20 players took advantage of tee-times from approx. 09:00 negotiated with Glendale for a festive Boxing Day round.

Conditions proved more difficult to score with PCC settling at +1 – but this didn’t seem to impair the runaway winner Pier Maria Micucci with 39 points – 20 out and 19 back with 9 level pars; 3 33s chased with Oz leading on countback from Adrian Mancebo and Pat Barbour (all had 3 or more ‘blobs’ [so much in reserve].

Queen of the par 3s was Cheryl – 13 points for the 5 of them.

The club had placed a tab behind the bar which it is hoped was taken advantage of for a festive tipple.

After a week of polar temperatures and occasional snow the Duke’s course re-opened for the MW Pairs comp played as US Greensomes stableford, with 2 temporary greens (5th & 11th) on a wet course.  It was an enjoyable romp in mild, dry conditions with the bookies favourites posting a clear win (by 3 points) with drinks and mince pies in the clubhouse afterwards.

Cheryl/Richard took full advantage of the “generous” shot  allowance afforded all the teams with women (3 extra shots). On the 4 holes that they had 2 shots, they recorded a total of 10pts. Zoom out and we learn that they scored 23pts on the front 9 and 22pts on the back 9. An unbeatable target for the rest of the field. Gina/Jon Cooper had only one blemish on their scorecard. Both of their tee-shots on the 3rd ended up in quite a bit of trouble. But they still posted a solid score on the front 9 (20pts). An excellent score of 22pts made up for those soft opening 9 holes. Despite a couple of very close putts on the last 3 holes they were able to hold off 2 other pairs who also ended with 42pts.

Peter/Brian are the last pair to finish “in the money”. 

Courses closed due to snow.

The course is currently closed and competition cancelled due snow.

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 ….

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!

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..

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.

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. 

The early games caught the worst of the rain but it dissipated to give sunny periods.

Women

Hard to recall those summer days when the ball ran forever and we were clubbing down all the time. Now most of us don’t have clubs we can move up to on almost every hole. It’s definitely got wet and soggy underfoot with the 17th winning the worse condition by some margin. A whole host of men must have cancelled when they saw either the forecast or the rain this morning – but overhead it was a lovely day until the end when the clouds started to appear.

Congrats to Silvia who demonstrates the benefit of being able to hit the ball a long way and even though she played off 6 beat the rest of the field by 2 to win today and lead the eclectic by some 8 shots.

Men

This was first Duke’s Winter competition and an extremely tidy 42 points (23, 1 over par on the harder back 9) from Raymond Esin gave him overall victory for the day and Senior division. Indeed with an overnight PCC of +2 Raymond earned an ESR of -1.0 with his HI being chopped from 11.7 to 9.6.

Wil B took 2nd place in Senior division.

In the Junior division Julian emerged ahead on countback 35 from Paul Green.

In the Winter Comp round 2 Raymond and Will B share the Senior honours 76 points; Paul Green heads Junior 74 from Giovanni; in the associated Eclectic Raymond and Richard Back share lead with 76s