Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Surrey Fives Round 2 contd
The Richmond Park B team unfortunately lost their round 2 match against Epsom B 3&2 on the Duke’s course, Uli and Tamas both winning their matches.
Surrey Fives Round 2
The Richmond Park Surrey B team welcomed the Woodcote Park A team on a beautiful Saturday morning. The match was played on Prince’s which was in magnificent condition with fast greens and fairways manicured to perfection.
Will Balakrishnan led the team off and went down fighting to a narrow 4 & 2 loss to give the visitors a 1 – 0 lead in the match. Brendan Sullivan started the fight back with a commanding 8 & 7 victory which was quickly followed by Richmond’s Pete Malla winning 7 & 5 to give the hosts a 2 – 1 lead.
Richmond’s Ryan Wilson was beaten 5 & 4 to set up a tense and nervy finish, as it stood at 2 – 2 with one match remaining on the course. Those nerves were quickly banished when Bernie McDermott displayed some excellent short game wizardry to prove it’s not all about hitting it 300 yards off the tee to win 5 & 4, ensuring that Richmond Park B team progressed to the third round and another home match against the winners of Wimbledon Common vs Walton Heath.
Friday Sweep
Heavy cloud and a little misty rain in the air were present for the opening holes but it soon turned into a sunny and much warmer day.
Early starter Pralab Barua set the standard on the leaderboard with a commanding 40 points, which the rest of the field just couldn’t match. Pralab’s front 9 was ‘steady’ (17 points) but he really put his foot down on the back 9 (23 points), with 4 pars and a birdie over the final 5 holes. Paul McGrath’s 2nd place (36 points) seems to have been a combination of extremes with 3 blobs and 2 ‘7s’ but birdies on the 4th and 15th and 14 points scored on the five Par 3s.
The Richards took 3rd and 4th places, both with 35 points. Richard Owen had the better back 9 (19 points), whereas Richard Back’s front 9 included 2 birdies and an eagle (on the 9th) making it the best front 9 (20 points) in the competition.
Sweep payout to top 3 (£10, £6, £3)
Friday Sweep
It was another very wet Friday and only the hardiest came out to play.
When the cards were ‘recovered’ from the Green Box on Sunday morning, there were very definite signs that they had only just dried out. There seemed to have been some remarkable scoring, most remarkable was Alex’s 5 points birdie on the SI1 14th, presumably a pitch in from distance. Adrian’s birdie (4 points) on the SI4 4th must have been a similar type of shot, although perhaps a chip rather than a pitch (?) and he also par’d the 14th.
Alex’s 34 points total earns him the £6 sweep money, beating Adrian’s 32 points and respectable 30 points scores by Charles and Richard.
Friday Sweep
10 hardy souls braved the heavy rain on the Prince’s course and submitted respectable scores.
Top of the pile was Peter Goodall (37 points), closely followed by Pralab on 36 points, Richard Norden on 35points and Alex Braun on 34 points. Sweep pay-out to 1st and 2nd (£7 & £3).
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 3 contd.
The club’s Richmond Park ‘C’ team, captained by Paul Green, were soundly beaten by Wimbledon Common who now progress to Finals Day. This defeat marked the end of what had been a strong challenge by the club to get to Finals Day and again bring back the trophy.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 3 contd
On a cold and wet April 1st, the Richmond Park “Early Birds” team welcomed Wycombe Heights to the park for their 3rd round Gordon Foster match. Conditions at Wycombe Heights on Friday night resulted in the closure of the course due to waterlogging and the rescheduling of the away leg until Saturday April 8th. A slender lead was established at home on April 1st, however our away pair suffered a 17points defeat on April 8th meaning Wycombe Heights progress to Finals Day.
Although there was lots of water on both greens and fairways at the park on April 1st, John Perkins scored a excellent 20 + 20 for 40 pts and Brendan Sullivan had 17 + 15 for 32 pts. Our opposition had 32 pts and 37 pts respectively, so Richmond Park 72pts – Wycombe Heights 69pts. Will Balakrishnan and Ryan Wilson made the journey to Wycombe on the 8th and both scored 21pts for their respective 18 holes against Wycombe’s 35pts and 24 pts.
We wish Wycombe Heights all the best at the Finals and captain Brendan says a big thank you to everyone who represented Richmond Park and volunteered to travel to play the away legs at short notice.
Friday Sweep
A slightly chilly start turned into a lovely warm Spring day, with players progressively ‘stripping off’ during their rounds. The course was packed with ‘weekend golfers’ and Glendale finally had their new Halfway House open for business.
Scoring conditions proved difficult for most of the field, with not much run on the course, due to yesterday’s heavy rain, and small fairways reducing the benefit of ‘pick and place’. Also, for the men, playing off the white tees made the course considerably longer.
Our winner, John Ahad (36 points), coped best with 16 out and 20 points in, finishing strongly with 3 pars and blobs on the 8th and 12th. Sam Williams (35 points) was second playing a very steady round, 20 points out and 15 in, with just one blob on the 10th. Uli was third (33 points), 17 out and 16 points in – could have challenged more strongly but for 2 blobs in the last 5 holes. It was good to have the men’s and women’s club champions, Richard Back and Sylvia Bortoli, playing with us – both had 2 birdies.
Sweep payout to the top 3 (£13, £8, £4)
Friday Sweep
The weather forecast was pretty much spot on and the early starters had the best of the day. Morning sunshine gave way to heavy rain showers blown through on a strong south-westerly wind. After about 2 hours rain, rounds finished in the dry (just about), with dark stormy skies of rain, hail and thunder all around.
Last-minute entrant Cuneyt Sazer stole the day with a stunning 43 points, 22 out and 21 in, in fact he had 29 points after the first 11 holes. Consistent throughout but his one-putting from distance on 5 or 6 holes was the backbone to his score – a priviledge to behold. Rannesh (37 points) came 2nd with birdies on the first 2 holes and an unlikely ‘blob’ on the 18th. Pralab had the best of the weather and probably finished before it even started to rain, his 35 points makes him 3rd and last of the sweep winners.
Payout £9, £5, £3
Surrey Fives, Round 1 (contd)
The Richmond Park B team won their round 1 match against Kingswood and now face the winners of Woodcote Park or Lingfield Park in Round 2.
The day started extremely wet with the first 3 greens on Prince’s having lots of standing water, which made putting extremely difficult. As the rain eased and play became more tolerable, Will Balakrishnan continued his excellent form of late with a comfortable 7 & 5 victory over the Kingswood captain. This was quickly followed by Brendan Sullivan also winning 7 & 5. Kingswood then fought back with both John Perkins & Russell Stewart going down 3 & 2. With the match score level at 2 v 2 we then waited nervously for the final match to reach the clubhouse as nobody knew what the score had been throughout but Peter Malla put us all at ease with a 5 & 4 demolition of the Kingswood player.