An already small field just before Xmas was further reduced by a band of heavy rain falling at the park between 7am and 11am. However the 5 hardy souls who lingered to play after the rain subsided were blessed with a round in mild, sunny conditions on a soddon Prince’s course..

The clear winner, Brian Ransom (38 points) would, on initial inspection, seemed to have had a ‘steady’ round, 19 points out and 19 points back. However on closer inspection, his back 9 started with 2 blobs and finished with the last 5 holes played at 1 under par (birdie on the 15th). Rannesh Jansari in 2nd (35 points) had his nose in front until Brian’s late burst blew him away.

After a week of polar temperatures and occasional snow the Duke’s course re-opened for the MW Pairs comp played as US Greensomes stableford, with 2 temporary greens (5th & 11th) on a wet course.  It was an enjoyable romp in mild, dry conditions with the bookies favourites posting a clear win (by 3 points) with drinks and mince pies in the clubhouse afterwards.

Cheryl/Richard took full advantage of the “generous” shot  allowance afforded all the teams with women (3 extra shots). On the 4 holes that they had 2 shots, they recorded a total of 10pts. Zoom out and we learn that they scored 23pts on the front 9 and 22pts on the back 9. An unbeatable target for the rest of the field. Gina/Jon Cooper had only one blemish on their scorecard. Both of their tee-shots on the 3rd ended up in quite a bit of trouble. But they still posted a solid score on the front 9 (20pts). An excellent score of 22pts made up for those soft opening 9 holes. Despite a couple of very close putts on the last 3 holes they were able to hold off 2 other pairs who also ended with 42pts.

Peter/Brian are the last pair to finish “in the money”. 

Courses closed due to snow.

The course is currently closed and competition cancelled due snow.

Sadly this much anticipated competition had to be cancelled when the klaxon sounded at 9.30 to close the course as the fog rolled in.

A freezing cold, frosty morning turned into a chilly but sunny afternoon. The ground was frozen, giving run on the fairways and difficult greens to ‘hit’. As always with Texas Scramble, the team scores were very close, with everyone feeling they played well and “must have won”.

The winning team of Uli, Cuneyt, Adrian Wells and Richard Owen scooped top spot with a net 59, with 4 birdies, one bogey and only 3s and 4s on their card. In 2nd place with the best of the net 60s were Ian Burgess, John Middleton and Adrian Mancebo – they could easily have won if they hadn’t all hit their tee shots on the 10th OOB and scored a 7 on that hole.

Glad everyone enjoyed it, sweep payout to the winning team.

Looks like RPGC members clearly prefer summer golf. The field was smaller than usual. On top of that today’s scoring was sub par.

The notable exception was Julian.

Junior Division

Julian went level par-birdie-bogey on the par 3’s. He missed out best front and back 9 by a single shot. This all translates into a score of 84 gross. This becomes a fantastic score Nett score of 65. PCC got adjusted to +3 and a healthy cut in his HI. Richard was a distant second with a score of Nett … 76. Rob Dykes finishes on the podium as the best of the group on 77.

Also wishing a speedy recovery to Graham.

Senior Division

Angus used 2 birdies on the front 9 to record the best score on the way out. The back 9 was a bit more volatile. But he still managed to also top the whole senior division for the best score on the way in. 82 gross (73 Nett) is enough win the senior division. Steady eddy Brian narrowly misses out on victory.

No surprise that hole 17 came out as SI 4 today ….

A chill grey day with easterly wind and mud…

Women

After many changes in the booking sheet, we were left with 2 equally balanced teams – 4 playing off 17, 2 on 21 and 2 on 26. No doubt everyone expected the results to be close as indeed they were – but done in quite different ways. Cheryl, Jayne, Katharina and Sheena dropped just 1 shot on the front 9 but their approach shots and long putts failed them more on the back 9 which took them 6 more to complete than the front, whereas Alison, Joan, Lia and Susan had a very balanced round of 41 in and out. Festive treats were provided as prizes to C, J, K & S.

But what a chilly grey day it was and one of those where trolleys gathered as much mud as they could cope with – the mulled wine with accompanying mince pie and hot custard was most welcome

Men

Considerng it was Duke’s (but yellows) scoring was not bad and no PCC adjustment.

Well done to Kerry winning the senior -medal in 67 (out in 1 over) with HI trimmed 0.5 to 9.7; he was chased with excellent scores from Paul K 67 and Luke 68.

Junior medal went to Ian Burgess 66 from Jihum Kim 68 and Paddy Stone 71;

Spare a thought for Ross Hood standing on the 11th tee 1 under par; whilst tragedy befell him at 15 (NR-lost ball??}, Ross recovered his composure to score his 4th birdie at the 18th!

There were brief glimpses of sunshine late morning but overall it was a gloomy and increasingly cold winter’s day.

Nobody found the course ‘easy’ and some players ‘walked off’ before the end of their rounds but some respectable scores were recorded and Uli managed 2 birdies. Our winner (36 points) was Pat Barbour, who also had the best front 9 (18 points) and an unlikely chip in from off the green on the 12th. Pralab took 2nd place (34 points), which was more than I expected after he declared he was giving up winter golf, when putting on the 14th. Richard Norden beat the others with 33 points by posting the best back 9 (19 points).

Sweep to top 3 (£10, £6, £3).