Both courses were closed due to a combination of frozen greens and the rain forecast which could cause long term damage if played on inevitably cancelling both events.

After heavy overnight rain Glendale closed both courses and they will remain closed on Thursday.

First of the autumn cancellations due to heavy rain from the previous day and more forecast on an already saturated course.

Our Kelso Hamilton team of Russell Stewart and Brendan Sullivan are this year’s winners of the Surrey Kelson Hamilton competition!
Their path to the final began back in February at a very cold and wet Surrey National with subsequent victories at London & Scottish, Dulwich & Sydenham, Banstead and Cuddington.
Their east section final was against Walton Heath Artisans which was played at The Drift.
On Sunday 22 September they made their way to Clandon Regis to play The Drift who won the West section for the honour of Overall champions.
A magnificent result made all the more remarkable having played all their matches away from home.

Congratulations Brendan and Russell!

It was a sunny, albeit windy and cool, autumn day and most players stayed dry during their round.

This medal round was played in two divisions, with Handicap adaptations for men playing off the white tees and for the women.

Gina, our habitual early starter, won the day in Div 1 handsomely with a score of 71 net.
Russell and Naveed (who had the best gross score!) follow with 3 and 4 shots behind.

Div 2 was taken by RichardN (with a net score of 69), again with a 3 stroke advantage over runner-up Charles, with Gerard and Teddy following 1 and 2 strokes behind him.

Each of us was given a set of 7 clubs including a driver and a putter and it was definitely a struggle for most. Perhaps sending us home with a greater regard for the players of yesteryear. Especially when combined with less forgiving clothing and courses that probably in comparison make RP look to be fantastic.

More images can be found on https://www.richmondparkgolfclub.org.uk/2024-people-and-events/ eventually videos will also be uploaded.

Of course there was one amongst us for whom the day didn’t seem to present that much of a challenge & that despite one of his 4-ball trying to take him out with a whack on the back of his head. Huge congratulations to Richard Smith for his amazing 38 points and comfortable 7 point margin for the win.
To encourage midweek & green fee payers to participate, the club offered a concessionary rate and the 2 5-day players made the most of this offer. In 2nd spot on 31 points was Bill Norman with Giles Rawlinson being the better of the 4 on 28 points to take 3rd place.

It is a fact that the back 9 generally plays a lot easier than the front 9 (the 7th & 8th were again the 2 hardest holes for everyone) and today there were some spectacular differences. Partly no doubt as we were getting more used to the clubs.
Despite the generally low scoring there were 12 birdies amongst the group. Richard Owen’s on the 2nd was no doubt the most impressive after his tee shot left him in a very grassy spot on the back of the bunker on the left. A spectacular chip sent it through the air and into the hole, but alas not winning one of the NTP prizes

And finally it was lovely to see Jon Cooper today who was the organiser of our hickory event 10 years ago and hopefully the NHS can get him back playing.

The day on Prince’s started sunny and became clouded, but dry – perfect conditions for good results, if it were not for the treacherous high grass ‘eating’ balls, which led to a number of unfortunate NRs. 😉

The competition was held in 2 Divisions, with the majority of players starting in the higher handicap Division 2.

Gina, playing off 11, came in first in Division 1, with a net result of 67, which could have been even better if she hadn’t run into problems with the par3s on the second 9.

Peter Miller won Division 2 with an even better result of net 66, playing off 29.

Women

A sunnier day than forecast and so much quicker than last Sunday’s round. All we needed was some good rounds of golf. to complete it. As is normal, the cards tend to show one or two holes being the undoing of several potentially good scores
Bridget won by 4 shots on a net 67 from Doreen on 71 (on countback). All of us, bar Reiko, were there when she decried her abilities, ignoring her 3 pars and 3 bogeys which based on her handicap gave her 8 shots to use up elsewhere. WHS agrees she played very well and is awarding a 1.1 cut tomorrow to her handicap.

Holes 7 & 8 as may be expected came out as the hardest holes today.

Men

A glorious 65 earned Kerry Sargeant the winning score for the senior division; Kerry started as he finished with birdies and kept a six off his card. A remarkable and consistent 66 earned Richard Smith second place – including an eagle at 14th (the 4th by men on Sundays this year per attached). George Taylor and Michael Hayden followed wit excellent 66s. The in-form Richard Inglis NRd but alaso eagled the 14th – well done!

A fine 64 in late game by Charlie Whiteman won the junior division. A skilful back 9 37 placed Peter Harrison 2nd on 66; a super back 9 from Ian Burgess earned a countback 67 win from Alan King who also had super back 9.

This was 6th round od the Grand Medal (5th in July abandoned) and we see in the senior division Kerry leading 277 just 1 ahead of Richard both 4 rounds played; in the junior division Nigel Ward has a 21 shot lead on 354 from Ian Burgess 375; Nigel built solid foundation with early 3 rounds in the 60s.

On an initially rainy, but then rapidly improving Saturday, 10 women and 10 men met to fight for the Bontor women vs. men trophy, which was last year won by the women.

The format is always singles matchplay and, after starting with the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s respective captains against each other in the first group, the other 9 pairs followed in handicap order.

Here are the results in the order the pairs came in:

• Cheryl Woodhouse (20 shots) vs. Uli Katte : Cheryl won on the last hole
• Sheena Harrington (7 shots) vs. Mike Assender: Mike won 2&1
• Katharina Katte (7 shots) vs. Robert Carlyle: Rob won 6&5
• Jayne Maxwell (7 shots) vs. Richard Inglis: Jayne won 2&1
• Susan Smith (4 shots) vs. Rannesh Jansari: draw
• Lia Donath (6 shots) vs. Gerard Ouattara: Lia won
• Joan Mulcahy (6 shots) vs. Sean O’Sullivan: Sean won
• Alison Chadwick vs. Alex Braun: Alex won
• Sali Davies vs. Tom Laybourn: Sali won 4&2
• Deborah Potter (6 shots) vs. Cliff Morgan: Deborah won 3&1

This gives the women an 5.5 / 4.5 win over the men!
Congratulations to Cheryl and her team!!

After the match there was pizza and chips and drinks and chat and gossip and banter … 🙂

Thanks everyone for this very enjoyable, yet competitive, golf day around the ‘battle of the sexes’!

Cheers,
Uli & Cheryl