A large field gathered at the Park for another round of Winter golf. How cold was it today for the 8.00am starters? Nick Rogers gave up on his shorts and decided to properly cover up. Temperatures close to 0, chilly winds and bumpy fairways and greens proved to a few too many obstacles for most of the field. Only 16 out of 59 competitors managed to stay in their buffer.

Competent ball striking was required. Evgeny Vd Geest provided that for 15 holes. The last three holes uncharacteristically turned into a nightmare. His net score of 70 was still good enough to hold off Robin Thomas. Mark Laverty and Habib Amir earn 3rd and 4th spot respectively. First lady today is Jayne Maxwell with a net 72. Ollie Griffin strong off yesterday’s victory in the Clapham Common captured 6th. Results…

Putting remained tricky. Nick and Tamas showed a more efficient way to get birdies by chipping in for birdies on holes 3 & 16.  On to the Diamond Jubilee on 9th June.

CSS: 71

A chilly vernal nip but glorious sunshine greeted 49 competitors for the Masters Bowl. The sanded and tined greens had settled down after recent rain but sand still flew up on pitches to the greens.

Early scores in the clubhouse were best 38 points and leader-board indicating CSS 35 points but eventually better scores came in and CSS ended 37 points. Louis Suárez was the fine winner on 40 points followed by new member Arthur Clark 39. Countbacks differentiated Messrs. O’Sullivan, Cohen and Shabani 38s. New lady member Jeannie Chung flew the ladies’ flag on 37 off a well-handicapped 21. Results…

Ladies

A large contingent of ladies were away at Donnington Valley for the weekend, more than usually play on a Sunday, so needless to say numbers at the Park were somewhat low. The two ladies who did play had a friendly knock about with some good scoring between them, possibly aided by the lack of pressure of trying to win a competition, this despite reports of the greens being somewhat variable after the earlier work on them in the week.

Men

Until today the greenest beach in the world was the pitch at Camp Nou in Barcelona (not a joke. Non-Catalans do call the pitch of FC Barcelona the greenest beach on the face of the earth). A reduced field (blame the Ladies Away Day) could be forgiven for imagining themselves at Camp Nou. Works by the green staff left huge amounts of sand on the greens. Although not slow the greens proved to be quite unpredictable.

Just ask James A. He did everything right on the first hole: good tee-shot followed up an approach that just made the front of the green. The rest of the hole turned into a horror show. Quite remarkably that 7 seemed to relax JA and he went on to complete the 18 holes with a 65 net. An excellent back 9 allowed him to distance himself from the two other players finishing on 65 (Thomas & Thomas). Simon Malin, Nathan Street and Jan Wilken complete the Top6. Captain Nigel Gaymond made the luckiest birdie ever on the 11th (not bitter …): a topped tee-shot ended to within tap-in distance of the hole. He didn’t miss the putt. Results…

CSS: 67 (14/31 in the buffer)

Sean Thomas takes the lead in the 2019 Grand Medal Trophy (scores of 62 & 65 don’t hurt). R2 Leader board…

The forecast was for a chill and thunderstorms developing but the latter did not materialise giving reasonable golfing conditions. Mid-morning players were somewhat surprised to find 3 temporary greens with work still being carried out tining, aeration on their real greens. Word was that works would have been complete.

So different players played to different greens. The decision was taken to ‘abandon’ the competition for handicapping purpose only – still counting however for Midweek Grand Medal. In this technical arrangement CSS is set to SSS with reductions only to handicaps.

As it happened, only Kim and Paul Grand beat SSS with 68s and are only players cut. Paul just nipped Kim on back 9 to win the medal and win a new handicap. Cheryl was ‘leading lady’. Results…

What a difference a week makes in the UK. Still No Brexit and today the field faced really chilly conditions (did we really move the clocks forward to face this weather?). It was so cool that Nick Rogers decided to wear long trousers today (BTW doesn’t cold weather have a negative impact on tennis elbows?). Looks like the conditions got the better of our Captain too …

Cold weather, swirling winds and men’s tees that had been moved slightly backward required some decent ball striking today. Evegeny VDG did just that. He struggled a bit on the way out (6 bogeys & 1 birdie). But an excellent back 9 (36 Gross) led him to a respectable 76 (69 net). Evgeny’s handicap drops to 6. He was joined by Kamil Naidoo (you couldn’t miss Tangerine Kamil today), Richard Inglis and Carmelo Di Salvo on that number. 1st lady today was Gina with a steady 70 net. Today also confirms the tradition that the ladies (almost) never win the Coronation Cup. The report started with the premise that good ball striking was required today. How about 71 gross? Chris Lordan put on a “Stripe Show”. His front 9 read as follows: Bogey-Bogey-Birdie-Par-Eagle (!) – Birdie – Birdie – Par – Bogey = 33 gross. 38 gross) on the back 9 with two more birdies bring his tally for today to 71 (64 net). Chris’ handicap moves back to 6. A good day at the office. Results…

CSS: 71 (Men) – 73 (Ladies)

Needless to say that Chris takes the lead in the Top Dog rankings. R1 Leader board…

Calm and dry but grey conditions allowed 52 competitors to focus on their golf for the Sweep competition. Scoring overall was good with CSS raised to 38 points.

Early player Prlab Barua held the lead until late in the day when Doug Donaghey retuned a stonking gross 80 and 42 points to win. No fewer than four on 41 had to be separated by countback: Pralab, Stephen Haworth, leading lady Susan Hempsell and Hassan Mouilah. Results…

Hassan shot level par 68 in his round and indeed was two under through 10. Well done indeed and Hassan earns Category 1 handicap @ 5.4.

Ladies

Today was a perfect day for golf and the second round of the Spring Meeting 4BBB. There was a great turn with 12 ladies in 6 pairs.

It was a fun and enjoyable day, the results were very close with all scores between 33 and 38 and anticipation building until the last scores were entered.

Congratulations to Joan and Sonia who won on 38 with a countback and a close second were Angela and Jessamie, with Ronnie and Caroline only 3 points behind on 35. Results…

Nibbles and prizes were the perfect way to finish after the game and lovely to have sunshine all day.

Men

A beautiful day at the Park today. Too bad some of us ruined it by playing golf (myself included). The course is slowly improving: less mud although the greens could do with a truer roll. Most of the field overcame some of the tricky pin positions on the back 9.

Carmelo Di Salvo went out in the last game and overtook everybody with a brilliant score of 43pts (21pts out & 22pts in). John Ahad also played in that game and took 3rd with an excellent score of 41pts. Wedged between these two is Paul Brown who played consistent golf (20 & 21pts) to claim 2nd. Mike Shabani had 3 birdies today. As usual he took out his driver on nearly every hole. But after walking off the 16th with 39pts he – for some reason – decided to play safe. He left the driver in the bag. Result: only 2pts on the last 2 holes. Charlie Whiteman and Nigel Ward complete the Top6 with nice scores of 40 and 39pts respectively. Paul Grand narrowly missed out in the Top6 despite a superb 22pts on the way in. Evegeny Vd Geest recorded an eagle on the 18th in his first competition with the club. A sign of more to come? Results…

CSS: 37pts

The overall Spring Stableford goes to Mister Consistent Luke Baker with a score of 75pts. Last week’s winner Kerry had a day to forget, opening the door for Luke.

Having roared in like a lion, March does indeed like going out like a lamb. There was a brief early vernal nip in the air but otherwise cloudy and pleasantly mild. Ideal for golf albeit still muddy in places.

A late card from Álvaro Garcia-Hoz won the medal with an absolutely amazing net 63 proved the worthy winner. Kerry Sargeant headed Oliver Khan on countback 66s. But Kerry shot the lights out on the more difficult back 9 – level par with two birdies. Results…

With 55% overall being within ‘buffer’, CSS was reduced by one from SSS (men 71->70, ladies and 73=>72). Having scored 41 points on Sunday, Kerry earns an additional ESR (Exceptional Scoring Reduction) of 1 – and now plays off 6 – a reduction of 4 from 10 this year Well done!!

Ladies

Fortunately the rain stayed away until we had finished our Spring Meeting Stableford competition on St Patrick’s Day with a good turn out of 16 ladies. It was a combination of both fresh and energising if also muddy and depleting.

Tenesi Karakaneva continues her good form with an impressive 39 points and a well-deserved handicap reduction, ten ahead of the next best lady Susan Smith, with Angela Flynn as a close third. Results…

Men

Less wind but more mud. Pick your poison. Looks like the field is really yearning for some better weather.

Kerry’s been puting in some extra practice by playing a few midweek competitions. Looks like the practice is paying off. An excellent score of 41pts (20pts out and 21pts in) puts Kerry in a very strong position leading up to Round 2 next Sunday. Kerry’s handicap drops from 10 to 8. Luke Baker takes 2nd thanks to a stomping outward 9 (22pts). James Anslow’s excellent back 9 (20pts) gets rewarded with 3rd place. Kamil is rediscovering a bit of good form to reach 37pts (he will regret the last 2 holes). Chris Lordan and yours truly complete the Top6. Results…

Oliver Maskell for once controlled his fade to drive the 18th green with his 3 wood. His eagle putt lipped out. The “Battle of the Shanks” between Mark Rosamond and Peter Osgood was won by Mark. I stopped counting the number of actual shanks on the back 9. Looks like the Men’s Captain will need a bit more time to get used to his new driver (full disclosure: his old one snapped in the boot of an Uber car).
Realistically Luke, James and Kamil are the only ones left with a fighting change to catch Kerry in Round 2 of the Spring Trophy.

CSS: 35pts