Following last year’s triumph by a team from Richmond Park winning the GF Bowl Trophy, the club entered 4 teams in this year’s (winter) competition.

The Richmond Park “B” team, captained by Uli Katte, were the first to play their Round 1 match. This was against Portsmouth on a dull, partly rainy Sunday. The game at Richmond teed off on the Prince’s course at 9am, whereas it was an 11am start at Portsmouth. Tense and convivial rounds were played at both venues with a narrow victory for Richmond Park (113 points to 111 points) being the result.

The home team of Alvaro Garcia-Hoz and Kim Chaffart did the ‘heavy lifting’ scoring 68 points to their opponents 60 points. The star of the team was Alvaro, especially on the back 9 (22 points, with birdies on the 12th and 15th).

At Portsmouth the heavy rain during November had taken it’s toll on the course, with only 13 holes ‘fully’ open (mainly from mats), plus one 65 yard pitch over a 40 yard drop. Our away team of Uli and Richard Owen matched Portsmouth on the front 9 but slipped to a 6 points deficit by the time the shortened 14 holes were completed in the rain. We did think that we had closed the match out on the 13th hole when, from the tee, we believed Uli had hit a hole-in-one, however his ball was short and in the mud – like all the other balls!