Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Surrey Fives, East Final
The Richmond Park team, captained by Brendan O’Sullivan, beat Epsom 4 – 1 in the 2023 Surrey 5’s East Section knockout final. More details below.
Having defeated one Epsom team in the semi finals, the Richmond Park ‘B’ team faced another Epsom team in the East section final. The match was played at Hindhead golf course, which had beautiful fairways and perfectly manicured greens that were exceptionally fast with lots of slopes and subtle breaks.
Our team was led off by Naveed Manazir (a last minute sub. for Pete Malla) who ran into a 12 handicapper who shot -2 gross for 12 holes to give Epsom the first point with a 7 & 6 victory.
Brendan Sullivan restored the deficit winning 8 & 7 to square the match at 1 – 1
The ever-reliable John Perkins was never behind and ran out an easy 6 & 5 winner to put Richmond Park 2 – 1 up in the match.
Russell Stewart was selected for the final following some impressive play over the past few weeks and justified his selection with a 4 & 3 victory to put Richmond Park 3 – 1 up in the match.
Bernie McDermott was never behind in the last match and also saw off his opponent with a 4 & 3 victory to record an overall result of 4 – 1 to Richmond Park and the Surrey 5’s East section title.
Richmond Park now await the winners of West Surrey v Hindhead to determine the overall Surrey 5’s champions for 2023. This match is scheduled to take at Clandon Regis on Sunday 15th October.
Friday Sweep
Assuming the work on the greens was done prior to Friday the field would have had to contend with the diamond crossings and bumping along the greens that was experienced on the following Sunday. It obviously didn’t bother all of the field with Leigh taking 1st spot on 41 closely followed by Russell on 40 and Bill taking 3rd spot on countback from Ian on 39s.
Sweep payout goes to those 4 (£10, £6, £3, £2)
Rickmansworth match, 2nd leg
With Rickmansworth having “outperformed” in the first leg at the Park to the tune of a 3-3 tie, the return leg at their course was always going to be a prodigious feat. Despite a stern challenge to the assembled team by captain-for-the-day Nigel Gaymond , delivered in the style of his former rugby playing days, full of expletives and a call to arms, and the valiant efforts of all those assembled, the result had a depressingly inevitable feel about it. On the day it was a 5-1 defeat leaving an overall score of 8-4 to Rickmansworth who thus returned the cup ‘Home” to their clubhouse.
In Game 1 the familiar pairing of Richard Owen and Uli Katte quickly went 2 down in the first two holes and despite keeping it that way at the turn eventually succumbed to a 5 & 3 defeat. In Game 2 Naveed Manazir and Paul Green endured the same experience of being two down after two, trailed by 4 at the turn and also similarly endured a 5 & 3 defeat. In Game 3 the experienced pair of Nigel Ward and Tony Kopczak fought valiantly but ultimately succumbed 2 & 1. In Game 4 Tamas Ladacs and Justin Wildman ceded a number of shots to their opponents and despite keeping it close on the front nine ultimately succumbed 4 & 2. In Game 5 Jon Cooper and Peter Needham kept it close throughout but ultimately slipped to a 2 & 1 defeat on the 17th Hole. The last game of the day featured Nigel Gaymond and Aidan Hurley who bucked the trend and won the two opening holes and led by as many as 3 holes and went dormie with 3 holes to go only for the Rickmansworth pair to make a serious charge taking the match to the 18th hole. Nigel had basically overheated by the 14th hole leaving Aidan to steer the team home on his own. He played the last five holes in 1 under and coolly sank the 7 foot par putt to seal the win and prevent the whitewash. In the associated sweep, Nigel/Aidan came first with 40 points, Tamas/Justin second with 39 and Uli/Richard third with 37. There’s always next year!
Friday Sweep
Another blistering hot day with temperatures topping 30 degrees C but fortunately no-one was overcome by the heat.
It was another good round by Charlie Haines, who tops the leaderboard with 40 points (including one blob), 2 ahead of Graham with a commendable 38 points. Every steady Colin takes 3rd place with 37 points, just one in front of dog-walker Rannesh (who reportly let Yangu off the lead to collect opponents balls!!).
Best front 9 was 21 points by both Graham and Jose and best back 9 by Tamas (22 points). Uli didn’t win any sweep money this week (for a change) but did record 4 birdies in his round for the first time.
Sweep monies to the top 3 (£11, £7 , £4)
Surrey Fives, Semi-Final
On a beautiful sunny Saturday morning our Richmond Park B team made the journey to Epsom to play the Epsom ‘A’ team in the semi-final of the East Section of the Surrey 5s. In their first ‘away’ fixture of the competition, our B team were victorious and now progress to meet the Epsom ‘B’ team in the East Section Final.
The Epsom course was in beautiful condition with perfectly manicured fairways and greens and with more slopes than an Austrian ski resort. An excellent performance by our team saw a resounding 3.5 – 1.5 victory for Richmond Park. The venue and date for the finals match against Epsom ‘B’ is to be confirmed by Surrey County Golf.
Will Balakrishnan led the team off and went down fighting for a 4 & 3 loss to give Epsom an early lead.
Word quickly came through that John Perkins was doing a demolition job on his opponent and levelled the overall score to 1 – 1 with a 7 & 6 victory.
Brendan Sullivan’s 5 & 4 victory established the overall lead in Richmond’s favour to 2 – 1.
Match 4 saw Bernie McDermott relinquish a lead of 3 up with 3 to play to give Epsom a glimmer of hope of winning the point and levelling the overall score to 2 – 2. Before Bernie and his opponent went down the 19th it was agreed to wait and see how match 5 was progressing.
Richmond’s smiling assassin Kevin Prendergast, who should be a ‘postman’ because he always delivers a winning point for the team, didn’t let he team down. His effortless 2 & 1 victory made Bernie McDermott a very happy man and sent Richmond Park into the finals.
Well done and well played everyone.
Friday Sweep
The weather forecast threatened a mid/late morning band of heavy, thundery rain which largely didn’t materialise (certainly no heavy or thundery rain), so the reduced field experienced dry conditions by midday and a lovely sunny, humid day from 12.30pm.
Our clear winner, Justin W (41 points), was the only player to truly master the conditions, finishing 8 points clear of Colin and James (33 points) , in 2nd and 3rd places respectively. Justin had 2 birdies (5th and 12th), best front 9 (22 points), equal best back 9 (19 points), best Par 4s and equal best par 3s – so pretty comprehensive !
There was some concern in the clubhouse after the round that groups 5 and 6 had been ‘lost in action’, however they eventually arrived to complete their 5+ hours rounds.
Sweep payout to the top 3 (£9, £6, £3).
Friday Sweep
A dry, humid, sunny morning becoming more cloudy and windy as the day progressed.
Scoring was good with 80% of the field scoring points in the 30s. A group of three 38s were looking like taking the honours till Charlie Haines stepped up and entered his score of 40 points, his first ‘win’ with the club. Charlie’s round started with a blob and suffered another blob on the 14th but otherwise was extremely solid. Paul McGrath and Craig Johnstone’s 38s, both ‘early birds’, took 2nd and 3rd places respectively and Seymour Laird followed up his 2nd place on Wednesday with a countback 4th today.
Best front 9 was Seymour’s 21 points and Charlie had the best back 9, also 21 points. James was tops on the three Par 3s (9 points). Richard Owen was within inches of an Eagle 2 on the 9th and Rob Wilhelmsson joins Richard Back at the top of the Friday Birdie Tree.
Sweep payout to the top 4 (£10, £6, £4, £2).
Friday Sweep
A somewhat cloudy but dry day with not much wind and receptive greens led to some good scoring.
Top of the leaderboard was Rob Wilhelmsson with an excellent 43 points and a gross score of 72. Rob had the best front 9 (20 points), the best back 9 (23 points) and 3 birdies along the way. In 2nd place with 40 points was Justin Wildman, playing alongside Rob in the first group, and just pipping 3 players on 39 points: Peter Miller, Richard Norden and Naveed Manazir. Naveed had 3 birdies in his round but it was Peter Miller who grabs 3rd place on countback and scoops a small sweep payout. (£11, £7, & £4 to the top 3 respectively)
Friday team competition
A mild, slightly humid day with just a 10 minutes spell of very light rain and very occasional sunshine. Recent rain earlier in the week provided softer fairways and more receptive greens.
The clear winners in the 2 best scores/hole team competition were the team comprising Veronica, Joan, Rannesh & Richard with 89 points. All team members played their part with individual scores ranging between 29 and 36 points, a very impressive 48 points on the front 9 (never less than 5 points/hole) but then a falling away on the back 9. Tied on 85 points in 2nd and 3rd places were two all-men teams, with Rob, Justin, John and Tom beating Bill, Colin, Barry and Bob on a back 9 countback.
Not far behind, on 82 points, were the team of Bill, Hilary, John and Adrian – they are mentioned in that order because Bill and Hilary scored 79 of the 82 points alone! Bill had the best individual stableford score in the competition (41 points) and Hilary came 2nd with 38 points. The Bill, Hilary, John and Adrian team also had the best back 9 (45 points). Sweep payout to the winning team and to Bill & Hilary.
Friday Sweep
A sunny morning clouded over with a strengthening breeze but fortunately it stayed dry.
The early morning two ball of Paul McGrath and Naveed Manazir set the pace, Paul posting an impressive 43 points and Naveed posting the best gross score of the day (77 strokes). It looked as though Paul had held off all challengers, until the final group submitted their scores and Colin Price entered his 44 points. Then there were three very creditable 39 pointers, Julian, Lia and Gerard in that countback order. The Best Scores Analysis report shows that both Paul and Gerard had great front 9s (25 points each), whereas Colin had the best back 9 (24 points). Richard Owen had birdies on the 3rd, 17th and 18th but too many putts on the other holes. Sweep payout to the top 4 (£3, £5, £8, £10).