Richard Owen
Richard Owen
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.
Friday Sweep
It was a warm, early summer’s day, with a bit of a south-westerly breeze, and scoring on the Prince’s course was generally good, with almost 80% of the field scoring at least 30 points.
The winner, Graham Cull, on 39 points was just one ahead of Jeremy Prescott, in 2nd place. Giles and James both scored 37 points but Giles snatched 3rd place with a better back 9, although James birdied the 11th.
Kelso Hamilton Round 3
Richmond Park won their away match against Woodcote Park golf club in the 3rd round of the Surrey Golf Kelso Hamilton 4BBB knockout competition.
The Woodcote Park golf course, near Coulsdon, was in wonderful condition with many trees and bunkers and large, fast, undulating greens. The match started in glorious warm sunshine, rapidly deteriorated to 3 hours of persistent rain, with the sun re-appearing for the final 2 holes. It was an extremely close match, never more than 2 holes in it, and the Richmond Park team of Richard Owen and Uli Katte never in-front until the 19th hole had been played.
Friday Jubilee Sweep
It was a good turnout on a warm, partly sunny and slightly breezy day, especially considering that many of our regular Friday 5-day members didn’t play because today’s bank holiday was classified as a ‘weekend’ by Glendale. Scoring was slightly ‘inflated’ by 2 extra strokes being given to men off the white tees and women off the red tees, because yellow tees were an option for high handicap men. The fairways and greens continue to be in good condition and large rakes were evident in most of the bunkers.
Uli was today’s clear winner with a solid 42 points; 21 points on both the front and back 9s, a birdie on the 11th and just one blob. 2nd and 3rd places were taken by Rannesh and Martin Hay respectively, both having 19 points out and 21 points in. Amazingly for him, Rannesh only blobbed one hole; the 8th where he was 3 off the tee. Martin played most holes well but had serious problems on the 3rd and 18th, blobbing both, but he birdied the 11th.
In 4th place, just one point behind was Sean O’Sullivan (38 points), who was also 19 points out but ‘only’ 20 points in, with a total of 3 blobs on his card. Sweep payout to the top 4 (£9, £7, £5, £2).
The best front 9 of the day was scored by Suhail Salim (23 points) and by the time he had played the 12th, he had 34 points. The pressure must have been too much for him at that point, as he only scored a further 4 points over the final 6 holes – one to watch for the future though.
Hawtree Trophy Round 2
The Richmond Park ‘B Team’, captained by Veronica away and Cheryl at home, won their 2nd round match against Wexham Park A by the tightest of margins (back 9 countback after stableford points scores were level). They play Farnham Park B in the next round.
Friday Sweep
A mild, cloudy morning turned into a glorious warm sunny day for golf on the Prince’s course. This seemed to suit the lower handicappers in the field. At the moment, the greens and fairways are in the best condition that they will be all year but finding your ball in the rough, or getting out of it if you are lucky enough to find it, is becoming a major problem.
Late entrant Peter Goodall, who decided to ‘play’ rather than spend time on the driving range with his new driver, was our winner with 40 points, playing off 11. Peter’s 3 birdies on the 6th, 8th and 10th were the highlights of another very solid round from him.
In 2nd place was even later entrant, Naveed Manazir, who went out in the afternoon with Peter Flint and scored 39 points, playing off 8. Naveed birdied the 3rd, 5th and 11th holes and his 19 points out and 20 points in round was a welcome return to form for him.
In 3rd and 4th places, both with 38 points were Pralab Barua and Richard Owen, Pralab winning on countback. Pralab, playing off 16, had 21 points on the back 9 with a birdie on the 16th and it’s good to see him back in the winner’s circle. Richard’s highlights, playing off 12, were birdies on the 4th, 12th and 14th with ‘only’ 20 points on the back 9.
Sweep payout to top 4 (£8, £5, £3, £2).