Club Matches
Club Matches
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.
Gordon Forster, Round 3
The match between Richmond Park ‘B’ and Thorney Park ‘C’ was set up, after initial problems of the opponents’ team to find enough players, on Sunday, March 26. Conditions were pretty humid and muddy.
Thorney Park won with 133 : 130 aggregate points.
The home team, playing at Prince’s, was Kim Chaffart and Alvaro Garcia-Hoz and they amassed 70 points, while Richard Owen and Uli Katte came up with 60 points playing away.
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.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2 contd
The club’s Richmond Park ‘C’ team, captained by Paul Green, progressed to the 3rd round with a comfortable 124-109 points win over Little Hay golf club and now progress to their last pre-Finals Day match against Wimbledon Common.
Surrey Fives Round 1
The Richmond Park A team were successful in their 1st round away match against Reigate Heath and can now look forward to a home tie against either Cuddington B or Epsom B in Round 2.
On a chilly and cloudy morning, the team of Uli Katte (captain), Roger Rojas, Richard Owen, Tamas Ladacs and Justin Wildman travelled to Reigate for a 9am first tee time. Reigate Heath is an interesting and challenging 9-greens course, with 2 sets of teeing areas for each hole and the home team made us very welcome with coffee and bacon rolls before the start. The competition is singles matchplay, with the games played as 2-balls. The result was a 3&2 win for Richmond Park, with Roger, Uli and Tamas winning their games and the other two games being very close losses.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2 contd.
The Richmond Park “early birds” team, captained by Brendan Sullivan, won their Round 2 match against the Huntswood “D” team. The match was played in nice sunny conditions with the Prince’s course in fine condition.
The match tee times were arranged for 08.00am (home & away). Alan van Wyk & Ryan Wilson made the early journey to Huntswood. Conditions were calm and they both combined to score Alan 24pts + Ryan 32pts (total 56pts) against the home pair of Martin Rogerson 37pts + Mike o’ Reilly 34pts (total 71pts).
Meanwhile back on Prince’s, Brendan Sullivan & Russell Stewart built a commanding score of 40pts + 39pts (total 79pts) which had an excellent 21pts on the back 9 by Russell, whilst our travelling opponents found the Prince’s course significantly more difficult, with Lee Coughlin 24pts + Sam Stevens 27pts (total 51pts).
So, overall Richmond Park played the better golf for a well deserved 135pts – 122pts victory. The team’s next opponents will be the winners of the match between Tilgate Forest & Wycombe Heights.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2
The Richmond Park ‘B’ team played their 2nd round match against the Huntswood ‘C’ team and won through by a close margin (back 9 countback).
It had been a very cold night and both the Richmond and Huntswood courses were frosty and ‘frozen on top’ when play began. The Richmond home team of Alvaro Garcia and Alan King (a very late replacement for Kim Chaffart) dealt with the conditions better than the visiting Huntswood players, winning by a combined 5 stableford points overall (56 vs 51). The Huntswood players just couldn’t cope with the “very small” frozen greens.
The away team of captain Uli Katte and Richard Owen had a 45minutes delayed start due to fog and had to play the first 5 holes with less than 100m visibility on occasions, relying on their opponents to tell them which direction the green was ! It was a relatively close away match with Huntswood winning by a combined 5 stableford points (70 vs 65).
So the match was decided by countback on the back 9, which Richmond Park won by 5 points (6 up at home and 1 down away). The team’s next opponents will be the winners of the match between Thorney Park & Haste Hill.
Gordon Forster Round 1 contd
The Richmond Park ‘A’ team, captained by Cuneyt Sazer, played their delayed away leg of their match against Thorney Park ‘B’ and could not recover from the home leg deficit from the home leg played before Christmas at Richmond Park.
On the same day, the Richmond Park ‘C’ team, captained by Paul Green, played their match against Huntswood ‘C’ and narrowly won.
The home team players, Louis Dickey and Rob Carlile, posted a convincing lead and although our away team of Peter Goodall and Pete Malla couldn’t match their hosts scores, playing in torrential rain for the first few holes, it was a ‘win’ for Richmond Park.
Gordon Foster Bowl, Round 1 (contd)
The Richmond Park ‘Early Birds’ team played their Round 1 match against (fittingly !) Birds Hill Golf Club and secured a convincing win.
The team, captained by Brendan Sullivan, played in extremely cold conditions with 11.00am tee times, both home & away. Frozen fairways and rock hard greens meant pars were hard to come by and birdies were of the feathered variety only. Russell Stewart and Will Balakrishnan made the long journey to Maidenhead for a 5 and a half hour round. Conditions were tough but they combined to score 22pts + 28pts (50pts) against the home pair’s 25pts + 28pts (53pts). Meanwhile back on the Prince’s course at Richmond Park, Brendan Sullivan & Jihum Kim built a commanding score of 39pts + 32pts (71pts) against the visiting team’s 30pts + 22pts (52pts). So, overall Richmond Park played the better golf for a well-deserved 121pts – 105pts victory. Hopefully the weather in early 2023 will be a little kinder and warmer when round 2 comes along.
Gordon Forster Bowl 2022/23
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!