Competition Reports
Competition Reports
Gordon Foster Bowl, Round 1 (contd)
The Richmond Park ‘Early Birds’ team played their Round 1 match against (fittingly !) Birds Hill Golf Club and secured a convincing win.
The team, captained by Brendan Sullivan, played in extremely cold conditions with 11.00am tee times, both home & away. Frozen fairways and rock hard greens meant pars were hard to come by and birdies were of the feathered variety only. Russell Stewart and Will Balakrishnan made the long journey to Maidenhead for a 5 and a half hour round. Conditions were tough but they combined to score 22pts + 28pts (50pts) against the home pair’s 25pts + 28pts (53pts). Meanwhile back on the Prince’s course at Richmond Park, Brendan Sullivan & Jihum Kim built a commanding score of 39pts + 32pts (71pts) against the visiting team’s 30pts + 22pts (52pts). So, overall Richmond Park played the better golf for a well-deserved 121pts – 105pts victory. Hopefully the weather in early 2023 will be a little kinder and warmer when round 2 comes along.
Friday Texas Scramble
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.
Midweek December Medal
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 ….
December Monthly Medal / Women’s Team Event
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!
Friday Sweep
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).
Midweek Champagne Chase
Sunshine broke through the gloom shortly after 8:00 on a chilly day. Many complained of losing balls amongst the fallen leaves.
Premier Cru went to Jim Deissler with 36 points to win the Midweek Champagne Chase Junior Division;
In-form Sheena put in yet another sparkling performance on countback for 2nd 35 points to take the win in the Senior Division from vintage performances from Chris N, Uli, Pier, Richard and Ross. Chris & Uli also getting bottles with the better back 9s. In the Junior Division, Richard H and Julian took the bottles.
Pat Barbour effervesced on front 9 – 20 points whilst Sheena and Ian B fizzed the back 9 20 points..
Champagne Chase
Sporadic showers petered out only to return for the late games; mild for early winter – 13C recorded per bottom of results. Turnout was good with 64 entrants
Pier Maria uncorked 41 points (22 on back 9) to win The Champagne Chase; vintage scores of 39 were settled on a back 9 countback with Toby having the advantage from Mark B. Bubbly 38s from Pete M and Oz followed with Pete winner on countback. Jay Barker NR first hole but normal service was soon resumed with 3 birdies in his round.
As is traditional, the women provided the prizes, this year 1st and 2nd place for each of the Senior (Toby & Mark) and Junior (Pier Maria & Giovani) Divisions, and 1st, 2nd & 3rd for the women – Pat, Susan & Sheena.
In addition to drinks prizes, sweep was paid out to 9th place. Kerry had best front 9 22pts, Paddy best back 23.
Gordon Forster Bowl 2022/23
Following last year’s triumph by a team from Richmond Park winning the GF Bowl Trophy, the club entered 4 teams in this year’s (winter) competition.
The Richmond Park “B” team, captained by Uli Katte, were the first to play their Round 1 match. This was against Portsmouth on a dull, partly rainy Sunday. The game at Richmond teed off on the Prince’s course at 9am, whereas it was an 11am start at Portsmouth. Tense and convivial rounds were played at both venues with a narrow victory for Richmond Park (113 points to 111 points) being the result.
The home team of Alvaro Garcia-Hoz and Kim Chaffart did the ‘heavy lifting’ scoring 68 points to their opponents 60 points. The star of the team was Alvaro, especially on the back 9 (22 points, with birdies on the 12th and 15th).
At Portsmouth the heavy rain during November had taken it’s toll on the course, with only 13 holes ‘fully’ open (mainly from mats), plus one 65 yard pitch over a 40 yard drop. Our away team of Uli and Richard Owen matched Portsmouth on the front 9 but slipped to a 6 points deficit by the time the shortened 14 holes were completed in the rain. We did think that we had closed the match out on the 13th hole when, from the tee, we believed Uli had hit a hole-in-one, however his ball was short and in the mud – like all the other balls!
Friday Team Competition (Best 2 Scores)
Again we were very lucky with the weather, a dry and sunny morning, clouding over mid afternoon. The Prince’s course was in good condition with only very occasional wet patches, although the grass was very lush off the fairways.
This is the first time we have tried the “Best 2 Scores” format and it seemed to be enjoyed by all. The winning team (88 points) of James Deissler, Rannesh Jansari, Jose Manuel Gomez and Richard Owen only clinched it on the 18th hole by scoring 7 points to the runners up team of Uli Katte, Richard Hodgkinson, Graham Cull and Chris Jones’s 4 points. Not too far behind were 3 teams all on 82 points. Colin, Gary and Bob brought up the rear with 70 points, but were disadvantaged by being only 3 members in their team. If anyone would like to examine individual scores in more detail, see the Competitions Scorecards Report attached.
Sweep payout to the winning team (£6 each)
Midweek November Plate
Hard to say if Japan’s victory over Germany during today’s round at the World Cup was a bigger surprise than the weather at the park. 24 brave souls teed off despite doomsday weather forecasts. But that courage (or foolishness) paid off. By some sort of miracle the rain stopped around 9.30. Guess that for once the 3 early starters experienced the worse conditions.
Only 2 women teed off. And the least that you can say is that they stretched the field. Sheena finishing first and Cheryl closing the leaderboard … The women’s captain used scores of 18pts (front 9) and 21pts (best score on the back 9) to leave everyone else far behind. Rob Dykes finishes 2nd but is the winner of today’s sweep. Julian is keeping up his good form with 3rd place and 36pts. Alan could/should’ve done better had it not been for 3 blobs. Wouldn’t be surprising if PCC are adjusted (only 5 players played to their HI today). Only 3 players get sweep payouts. But since quite a few of the better scorers today opted out of the sweep the sweep payouts reach as far 6th place.
Just to highlight what a weird day it was: hole 3 played as SI 5 and the 16th played as SI … 9. It may come as less of a surprise to see the 17th play as SI 3.