September 2025
September 2025
The Golden Jubilee Shield & Top Dog Event 6 of 7
Mixed weather for the Golden Jubilee. Sun and clouds but it stayed dry and breezy. Greens need to recover from the recent works e.g. hollow tining and sanding.
Winner of the Golden Jubilee with an excellent 63 was Gavin Laniger off 17 – Gavin scored just 2 over par on the front 9. He was chased on 66 by Greg Wright who also returned 2 over par on front 9. Paul Fulham, Richard Prosser and Chris Mellish were next with commendable 68s.
Will Balakrishnan took front and back 9 honours – 36 and 39 with best gross of the day 75. Best woman was Monique Hubaille net 73.
The round was 4th in the Anniversary Cup series which is headed by Michael Pham 284 from Nigel Ward and Iker Lanzargote 287.
It was also 6th competition in the men’s Top Dog series. Division 1 (Senior) is headed by Aidan Hurley on 22 points from Kerry Sargeant and Richard Smith 15. Division 2 (Junior) sees Abdullah Almasud lead 21 points from Michael Pham 20.
NAPGC Hawtree Final
The first final of the NAPGC finals weekend got off to an inauspicious start for everyone when it was discovered there were 2 fairly large societies playing ahead of us. So after a late start it was another round of over 5 hours for those who’d played away in the previous round at Easthampstead.
Possibly as a result of everyone having to wait on almost every shot (we were playing greensomes behind the 4 ball players) only 2 pairs scored over 36 points and sadly it wasn’t the Richmond Park team.
We went one better than our last final coming in 2nd place behind the winners (Wycombe Heights) and were told we were 4 behind with RP taking runners-up spot on countback. An adjustment to one or more scores must have been made at a later time as the NAPGC website shows RP to be just 2 points behind the winners and 2 ahead of Huntswood in 3rd.
The finals pairings were from left to right in the photo: Paul Green & Sheena Harrington, Joe Goncalves & Joan Mulcahy, Cheryl Woodhouse & Angus Robertson and Mel Dunn & Susan Smith.
Helping to get us there in earlier rounds were Caroline Stilwell, Jayne Maxwell, Justin Wildman, Richard Owen and Brendan Sullivan.
Hopefully we’ll go one better next time!!
NAPGC Ballantyne Trophy, Final
The final of the Ballantyne Trophy was played as part of ‘Finals Day Weekend’ at Winter Hill golf course in Buckinghamshire. 34 teams had entered the competition, from Portsmouth in the South, to Rose Hill in the Midlands, to Basildon in the East and Richmond Park were up against a strong team from Rose Hill in the final. The competition teed off on a fine and sunny day at around 1:30pm (after the Hawtree and Siemens Bowl finals). The pace of play was slow, due to games in front, but after five and half hours Richmond Park secured the win (2&1) to claim the trophy for the first time in our club’s history.
Things were not looking good early on for our first pair of Richard Owen and Gerard Ouattara, 2 down after 2 holes and 3 down after 5 holes, however they gradually forced their way back into the match and were all square after the 10th hole. The next 4 holes were all halved and then Richard won the elevated (table top) 15th with a par 3, giving us the lead for the first time in the match. The final 3 holes were played in a very tense atmosphere, all halved in pars.
Our second pair, Russell Stewart and Iker Lanzagorta, had a more comfortable time taking the lead early on and keeping 1 or 2 holes ahead through the middle of their round, until going further ahead for a 4&2 win. Our third pair, Adrian Wells and Aiden Hurley, had a tight game throughout, 1 down after the first hole, 2 up after the 4th, all square by the 7th and still all square after the 14th. However, they lost the table top par 3 15th and also the par 5 16th and finished 2 down (but were glad as they walked off the 18th to find out the team had won overall !).
Special mention also to Paul Green, Mel Dunn and Julian James who played a big part in earlier rounds getting the club to Final Day.
The Fred Hawtree Trophy
What a difference a few days make in conditions! Bit of a triple whammy today with the course having just re-opened following the scheduled maintenance, about an inch of rain in the previous 24 hours and a fairly gusty wind and then add in the format of a bogey comp.
Of the 36 booked players only 27 decided to brave the elements and for those playing after 9.30 it was relatively dry overhead except for one rather heavy squall though it doesn’t seem to have helped the scoring much!
Not sure at what stage Tom realised that his 1 up score was going to not only be in contention but would see him winning today, but it was close with Sookkyung (Seshi) topping the leaderboard for most of the day, tied with the course but was pipped by Kim Jabbour on the back 9 to take 2nd spot.
Dave Cato was so happy with his 1 down that he forgot to sign his card or he would have taken 3rd spot, which goes to Angus (2 down) with Andy (3 down) in 4th.
…. In comparison with last year’s Fred Hawtree, the winner was 5 up and through to 22nd place was still only 3 down. It was played on Prince’s so score might be expected to be better but not perhaps so extreme.