Dear All

While I muttered darkly in my last report about the impending end of summer and shortening days, September's weather has not disappointed. An epic cricket season is coming to a close and Paul Brown and El Capitan's beloved Somerset are shooting for a first ever County Championship if they can get past Essex. And many of us will be up bright and breezy for the next few weeks to take in the Rugby World Cup from Japan.

Your scribe may not be quite as timely or fulsome with his next report to you as I will be recovering from surgery from sometime in October and will be absent from the Park in terms of swinging the clubs for an extended spell but I will be keeping a keen eye on everyone's future successes and try to make periodic visits to check in on everyone. My trusty Vice Captains Kim Chaffart and John Ahad will surely keep things ticking along.

Just one reminder in this report.

ALERTING US OF NON-PARTICIPATION
A gentle nudge on the importance of alerting us if you run into a problem (sickness, car trouble, oversleeping, public transport difficulties are OK - the weather is NOT an excuse) that the proper protocol is to immediately send an email to bookings@richmondparkgolfclub.org.uk if the booking sheet has closed or remove your name from the booking sheet if booking has not closed. Non-compliance either means a lot of re-juggling of the pairings on the day or, as in the case recently at the Burgess Cup (a pairs competition) leaving a fellow member without a partner.

KNOCKOUTS
Now at the semi final or final stage, we will shortly be able to salute our Knockout champions for 2019. In the Men's JH Taylor for handicaps of 16 and under with 40 entrants, our Club Champion Aidan Hurley was beaten in what looks like a thriller on the first extra hole by Habib Amir, who now will play Jeremy Ryan who enjoyed a comfortable victory over James Anslow. In the Two Courses for handicaps of 17 and over with 30 entrants, Paul Green, our defending champion from 2018 is already in the final with a convincing victory over Richard Inglis and will face the winner of Mark Rosamond against Sushant "Sunny" Lall. In the Men's Pairs with 31 pairs entered, Martin Heinrich & Habib Amir are already in the final after a convincing win over Steve Tyrrell and Mike Sands and will face Vice Captain Kim Chaffart & Henry Lindesay-Bethune who succeeded on the 18th hole against Kamil Naidoo & Sam Booth.

In the Ladies Challenge Cup with 16 entries Veronica Mitchell is already in the Final after a hard-fought victory over last year's Lady Captain Alison Chadwick and will face the winner of the match-up between Sheena Harrington and Val Riziotis. In the Ladies Double C which saw 11 entries, the final is to be played between Cheryl Woodhouse & Maureen Slade, who got past the Lady Captain Deborah Potter & Joan Mulcahy, and Lia Donath & Elaine Elborn who edged past Susan Smith and Doreen Dolby.

Finally, in the Mixed Pairs which saw 22 entries, Lesley Mason & El Capitan, who got comfortably past Veronica Mitchell and Jay Barker, will face the winner of the match-up between Tina Neessen & Angus Robertson and Lia Donath & Richard Inglis.

Congratulations to all with a particular shout out to serial success for Lia, Habib and Richard this year.

MIDWEEK COMPETITIONS
The Midweek Captain's Day was expertly hosted by John Ahad with Tore Burman emerging as the winner. The MW September Medal was secured by Brian Ransom. With one round to go in October he leads the MW Grand Medal with his 5 best scores closely followed by Mark Rosamond and 2 or 3 other golfers within range with a good final round. Lurking are Pralab Barua and Kamil Naidoo having posted 4 rounds which put them in position to challenge the leaders with a great final round in October. The Fred Hawtree Cup was won by Ann Gardner and the MW Anniversary Accumulator's 4th Round was won by Kamil Naidoo. The winner of the 2019 MW Accumulator (best three rounds) was Vice Captain Kim Chaffart with a net 210 closely followed by Dylan Merchant with net 211, and Adrian Wells and Jeremy Ryan sharing third place with 212.

WEEKEND COMPETITIONS
The last weekend of August saw Mark Bean win a Sweep, thus enjoying success quickly upon returning to the Club after a few years away. Welcome back Mark! The President's Putter was dominated by the ladies with Lady Captain Deborah Potter enjoying a popular victory while her predecessor Alison Chadwick was the runner up. Our President Tim Meyer was a generous host to the point he even invited El Capitan to partner him in the first group! Another Sweep saw Tom Cook victorious and a healthy two shot cut came his way. The Burgess Cup saw Habib Amir continue his successful year in partnership with Martin Heinrich by taking the spoils with an impressive 45 points with Peter Needham and Tony Bergqvist the runners up. And then, not content with the Burgess, Martin followed that up with another victory in the September Medal and a healthy cut in his handicap. With one round to go in the Grand Medal, Toby Hunt still leads the field with 5 best scores quite comfortably with the likes of Peter Needham and Richard Owen needing to post a very low score in October to have a hope of catching Toby. Lurking among those with 4 scores recorded, Sean Thomas looks the best placed to make a run at Toby.

CLUB MATCHES
A 4-2 advantage from the first leg was always going to be tough to defend at "Tricky Ricky" and so it proved, despite the best efforts of 12 valiant RPGC members. Two of the pairings managed to achieve a halved match with the pair of Laim Bridger and Mike Shabani doing so at the 18th with a birdy courtesy of Liam. Our other half came from the Hungaro-Spanish pairing of Tamas Ladacs and Alvaro Garcia Hoz, again I believe tying it up at the 18th. El Capitan and his partner for the day, Sean Thomas, won the associated team sweep, amassing 43 points, highlighted by the stellar play of Sean who shot a 71. Unfortunately his partner was missing in action and furthermore the opposition contrived also to shoot a 71 and a 75. While the 71 was a 5 handicapper, the 75 came from an 18 handicapper! Enough said! Still, as always a great day over at Ricky and great hosts as always. There is always next year.

Better news from our annual mixed match with Amida. Last year, we finally were beaten away by Amida for the first time in years. This year, on home soil normal service was resumed by a team led by Vice Captain John Ahad and our winning score was 4.5 to 1.5. Well done to everyone who played and it sounds as though everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

UPCOMING CLUB MATCHES AND EVENTS

• Wednesday 25th September Midweek Autumn Pairs (Princes)
• Saturday 28th September Autumn Mixed Foursomes (Dukes) STILL ROOM FOR MORE PLAYERS
• Sunday 29th September Silver Jubilee (Dukes)
• Wednesday 2nd October Midweek October Medal (Dukes) - Round 8 of Midweek Grand Medal
• Sunday 6th October October Medal (Princes) - Round 8 of Grand Medal
• Wednesday 9th October Midweek President's Prize (Princes)
• Sunday 13th October Charity Cup (Dukes) - McMillan CR Day
• Wednesday 16th October Midweek Charity Day
• Sunday 20th October Lissaman Cup (3 Clubs and a Putter) - Top Dog Round 7

AUTUMN MIXED
The last of our popular Saturday events takes place this coming Saturday and will be a mixed foursomes medal event with half of the combined handicaps down to the decimal place. We still have a limited number of spaces available. If you have not experienced one of these Saturday events, which are very social in nature with some food and drinks on offer, take advantage of this final opportunity for 2019. We are looking for three men and two ladies. Sign up quickly if interested.

Hit them straight!

Nigel Gaymond (El Capitan)
23 September 2019