Having been away for a few days it was quite a surprise to see how green the park is again and with less run on the ball scores are slightly suppressed, or more likely back to more usual levels.

Peter Flint was the winner with 37 points just 1 clear of Peppe who is probably ruing his 2 7s on the front 9, but showing that a summer away from golf has done him no harm (although perhaps it helps as he missed the rock hard fairways). A further shot behind was Ronnie and Ryan with Ronnie having the better back 9.

With 25 players sweep goes to 4th place (£10, £7, £5, £3)

Conditions proved tricky today. The rain of the last days rendered the fairways very lush. The green grass (of the fairways – not of home like Tom Jones would say) annihilated the bounce/roll that was ever present during the heat wave. On top of that the green keepers decided to punch/sand the greens.

Brett Colley posted a score of 41 gross on front and back 9. His score of 68 (Nett) not only made him leader in the clubhouse. More importantly this target proved too much for the rest of the field. Yours truly finished second. Instead of playing extra-ordinary golf yours truly played consistent golf: my scores on all 18 holes were better than the average score of the field. First woman of the day is Mayumi. Unfortunately she didn’t sign up for the sweep. So she misses out on a small payout. MC John did sign up for the sweep. And since he finished 4th overall (2nd in the Jr. Division) he takes the biggest payout in Division 2. Looks like Angus is fully recovered. An excellent outscore (38 gross) was followed by a steady back 9. MWC Henry wasn’t suffering from any jet lag on the front 9. 37 (Gross) was the best score on the first 9 holes. May be the travelling took its toll on the back 9. Alvaro was happy with his result. Just don’t talk to him about his score on the 13th hole. Teddy Holt, Alex and Mike take the last money positions in the Jr. division. If you saw clubs getting airborne on the 7th hole just ask Ronnie the name of the culprit.

MW Grand Medal Ranking
Both Tamas and yours truly are on 335. Gina still has a chance thanks to her score of 339. Peter Goodall is a bit further back. (Seymour Laird has a pretty good shot to leapfrog everybody).

After the sad events of the second half of the week the attention turned to golf again. Remarkable what a bit of rain can do. Fairways were lush (taking divots became rather common). The greens offered grip/zip and some speed.

Div 1 Results

Brendan Sullivan put together a remarkable round of golf. +3 gross on the way out (1 birdie on the 3rd hole) resulted in 21pts. But his back 9 was better. He came back in level par gross. Add the 25pts of his back 9 (birdies on 11 & 15) to his score on the front 9 and you get an astounding result of 46pts. Needless to say that he takes the win today. He will also get an ESR. Well done. Best of the rest in Div1 was Richard Smith  who put together a steady round: 20pts on front and back 9. Adrian Wells had the best front 9 of the whole field (23pts). Even though he matched Richard’s total his “softer” back 9 moves him into 3rd place. Dodgy Roger finished the back 9 strong to take 4th place with 39pts. Best woman in Div1 was Gina with a solid score of 38pts.

Div 2 Results

Normally any player would be happy with a stableford score of 42pts. But today Sean the southpaw misses out on the overall win. He has to settle for the win in Div2. Goran takes 2nd place. 6’s on the last 2 holes prevented him from improving on a score of 41pts. With quantitative precision he keeps chipping away at his HI. Sarita put together the best score on the par 5’s on her way to 37pts. By doing so she is the last player to earn some sweep money in Div2.

Cooler temperatures and much softer ground after yesterday’s heavy rain greeted today’ competitors. These conditions were not conducive to good scoring, as nobody played to their handicap and 34 points was the best that was achieved.

Winner by 1 point was Rannesh Jansari, 17 out and 17 back – it could have been better if he hadn’t missed a short birdie chance on the 17th and put balls OOB and then in the ditch on the 18th.

Countback separated Uli Katte and Pat Dalton (both on 33 points), Uli’s 17 points on the back 9 pipping Pat’s 15 points.

Payout to top 3 (£9, £6, £3)

Sunshine and varying showers were the order of the day for the challenging bogey format for Fred Hawtree trophy. Major shower just after 3 o’clock.
The oak tree between 4th and 16th had been felled- see attached photos.

I always think it is good golf to be tied (all square’ in old money) but some astonishing golf was played by those ‘Up’, notably winner Giles Rawlinson 7 up and Alan Cobb 6 up.
Very early starter Mitch Cohen was laeader in clubhous for some time 4 up from Rob Dykes.

Best woman was Julie Ryan – Tied

Peter Goodall with 2 birdies was 5 up on front 9 whilst Giles held honours on back 9 . again 5 up.

There was a hint of autumn in the air today with that wind being a touch chilly.

Women

Some new names at the top of the tree today.
Sarita playing in her first competition with us is today’s winner with a nett 66 & another cut to her HI. 4 shots behind were Elisabeth and Bridget.

Take care playing the 18th – Elisabeth was hit a glancing blow to her ear and seems fortunate to have got away quite lightly.

Both will also get small HI reductions overnight.

The sun only seemed to make a proper appearance after we’d finished. But the ball is still running though there is a touch more give in the ground and amazingly the 14th & 15th fairways seemed to show a lot of improvement.

Looking at the scoring today there were some 22 quadruple or worse scores on various holes between us & not one birdie.

Men

Conditions remained dry but breezy and green grass areas continued to expand for the 7th round of Grand Medal Trophy.

In the senior division Adrian Wells net 61 was leader on countback from Kerry Sargeant; well done to both – Adrian kept a six off his card with one birdie whilst Kerry returned 3 birdies. Early starter Russell, Roger Rojas and Richard Smith shared 64s.
Zach score an eagle at 9th!

In the junior division Goran had lowest net of the day 60 finishing a superb round with a back 9 38. Pete Malia had a commendable net 65.

In the cumulative Grand Medal Trophy with just 1 round to go, James A leads senior division 34 from Paul Kamerling and Kerry Sargeant 343s.

There’s an exciting finish coming up for the junior division — Julin J, Goran are tied 327 with the author chasing on 337.

Although quite a few of the Friday regulars were away playing golf or on holiday, there was still a good turnout with most members playing to scores around their handicap and the top 6 separated by only 3 points.

Top of the pile with 40 points was Uli Katte, playing his usual very steady round with 11 pars and only one double bogey (on the 18th). Tied on 39 points were Richard Young (following up on his excellent winning round on Wednesday) and Julian James, with Richard just winning on countback. In 4th place (38 points) was Pralab, who had a very ‘ordinary’ front 9, but a good final few holes which included 2 birdies.

The Best Scores Analysis show that Bridget had the best front 9 (21 points), Pralab and Giles had the best back 9s (21 points) and that Tim Rose matched Pralab’s 2 birdies.

Sweep payout to the top 4 (£9, £6, £4, £2)

Very breezy conditions persisted for the 2nd round of the Midweek Club Championship; despite no rain in the last week green grass patches expanded.

In the net for the day, Richard Young put into action all recent tips to win with a marvellous 64. He was chased by José Manuel Gomez and Rob Smyth 65s (Rob shooting 2 over par gross 73 with 5 birdies); José had 2 10s but otherwise excellent round which earned him an ESR of -1.0 and a cut in HI from29.4 to 27.1.

The midweek Handicap Trophy was tied with 131s from Rob Smyth and Hilary Casey 131s. Mike Sands and Mayumi were amongst chasers with both sixties rounds on 134.

In the overall men’s scratch the deserved Senior division winner was Richard Back 147 from Rob Smyth 148; the Junior winner being Roland Godfrey 173 from Colin Price 175.

The women’s scratch was won by Silvia Bortoli 161 with Sheena runner-up 169.

The wind ran counter to normal direction; green shoots of grass recovery were evident and as on Prince’s seeded grass in new drainage channels had germinated with rain earlier in the week.

Brendan Sullivan off 12 was the winner of the Bank Holiday Plate with an excellent 43 points just beating Robin Thomas on the back 9. Excellent golf. Curiously, WHS awarded Brendan a -1.0 ESR but HI didn’t change [‘hard cap’ ?] whilst Robin cut from 18.5 to 17.5. George Taylor and James Parker followed with very good 40s.

Best woman was Jayne 37 with 22 points on back 9. In the last game the author scored most on the par 3s [9pts] whilst another Paul (Kamerling) joined Kerry Sargeant and Richard Back with a ‘Two’ – only Russell also had a Two on 10th.