Strange conditions at the park today. The field enjoyed mild temperatures. But the rain of the last days had created lots of areas with standing water. It even forced the greenkeeper to close 2 holes. The greens were very receptive. Although it was a surprise not having to face any temporary greens. Distance control was tricky today. There was very little roll (believe that quite a few tee-shots must have plugged on the fairways). The swirling/gusty winds made things even more complicated.

It was a case of one man v the rest today. The men’s secretary took the course apart today with an outstanding score of 38pts. 17pts on the front 9 was already quite a feat. His 21pts on the back 9 look even more impressive since he didn’t score any points on the 17th. The best of the rest was Alan King. It has to be said he had to use the countback rule to claim 2nd. Riding high on his nomination to the club’s main committee he recorded 14 and 19pts. Yours truly took 3rd. Brian Ransom used an excellent back 9 (20pts) to steal 4th place from Richard O.  Only 3 birdies were recorded today. Four of the hardest holes were on the back 9. The 5 most difficult holes today were (in descending order): 12th, 14th, 13th, 6th and 17th. Jeremy Prescot managed to score 2 4-pointers today.

Looks like Rob Dykes wins the Duke’s eclectic (TBC).

Forecast rain started 1 o’clock per main results report with some sunshine preceding. So later games caught the rain on the back 9 . Saturday and early games escaped dry. 37 turned up for Sunday.

Other events conspired to keep most of the women away from the course – so no report for them this week.

Overall winner with a tidy 67 was Sean O’Sullivan with the in-form Gunnar chasing with 69; Julian James again performed 70as did Cuneyt.

Senior Division Medal winner was Toby 73 and Junior Sean. Bucking the normal trend, the Senior Division had far more NRs than the Junior despite less entrants.

A smaller than usual field enjoyed a lovely sunny winter’s day on the now much drier/less muddy Dukes course.

Uli posted the best score of the day (39 points) with birdies on the 2nd and 11th holes; second place was taken by early player Pralab (35 points) who had a very steady round throughout. Peppe and Julian came in 3rd and 4th, respectively, both with 30 points.

Many thanks to Uli and Richard Norden who both marked handicap cards for prospective members.

A large field enjoyed pretty decent playing conditions: forward tees, mild temperatures, quite a bit of bounce & roll on the fairways and faster greens.

Early starter Chris Newman came in with a net score of 56. Turns out he put the bar (too) high for the rest of the field. Peppe put up a valiant effort. But his putter was stone cold today (a tap-in birdie on the 15th was a rare exception).  Unfortunately he came up just short with a net score of 58. 3rd place goes to Rudkin (despite 2 snowmen). Jim Deissler was the best of a group of 60. His 2 birdies on the last 3 holes allows him to (ab)use the countback rule to finish 4th. The men’s handicap secretary finishes 5th. Despite an eagle on the 3rd hole Brett Colley loses out Seymour for 6th. Some other highlights: Jeremy started with 2 birdies but his last 4 holes were less inspiring. New Committee member Alan King was on fire on the first 6 holes (1 under gross). Let’s not discuss the next 11 holes.

Early rain cleared earlier than forecast – at 09:30 according to plot at bottom of men’s results attached, sun came out with UV peaking shortly after midday. The author received a very poor weather forecast and did not play but apparently drainage operations were much in evidence 1st / 18th.

Women

What an interesting set of results and conditions on the morning after the club dinner. At least the rain went away, but that wind was somewhat strong and gusty.
A hazarded guess that Cheryl was the designated driver last night because those who imbibed quite freely at last night’s dinner did not appear to enjoy a great day on the course today. Certainly Gina’s score today does not match with her horde of trophies she gathered last year whereas Julie had a mere shandy all night. Prosecco to blame perhaps??
But that’s the golf gods for you – a few weeks ago Julie walked off after 5 or so holes as she struggled to hit the ball whereas today she won with 33 points. 3 ahead of both Cheryl & Jenny.

Despite her unusual poor result today, Gina still improved her eclectic score to move further away from the rest of the field. With the vagaries of WHS Susan has actually gone backwards as her handicap had a small cut, but is still in 2nd spot with 1 round to go.

Men

The winner proved to be Saturday entrant Richard Owen 40 points from Justin Wildman 38 with Brian McMahon and Paul Kammerling 37s. Richard went out in 22 points , Paul 21 with birdies at 4 and 8.

Winter Comp round 6 results are attached – manually retouched (at least 1 round from each course has to count and the HM software does not cater for such a bespoke feature so on MasterSoreboard the report is for rough guidance only) – Roger currently leads 115 from Julian and secretary Peter 114s. Colm, Tony and Adrian are in touch – 113.

The penultimate round of Prince’s Eclectic reveals Colm leading 57.3 from Roger 62.1 and Ed 62.8.

A band of heavy rain ‘blew through’ between 7.30am and 10.30am causing a little standing water and wet patches on some greens and fairways and a good deal of puddles on pathways. The early rain caused some entrants to ‘cry off’ and early starter Pralab to abandon his round after 1 hole, but those of us who turned up to play enjoyed a very pleasant, entirely dry winter’s day with spells of sunshine.

Julian James again tops the leaderboard with 37 points from 17 holes; the 18th being closed due to ongoing drainage contractor’s work. As usual, a very steady round from Julian, scoring on every hole and with a birdie 3 on the 15th. In 2nd place was late entrant Russell Stewart, with 35 points, also birdieing the 15th but then making a mess of the 100yard 16th. Three players came in on 34 points, with 3rd, 4th and 5th places to Brian, Chris Rudkin and Seymour respectively on countback. Brian also birdied the 15th but was then unfortunate not to find his drive down the middle of the fairway (reportedly !) on the 17th and had to go back for 3 off-the-tee. Quite a few players ‘made hay’ by scoring 3 and 4 points on the shortened first hole.

Sweep payout mainly to the top two (£8 & £5 respectively), with a £1 ‘ return of entry’ to 3rd, 4th and 5th, and no charge to Pralab.

Contrary to expectations Glendale (or their contractors) chose to perform some (much needed) drainage works on the first 2 holes on our competition day. Unfortunately the works started after the early starters went out. As a consequence we are forced to make today’s competition a Non-Qualifier. But as previously players are welcome to submit their scores a General Play Scores. Please reply to this mail if you want us to take care of this input.

Onto the order of the day:

Russell had 3 birdies today. He recorded 16pts (over 7 holes) on the way out. The start of his back 9 was a bit shaky: he recorded no points on the 11th hole (blame an ugly 7). But he bounced back brilliantly with a birdie on the 12th. In total he netted 22pts on the last 9 holes. Kevin had a sub-par front 9 (14pts). But he more than made for that on the way in (23pts). Colm recorded the same points total but the countback rule awards 2nd place to Kevin. Jeremy Prescot copied KP’s method: 13pts (out) + 23pts (in) on his way to 4th place. Pralab had a solid round (15 +21pts). Brian’s back 9 was quite diverse: 3*1pt, 4*3pts and 1 4-point play.

Midweek Winter Competition: Mike Jones (114), Tamas Ladacs (112) .

Dukes Midweek Eclectic: R. Dykes (67), B. Colley (69), B. Ransom (70)

Early frost melted to give a largely sunny [and again dry] day with sun gradually gaining elevation. Towards end of round it became distinctly chilly with a cold breeze.

Good for scoring then and n weeks since Duke’s playing all 18 holes.

Women

Guess no one was too keen on the conditions and weather today and despite the fact that yesterday was pretty windy, Gina who played then takes this weekend’s comp with 31 points.

In the accompanying eclectic, with holes 8 & 9 previously out of action scores weren’t calculated but unsurprisingly (if you look at recent results) Gina is also in the lead in this – by some large margin with just 1 round to go.

Men

Cuneyt, playing on Saturday [6 entrants was the worthy winner 40 points on countback from Brian McMahon; Another Saturday entrant Dilip was third alone 39. Jihum, Julian (again) and Ross completed the first 6 line-up on 38 points.

This was the penultimate round of the Duke’s Eclectic with Richard Inglis om a commanding lead of 60.2 from Brian Ransom 65.2- but possibility remains that winner may emerge from those with no scores at 8 and 9.

The round also constituted 5th in Winter Competition with Roger Rojas leading 115 from Julian and Secretary Peter 114 then Adrian and Tony 113s.

Performance stats reports below

It was good to play the full 18 holes on Dukes, now that the recent prolonged dry spell has allowed the 8th fairway (and other previously areas of standing water) to dry out. Even the sun came out, although a freshening cold wind set in as the afternoon progressed.

The winning score (40 points) was posted by Ryan Jones, who started with a birdie 3 on the first and largely didn’t look back, although blobs on the 14th and 16th spoilt what would have been an outstanding round. Just behind (39 points) was the in-form Peter Goodall who had a very strong back 9 (3 over par, 22 points), with a birdie on the 12th – not good enough to overcome Brian & Colm in their friendly matchplay with partner Seymour though. Yours truly was 3rd with an ever-steady 37 points (no birdies or blobs) and in 4th and 5th places, both on 36 points, were Adrian and Brian respectively.

Best golf of the day was played by Rob Smyth, who was doing a 2nd card for handicap. Rob par’d the front 9 and played 8 of the back 9 holes in 3 over par, just making a mess of the 11th by hitting 2 tee shots OOB.

Sweep payout to the top 3 (£7, £5, £3)

What a difference a couple of dry days can make. Most of the standing water has gone (except for the 1st and 18th fairway and some more remote areas of the course). Holes 8-9 were even open on Duke’s. And to top it all off there was even a slight chance to get bounce/roll on certain patches of the fairways. Add “milder” temperatures and some forward tees and you had a cocktail for some low scoring.

Juho is today’s clear winner. 24pts on the back 9 set the bar pretty high for anybody. Richard N takes 2nd with an excellent score of 42pts. The hottest golfer of 2022 James put in another stellar round to take 3rd (23pts on the way in). Something lit a fire under Alan today (surely not something that will be confirmed coming Sunday?). 4 birdies (yes 4) enable him to finish 4th. Richard O put in another solid round on Princes (although he will have nightmares about the 1st hole). Jenny and Sheena take 6 and 7th respectively.

Midweek Winter Comp (TBC)

Peter Goodall (115), Mike Jones (114), Julian James (113), Tamas Ladacs (112)

Midweek Eclectic Princes

Peter Goodall (58 Net), Richard Owen (61), Jeremy Ryan (63)