Tony K. won 8 holes. 5 of those wins can be credited to … Tony. He even birdied the 12th (for the equivalent of … 5 stableford points). Ricky was no match. So RPGC won 3&2 and went 2-0 up. Mike Shabani and Kim went in the 3rd game. 6 wins in the first 8 holes and an ugly slip-up on the 9th meant a 5 hole lead at the turn. Holes 10-11 were halved and after a loss on hole 12 the pair closed out the match with wins on holes 13 & 14: a 6&4 win, making it RPGC 3 : Ricky 0.
Whereas the first 3 games may have looked “comfortable” for RPGC, the last 3 games had much more ebb and flow to them. In game 4 Nigel Gaymond and Sean Thomas were in a quite a fight over the front 9 but the back 9 totally belonged to the men in yellow as they stormed to a 3&2 win. RPGC 4 : Ricky 0.
Richard Back & Justin Wildman, fresh off an early exit from the RPGC Men’s pairs KO, stormed the front 9 with 25 stableford points equivalent and held it together RPGC its 5th point.
The final pairing of Angus and the 3rd Richard in the RPGC team (Richard Owen) were ‘erratic’ on the front 9; all square after 3, 3 down after 6 and back to all square after 9. The momentum of holes 7-9 was then consolidated by wining holes 10 and 13. A loss on the tough 15th hole created a bit of tension, but a birdie by Angus on the 16th and a birdie by Richard on the 17th sealed their win. RPGC 6 : Ricky 0.