The frozen ground made the course much ‘shorter’ with summertime run on the fairways but it made pitching onto the (concrete) greens just about impossible. Bouncing balls and sideways kicks were the order of the day. Not really ‘proper golf’ but it was good to get back out on this sunny winter’s day, with no temporary greens.

In order of ‘fairness’, the two 3-ball teams had either Colin or Bill (who played as a 2-ball) added to their team, so everyone was in a 4-ball team. This made the result very close between four or the teams but still meant that the clear winners were the team of Julian James, Pralab Barua, Cuneyt Sazer and Adrian Wells, with an incredible 92 points (averaging more than 5 points/hole). The winning team takes the sweep money (£5 each).

Interestingly, it can be seen from the Competitions Scorecards (link below) that if all 4 scores had counted, the winning team of Julian, Pralab, Cuneyt and Adrian would have come 4th and the winners would have been Richard (O), Pete Goodall, Ian Burgess and Bill Jennings.

Course closed – sheet ice, safety reasons.

A ‘proper’ winter day – cold but sunny with a chill wind. Conditions underfoot could have been a lot worse and there were still 2 temporary greens in use rendering the comps as non-qualifiers. Rain clouds missing the Park brought out a rainbow mid-afternoon:

Women’s

The least said about the women’s scoring today the better! It looked like it would be won with 27 points, only for Silvia to be DQ’d as she forgot to sign her card. She had already expressed her chagrin at winning with such a score and has subsequently suggested it was an unconscious reaction!! So in the end the win was with a magnificent 25 points.

Expecting the course to be a complete mudbath, we took the shot below of our shoes before starting – they were all in fact black shoes already covered in mud (not offwhite), but although some holes were decidedly wet we finished with shoes in no worse state.

To add to this, Gina also managed to improve her eclectic score by 7.6 to leapfrog Silvia whose first round had seemed hard to beat. The rest of the pack are some way off.

Men

Peter Goodall’s excellent form continued with fresh clubs – winner of Senior division with 40 points; Peter started with a birdie, scrubbed 2 holes and finished back 9 level par. 23 points with par at SI 1 14th – super golf. Peter was chased by 38s from Oz, Paul K and James P.

Highest points went to Pierpaulo – 43, winner of Junior division from Giovanni with Gunnar and Gregory 34s

The associated Eclectic after 2 rounds on Dukes is headed by Raymond 66.9 off 5.1 from James P 68.1.

After 4 rounds of the Winter Comp, Will B leads Raymond 108 from 106 in Senior division whilst in Junior Giovanni 111 leads Pierpaulo 108.

Apart from the strong westerly wind, it was a relatively mild, sunny day for golf and a few players found the course “there for the taking”. The heavy rain of yesterday was evident as ‘standing water’ in a few low lying places but overall the Duke’s course has stood up well (so far) to the seemingly endless bands of rain. Only one temporary ‘fairway green’ on the competition holes (5th), but 2 further temporaries (11th and 12th) for those who ‘played on’.

Top of the leaderboard (25 points) was early bird Pralab Barua, who continued his recent good form with 21 points on the front 9 and capped it off with a birdie 2 (4 points) on the 10th. In 2nd place, just one point back, was another early bird Neil Elkins also with 21 points for the front 9 but ‘only’ a 3 points par on the 10th. Julian James (23 points) took 3rd place with a very steady 20 points on the front 9 and a par 3 (3 points) on the 10th. The last player in the money (4th) was Ian Burgess (22 points) with 19 points out (including a blob on the 2nd) and 3 points for par on the 10th.

Hope everyone enjoyed it and great to have Tony Barnett back fit enough to play with us again.
Sweep payout £9, £7, £4, £2

Sunny but windy coditions greeted competitors.

Div1

Richard Back played a solid round of golf. His front 9 was decent (17pts). After a wobble on the 10th hole he steadied the ship and ended the back 9 with 19pts. Susan torched the first 9 holes for 20pts. 3 softer holes (11, 12 and an unfortunate 7 on the 17th) on the way in translate into 16pts. Therefore the countback rule awards 2nd place to Susan. Yours truly recorded his first competitive round in a while. If only he hadn’t recorded those 3 DB’s …

Div2

Mitch Cohen went out early and walked off the mud as leader in the clubhouse with 37pts (19pts out and 18pts out). That mark proved too high a hurdle for the rest of the field. Richard finishes second thanks to an excellent back 9 (20pts). Paul takes 3rd place with 33pts.

A few shockers: Hole 17 played as SI 4, Hole 1 as SI 1 and Hole 6 as SI 16.

MW Winter Comp Standing

Tamas (107), Richard (101), Alvaro (94)

MW Princes Eclectic

Pete Goodall (65), Tamas (67), Richard O (70)

Some heavy rain from about 12:30 added to the already muddy and unpleasant conditions and the return of some soggy scorecards. The PCC of +2 reflected this. 1 temp green on the 3rd.

Women

What a fab set of results! The most that can be said for it is Deb & Pat both got a birdie (18th & 7th respectively). On the face of it Gina’s card looked pretty darn amazing – lots of 4s and 5 pars, but 10 shots don’t go very far across 18 holes in the mud, but it was still plenty good enough to win with 31 points, 1 better than Deb on 30.

Probably more surprising is that Cheryl & Sheena leapfrogged Joan in the eclectic but remain behind Susan who also improved her score – all improvements were marginal!

Men

Sporting some new clubs from golfbidder, Peter Goodall shot 38 points to win the senior division from Tamas, Pier and Brian McMahon. Peter’s h’cap reduced to 8.0

Suhail claimed the junior division with a similar 38 but 3 clear from Cuneyt and a further 2 from Gunnar 33. A drenched Gunnar treated himself to a new dry Glendale top afterwards.

Still early days but in the overall Winter Comp after 3 rounds played, Will B leads Senior division 108 from Ray 106; Giovanni leads Junior division from Julian 99.
The associated Prince’s Eclectic sees Kerry our leader 63.3 from Richard Back 64.0

It was good to get back on the slightly less muddy Prince’s course and to be treated to morning sunshine, which faded somewhat as the day progressed. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the competition, although some found the course more challenging than others.

As is usual in team competitions, the final result was very close – only one point in it and determined by the team/individual scores (and missed putt) on the final hole. The worthy winning team (80 points) was Richard Norden, Julian James and Pat Barbour, with the standout player being Richard Norden (40 points) and a birdie 3 on the 18th hole. In 2nd place (79 points) was the team of Richard Owen, Rannesh Jansari and James Deissler, who had the same back 9 (41 points) but one less on the front 9, so the missed 2 foot putt on the last hole (!!!) made the difference.

Well done to Bob, Gary and Colin who came in 3rd (72 points). Further details of the scoring in attached Best Scoring Report. Sweep payout to the winning team (£7 each).

Not really the best conditions to play golf. 2 temporary greens were an expected but unpleasant extra challenge. The 5th hole played as SI7. And the 11th hole was the 12th most difficult hole of the day. Scoring was not too shabby.

Mike changed his routine and didn’t tee off early. Things didn’t kick off in the best way (blob on the first hole). Despite that he recorded 16pts on the front 9. The extra hour(s) of sleep worked wonders on the back 9. Mike torched the last 9 holes for 23pts. Clear winner of the day and may be improving your golf may be just as simple as teeing off 90min later than usual.

Pat lost out twice today: 1) first she was informed that her excellent score (37pts) wouldn’t count towards her HI and 2) to make things worse she didn’t sign up for the sweep. So her 2nd place will only get rewarded with a mention in this report. Chris Newman laid the foundation for his 3rd place with an excellent 20pts on the front 9. Gina also teed off later than usual (not as late as other usual early bird Mike J). But it didn’t affect her results today (4th place – Signing up for the sweep wouldn’t hurt next time?). Tamas and Stephan end up in the money spots thanks to Pat/Gina not entering the sweep.

Women

Men

There were a few dropouts but attendance (42) was good for the ic conditions (nudged 3C) created bounce and putting difficulties. Overall the PCC calculated was +3 – much more difficult than expected and first time on Prince’s since November 1 per attached.

Anyway, there was some really good golf played.

In the Senior division victory and medal for an excellent round went to in-form Richard Back 72 (but a 7 on 10th offset by 2 birdies on back 9).
Richard was chased by 3 37s from Pete M, Peter G, Russell and Joe G. For Pete and Peter it really was a game of 2 halves [Pete M 50 out 38 back, Peter G 43 out 8 back. Richard shared front/back honours and birdies scored with Ross Hood.

The Junior Division was dominated by a superb 60 from Paddy Stone – a WHS career beet 84 (consistent 42s out and in) and an ESR of -1.0 resulting in cut to HI from 24.0 to 21.5. Gregory had a super 63 and Julian 66.
There were 13 NRs and I’m sure there was some excellent play therein nevertheless.