A cooler day than of late with just literally a few pits and spots. some of the drainage small ditches on 1st/18th had been filled in – now needed is rain.

Very early clubhouse starter Justin Wildman remained atop the leader-board throughout with fab 43 points to win ( 24 points on harder front 9 alone!]. He was ‘chased’ hard by 2 women – Jayne and Gina both 42s. Chris Rudkin was 4th 40 [24 on bacl 9] on countback from Seymour and Paul Giles.


With a reduced field and also sweep pool, first 5 had sweep payout and with a number of non-sweep entrants, 9th position received prize.

First of the 2 rounds of the Club Championship for the men and women and another hot day on the barren fairways of the Park cooled by a wind that could be somewhat blustery at times.

Women

Silvia had a great front 9 usually the harder of the 2 9s on Prince’s, dropping only 2 shots her double bogey being compensated for by the 2 birdies. She is 2 shots clear of Ronnie in 2nd spot who has timed her return to form with perfection.

With a nett 65 Ronnie also leads in the Handicap Cup on a pretty healthy cushion of 4 shots going into the second round.
In the junior division for the Pembroke Cup, things are a little closer with Katharina leading the way on a 72, 2 shots ahead of Jenny.

Men

In the CC1 scratch, Richard Back (37 out 37 in) emerged the leader 74 in the Senior division- well done! Brian McMahon and Chis Saloway followed with 75s; these followed Roger Rojas and Henry L-B 76s Roger had 5 birdies and this also propelled him to the top of[detailed] men’s Sunday birdies below.

The Junior division is headed by Tony Koczak 85 from Phil Flanagan and Dave Chilvers 86s and no fewer than 4 88 so tight for round 2.

Best front 9:Paul Kammerling 36 , best back 9 Brian.

In the handicap trophy , Pat leads with his amazing 62 pursued by Tony K and Kevin Prendergast 63s.

This was played on 23rd July at Sherfield Oaks. Richmond Park ended up with just one representative, but we didn’t need any more! Caroline won the Bronze Division with a net 66.

The promised ‘heavy showers’ did not materialise and it was a very pleasant summer’s day with a light breeze. Scoring was pretty good and you had to be well off-line to get into significant trouble.

The clear winner was James Deissler (43 points) with an impressive round which included no less than 11 pars, 21 points out and 22 points in. The round caused James’s HI to reduce by 1 shot – a new ‘Low Index’ for him of 18.2, but I’m sure it will soon be even lower. Runner up was Veronica Mitchell (40 points), a very steady round 20 points out and 20 points back and the comment “I didn’t used to like Prince’s but I quite like it now”.

In 3rd and 4th places were Adrian Wells and Pralab Barua, both 38 points, with Adrian winning out on countback and also the only one in the sweep to record a 2 (although in Richard Owen’s singles matchplay with Uli Katte, Uli had a birdie 2 the 2nd and Richard had a birdie 2 the 16th). Pralab’s front 9 was very good, 5 pars and 21 points but only 2 pars on the back 9 were his demise.

Sweep payout to top 4 : £7, £5, £3, £1

Conditions were a lot more pleasant after record breaking temps of Mon & Tues; max 27C and gusty breezes per bottom of results.

Ali Chadwick continued her recent good form (best 5 from 8 within last 2 moths) to win 6th Founders’ Cup with 4 2points. Well done Ali who also share d best back 9 (thinks – Vinny shot a consistent 41 for 2nd and Stephen Haworth 3rd 40. Richard Hodgkinson and Secretary Peter Harrington played well within themselves for 39s – both ‘blobbing’ 2 holes.

This was last (best 4 of 6 rounds for the Founders’ Cup and Tamas lifted the Cup victoriously[157] having last round 22 June 42 points. Well done Tamas! Runner-up was Richard Hodgkinson 153 and Juho 3rd 151. Detailed breakdown by player in attached results.

Sweep was awarded to 6 going down to 7th position.

Needless to say hot , dry and sunny conditions continued with bounce but there was a breeze.

There was excellence at the top – 3 44 points with Paddy Stone the winner on countback from Henry L=B and Ben Dickey. They had phenomenal front 9s – Paddy 24, Henry 25 and Ben 26. Best gross was Jay with consistent 40 and best woman Sheena 39.

The round constituted 4th in the men’s Top Dog – Duncan Taylor still leads 24 but Paddy moves up to 2nd with 13 from Goran now 12. The report attached details points gained at each competition so far for each player.

With 3 out of sweep, 8 share down to 11th position.

Another hot, but not too hot, mid-summer’s day and the Duke’s course was there for the taking for many of the participants.

Unsurprisingly, it was a lady (Veronica) who beat allcomers, with 45 points (following on from Lia’s winning round on Wednesday – 50 points !) – it’s tough keeping up with the ladies in the summer and doesn’t bode well for the upcoming men vs ladies Bontor matchplay in 3 weeks’ time (Saturday Aug 6th).

Ronnie’s round was good on the front 9 (20 points with 1 blob) but really took off on the back 9 (25 points with a birdie and 5 pars). I believe Ronnie was playing with Rannesh and Rob Wilhelmson, who both scored 42 points and came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Rannesh ‘only’ had 18 points on the front 9 with 1 blob but super-charged the back 9 with 24 points, including a birdie 4 on the 12th. Rob had a more balanced round, 22 on the front and 20 on the back 9 – he was probably feeling the heat from Ronnie and Rannesh on the back 9.

Lowest gross score was 76, by Mike Horsthuis.

Sweep payout to top 3 (£6, £4, £2)

One of our team captains uses the following catch phrase quite often: “May the Bounce be with you” ; that was certainly the case for most of the field today. Few players will deny that the extra carry/roll provided by the super dry fairways helped out today (on the other hand it had to be said that if you caught a bad bounce you could end up recording a VERY high score on a hole). The greens proved to be trickier/slower than Sunday. All that being said today’s scoring was excellent.

Former Women’s Captain Lia Donath recorded a fantastic score of 56 (Nett) (or if you prefer to use Stableford terms: 50pts!!). That’s what scores of +5 gross (front 9) and +3 gross (back 9) will get you. Great result.

Four players in the Top6 went out early; 2nd and 3rd places go to 2 early birds. Normally a score of 60 (Nett) will seal the win, but today Peter Goodall and Richard Owen only get runner-up positions. Small consolation is that Lia didn’t enter the sweep. 

Jeremy Prescott was the 1st player of a group finishing on 61 (Nett). Quite a feat since he recorded double digits on the 6th hole and finished with a 7 on the last hole. Mike Jones had a solid front 9 but a few ugly scores on the back 9 prevented him from improving on 5th place. Mitch and Jeremy Ryan take the last “Money” positions. Richard Back had the lowest gross score today (71 strokes); he amazingly dropped 4 shots between holes 2-4. But he took the back 9 apart (-1 gross).

Conditions continued to be hot, sunny and dry with grass progressively browner with much run and sometimes random bounce.

Women

Some interesting numbers on various cards today. Lia started a sequence of scores going in the wrong direction from the 4th with a 3 and finishing on the 9th where she switched the 8 & 7 scores around, so was at least going back in the right direction for the start of the back 9. Gina meanwhile was in trickshot mode. She fired her 11th tee shot into the trees on the left, only for the ball to fly back out onto the fairway having smacked a tree trunk hard – & got her 3. Next par 3 her tee shot hit the concrete base for the mat and ricocheted back behind where she was standing (very fortunate it went at an angle and not straight back at her) – she made a 4 and only dropped 4 shots in total on the back 9.

But it was Jenny who came out top today with a net 68 which could have been a whole lot better without the nasty 9 on the 7th. Julie and Gina were 2 back on 70s in 2nd & 3rd place respectively.

Men

Colm Ivors opened his top drawer to pull out another class round to win with 61 points; just beaten on countback was Charlie Whiteman also 61 but could have been in the mid-fifties if not for finishing 7-7. An excellent consistent 62 placed Peter Goodall 3rd with 62 points grossing 37 out and in, doubling as best front and back 9 gross.

Congrats to Kim for clambering up the Eagle tree with eagle at 9th.

This was 5th (of 8) rounds in the Grand Medal Trophy and we find 3 tied on 345 -Julian James, Peter Harrington and Goran Kovacevic.