Club Matches
Club Matches
Kelso Hamilton Round 3
Richmond Park won their away match against Woodcote Park golf club in the 3rd round of the Surrey Golf Kelso Hamilton 4BBB knockout competition.
The Woodcote Park golf course, near Coulsdon, was in wonderful condition with many trees and bunkers and large, fast, undulating greens. The match started in glorious warm sunshine, rapidly deteriorated to 3 hours of persistent rain, with the sun re-appearing for the final 2 holes. It was an extremely close match, never more than 2 holes in it, and the Richmond Park team of Richard Owen and Uli Katte never in-front until the 19th hole had been played.
Hawtree Trophy Round 2
The Richmond Park ‘B Team’, captained by Veronica away and Cheryl at home, won their 2nd round match against Wexham Park A by the tightest of margins (back 9 countback after stableford points scores were level). They play Farnham Park B in the next round.
NAPGC Hawtree Trophy
The Richmond Park A team played their 2nd Round mixed greensomes match against Huntswood B in glorious warm Spring sunshine. Overall it was a close match with Richmond Park winning 150 points to 146 points.
Richmond Park’s away pairs of Katharina & Kim and Caroline & Uli amassed 73 points to Huntswood’s 81, a deficit of 8 points. However, Richmond Park’s home pairs of Sheena & Peppe and Lia & Richard Hanna amassed 77 points to Huntswood’s 65, a 12 points margin.
Kelso Hamilton Knockout
An RPGC team comprising Uli Katte and Richard Owen won their 2nd round match in this year’s Kelso Hamilton East, Surrey Golf competition against Dulwich and Sydenham Hill golf club. It was a close game, played on the Duke’s course, with never more than 2 holes in it (although RPGC were never behind). The final result, a 2&1 win, was clinched by Richard’s birdie on the 17th hole. The next game is away at Woodcote golf course in Coulsdon.
NAPGC Clapham Common Shield vs High Elms
Richmond Park won their first round match in this year’s Clapham Common Shield and Ellis Cup match against High Elms golf club. It was an extremely close match, 213 points each, with Richmond winning by 7 points on the back 9 countback.
It was a mild but cloudy day, with a few spots of rain over the closing holes for the away team of Jay Barker, Roger Rojas, Kim Chaffart, Henry L-B, Brian Ransom and Richard Owen. The High Elms course had largely wide generous fairways but the greens were small, sloped and incredibly slow, in fact all RPGC players had big trouble hitting the putts hard enough to reach the holes. Given the tricky greens and resulting 3-putts, the RPGC scores of 34, 34 and 37 points were respectable but it left us 10 points adrift of the High Elms home team (105 vs 115).
The home team of Uli Katte, Andy Watson, Justin Wildman, Brian McMahon, Ryan Jones and James Parker took longer to complete their matches on Duke’s and it was a nervous wait. All of our home team pairings scored 36 points (total 108) and it seemed that they had won their leg by 9 points, however it was noted that one of the High Elms pairs had claimed a handicap of 20, which should have been 19, so the match was tied.
Countback calculations revealed that all of the High Elms away team pairings had struggled on the back 9 of Duke’s, so RPGC won on countback.
NAPGC Siemens Bowl, Round 1
The Richmond Park team of Cuneyt, Adrian, Sean, Paul, Gunnar, Julian, Justin and Colm convincing won their first round greensomes stableford match against Wexham Park 162 points to 148 points, principally due to a very strong home team performance on the Duke’s course.
Gordon Forster Bowl Final
Richmond Park’s team (Charlie, Sean, Adrian and Kim) won the NAPGC 2021/22 Gordon Forster Bowl trophy at the National Finals held at the Gaudet Luce golf club in Droitwich Spa. In the final, the team scored a combined 119 stableford points to beat the other 4 finalists from Wimbledon, Tilgate Forest, Huntswood and Wycombe Heights. This is the first time that the club has ever won this NAPGC competition.
Cuneyt and Captain John, who both played in the earlier rounds but were unavailable for the final, celebrated the result with other RPGC members while enjoying the Chinese restaurant on the Belek golf trip in Sirene Hotel- Antalya – Turkey.
Richmond Park team’s journey to Gordon Foster Bowl Finals took over 2 years, as summarised below:
In December 2020 a Richmond Park team comprising Cuneyt Sazer, John Ahad, Charlie Whiteman and James Deissler was prepared to play against East Hampstead. The bookings were made at both venues for Sunday 20th, however Cuneyt had a call from the Hampstead captain on Saturday 19th informing him that the golf course was flooded and would have to be postponed. This was then followed by the introduction of “ Tier 4 “ COVID 19 restrictions. NAPGC cancelled the competition on 27.January 2021 due to COVID 19 and our team had to wait many months for the next competition.
For the 2021/2022 winter competition, Richmond Park “A” team had a bye in the first round. The second round was scheduled for 12th March, 2022. Cuneyt was keen to keep the same players against Stevenage and three players from the 2020 team ( Cuneyt, John and Charlie ) were ready for the match. Charlie ( 25 pts) and Sean O’Sullivan ( 31pts) was four less than Stevenage’s away team who scored 30 points each on the Prince’s. course. However away, Cuneyt ( 38 points) and John ( 34 points) had outstanding games to beat opponents who scored 64 points at home. Richmond Park “ A “ therefore qualified for the next round with a total of 128 to 124 Stableford points.
The next game was scheduled for Sunday 10th of April which coincided with the club’s Ladies’ away weekend in the Essex golf club. Cuneyt had a long journey from Colchester to Hoebridge with strong motivation from Richmond Park golfers. Cuneyt and two opponents each scored 31 points in the long Hoebridge course on a sunny and dry afternoon. John had a bad day and had 25 points. Sean ( 36 points) and Charlie ( 30 points) outscored James & Tom from the Hoebridge team who had total of 57 points. Richmond Park “ A” team beat Hoebridge 132 to 129 which paved the road to the Gordon Forster Final at Gaudet Lace on Sunday 24th April.
Gordon Forster Bowl
The Richmond Park “B” team took on Farnham Park golf club in the first round of the 2021/2022 Gordon Forster Bowl on a cold, windy and latterly rainy December day. The Richmond Park pair playing at Farnham Park won by 6 points but unfortunately the Farnham Park pair playing on the Dukes course beat our home pair by a greater margin (14 points), so the overall result was a win for Farnham Park.
Our ‘away’ team of Richard Owen (35 points) and Uli Katte (31 points), who played a practice round at Farnham Park (FP) with James Deissler on the preceding Wednesday, built up a healthy 6 points lead on the front 9 and maintained it under increasingly wet conditions on the back 9. Our ‘home’ team of Sean Thomas and Robin Thomas were under pressure from a strong FP pairing throughout, losing 76 points to 62 points – one of the FP players having 4 birdies in his individual score of 39 points.
NAPGC Hawtree Trophy Final
RPGC fielded two of the 4 teams who made it through to the final’s day of the Hawtree Trophy. The other teams were from Huntswood and Cheshunt golf clubs. The mixed greensomes competition was held at Staverton golf club in Northamptonshire. The result was a win for Huntswood (145 points) with Richmond Park B 2nd with 144 points.
Nigel Gaymond wrote:
Four teams assembled in Northamptonshire at Staverton GC and two of them came from Richmond Park. The other teams were a B team from Huntswood and a team from Cheshunt who had defeated a perennially strong Rose Hill team from Birmingham in their regional final. Most members of both our teams traveled up the day before for a practice round and then stayed at the course on the Friday night with everyone enjoying a nice dinner together before repairing to the bar for some close-fought pool matches! The Saturday morning saw fair weather conditions and both teams raring to get out there. Our A team of James Barker and Jayne Maxwell (32) Richard Inglis and Sheena Harrington (32), Captain Nick Rogers and Veronica Mitchell (34), and Pete Harrison and Gina Jillett (32) had performed fantastically on the run to the Finals but unfortunately on the day struggled for top form uniformly and ended up in fourth place with 130 points just behind the team from Cheshunt who struggled similarly to a score of 131. In the end it was our B team and the Huntswood team that vied for the trophy. We were led off ably by Cheryl Woodhouse and Angus Robertson with a very solid 36 points against a score of 34 for Huntswood, up second Susan Smith and Uli Katte did not have their best day with 31 against a great score of 40 from Huntswood, up third Caroline Stilwell and Luke Baker again produced a very solid 36 against 37 from Huntswood leaving only the final pair of Lia Donath and Captain Nigel Gaymond to come playing with the final Huntswood pair. Despite a valiant effort and the top score of the competition with 41 points by Lia and Nigel, the Huntswood pair rebounded from a tough front 9 to score 21 points on the back 9 for a final score of 34 which proved just enough to give Huntswood the title with 145 leaving our B team the runner-up with a score of 144. Once again our club has performed well in the Hawtree competition and, despite a lot of initial disappointment at coming so close, everyone agreed it had been a memorable occasion and a weekend everyone had enjoyed in great company. Congratulations to Huntswood who finally had won the Hawtree Trophy after many years of trying and thanks to everyone who participated from the Club during 2021. There is always next year……!
“B Team” Regional Final, Basingstoke
Team captain Nigel Gaymond reports:
RPGC’s B team in the NAPGC Hawtree mixed competition travelled out to Basingstoke to play their regional final against Portsmouth at the “neutral” venue of Sherfield Oaks Wellington course.
With the gauntlet well and truly thrown down by Nick’s victorious A team the week before in their regional final at The Downshire against Wycombe Heights, the pressure was well and truly weighing on the “other” RPGC team!
The first team out was Angus and Cheryl who once again acquitted themselves admirably in outscoring their opponents 39-31. In the second game, Uli and Susan scrapped valiantly against a strong performance from their Portsmouth opposition, who included their captain, and trailed by 33-42 giving ‘Pompey’ a single point advantage at the half way point. The match was essentially decided by an astounding effort from Luke and Caroline who bested their opponents by 46-34 leaving Captain Nigel and Lia to hold the fort in the last match which they duly did in a seesaw game that ended up honours even at 39-39. The final score was 157-146 and the B team joins the A team leaving RPGC with two teams in the final four Finals, with Cheshunt and Huntswood B joining them, a de facto Surrey v Bucks competition!
Well done to all and a proud day for the Club with both teams making the National Finals to be held on October 16 at Staverton near Daventry