Women

With mud underfoot the women decided to forgo the chance to play a medal round on Duke’s and opted for the first team event of the year.

Well done to Susan, Angela, Cheryl and Jenny who were the winners with a gross 80, net 71. The winning team had a strong start with 4 pars in a row, and then had 8 more pars in the round and no double bogeys. No team managed a birdie today. They say beware the injured golfer and this team had 2 returners from breaks that have kept them away, Jenny has been back a few weeks but it was Angela’s first since April.

Men

A grey still day for the November medal; no rain but the mud stuck to shoes and trolleys in clods.

Richard Smith won the senior division medal with a glorious 65 – well done and handicap set to reduce by a full shot; 2 66s followed from Richard Inglis and John Perkins. Good 67s followed from Toby Hunt, Hieu Van and Justin Wildman.
Richard took first 9 honours gross 36 and Umran the back 9 with 38;

In the junior division it was the very very early clubhouse leader Berie McDermott who held on to with an amazing 61 – 41 gross out and 42 back. Bernie earns an ESR of -1 and handicap set to reduce to 19 I think.

Giovanni followed with a skillful 66, then Charles Haines 68 with Charlie Whiteman and Sean O’Sullivan 69s.

The day proved dry but a little muddy. The best score of the day was Alan King with 41 followed by Brett Colley with 40. More than 50% of the field scored 30 or more points.

A fine autumn day with little or no wind , warming sunshine and dry for the  3 clubs and a putter Lissaman Cup.

As in previous years there was still some excellent scoring in spite of restriction on number of clubs. Well done indeed to the first 3 in the sixties – winner Nigel Ward 65, Oz Doyle 68 and Toby Hunt 69.

Nigel scored an  eagle at 17^th – see attached ‘tree’ of eagles. Will Balakrishnan secured best gross 73 (and also best front and back 9s;  Alan King had back-to-back birdies at 16 and 17.

Best woman Alison Chadwick 74.

An overcast mild morning (without the forecast mist/fog thankfully) and the sun came out around midday to make it a pleasant and relatively wind-less day. Both the fairways and the greens could have done with a visit from the mowers and the course was playing ‘long’ due to a lack of run and the numerous wormcasts on some fairways.

Early starters Russell Stewart and Gerard Quinn set the pace with 36 and 35 points respectively only to be overtaken by Peppe’s 37 points in Game 3 of the mid-morning starters. However that was quickly overtaken by Leigh Drake’s winning score of 40 points and Peter Fisher’s 2nd place 37. There were no birdies on the Par 3’s but Brett birdied both the 2nd and 3rd holes. Peppe had the best front 9 (23 points) and Peter Fisher & Leigh both had 21 points on the back 9.

Unfortunately for Peter Fisher he didn’t enter the sweep, so the sweep prizes go to Leigh, Peppe, Stewart, Peter Miller and Gerard Quinn (£18, £13, £10, £7, £4 respectively). All the competition entry monies go to charity.

First of the autumn cancellations due to heavy rain from the previous day and more forecast on an already saturated course.

Women

It is safe to say that most found it rather a challenge today! The sudden descent of the thermometer no doubt didn’t help as the layers were piled on.
Not many cards didn’t include something higher than a 7 (38 in total)

Congratulations to Susan who beat Niamh by 1 to win with her net 70.
In true WHS style, despite no one playing to their handicap today, both Susan and Grace, along with 3rd & 4th placed Deb and Cheryl will see their handicaps drop a little tomorrow.

Men

A cold start and some mud to contend with – many wormcasts. Green were generally slow and ‘woolly’; dry and eventually sunny intervals for last round of the Grand Medal.

Oz Doyle won the senior division for the day net 66 with a commendable back 9 of 2 over par 35; Henry Lindesay-Bethune was just a shot behind 67 which included a level par back 9 – and his gross was lowest for the day. John Perkins and Greg Wright played well for their 68s.

The junior division was headed by Charlie Whiteman on back 9 from Julian James – both 69s with 41 each on the back 9. Sean O’Sullivan and Gerard Ouattara – and there was scope for improvement for Gerard with 3 8s.

This being the last of 7 rounds (July abandoned) sees the senior division of the Grand Medal Trophy going to Richard Smith 264 from Kerry Sargeant 270; Richard’s 4 counting rounds all in the 60s. The junior division is shared between Charlie Whiteman and Nigel Ward. Well done to Charlie for catching up today and to Nigel for consistent 60s scoring.

Today’s competition was round 8 of 8 of the Midweek Grand Medal.
After yesterday’s rain everyone was expecting muddy fairways and wet greens … and they were not wrong.
But it stayed dry all day and the comp finished undisturbed by the weather.

In Division 1 Henry (shooting the lowest gross score) won with a comfortable lead of 5 shots ahead of Gina, who herself lead MikeA and Angus by 3 shots.

In Division 2 the winners were a bit closer to each other, with GerradQ winning ahead of Julian and Jose.

Now, the overall Grand Medal competition 2024 (Best 5 rounds out of 8) has the following winners:

Division 1:
1. Gina
2. BillN
3. Sheena
4. Angus
5. Uli

Division 2:
1. PeterH
2. DaveC
3. ChrisJ
4. RichardN
5. ChrisR

Congrats to all of you for consistency!

A dry but cloudy day for the second round of the Autumn Stableford with 53 players.

In the senior division Sushant Lall and Richard Inglis led the way with excellent 41 points; Henry Lindesay-Bethune followed with 40 points with Umran Ali and John Perkins returning fine 38s.
The impact over the 2 rounds is that Henry consolidated his 1st round 37 to win on 77 from Richard Inglis.
In the junior division Alex Catlow had an excellent 41 points to win from Onursal Soyer, Tom Laybourn and Giovanni Caboni who had very creditable 39s.
Tom built on his first round 37 to win over 2 rounds on 76 from Alex Catlow 71.

Highlights from 2nd round:
Best front 9 Giovanni 24
Best back 9 Henry Lindesay-Bethune 23
Best woman was Sali Davies 38 points.

The course had weathered heavy rain in the week (closed for a day) and there was an autumnal nip in the air with increasing wind.

A good turnout of 60 for the first round of the Autumn Stableford and the wind limited scoring performance.

In the senior division there were 4 37s with Iker Lanzargorta the winner on countback from Joe Goncalves, Brian McMahon and Henry Lindesay- Bethune. Henry and Richard took the front 9 honours with 21 points.

A super round from Avi Murphy clinched the junior division 38 points with plenty (2 blobs) in reserve; chasing her were Tom Laybourn and Duncan Taylor with 37s; special mention to the leading 36 scorer Abdullah Almasoud who scored 22 on the back 9.

All to play for in round 2 next week….

Overnight rain continued into the morning dscouraging most from playing. Well done to the 7 who stuck with the conditions esp. to the winner Tom Texido with 34 points and front & back 9 honours (16 & 18); just 2 behind with another fine round was Richard Norden 32 points