Very breezy conditions persisted for the 2nd round of the Midweek Club Championship; despite no rain in the last week green grass patches expanded.

In the net for the day, Richard Young put into action all recent tips to win with a marvellous 64. He was chased by José Manuel Gomez and Rob Smyth 65s (Rob shooting 2 over par gross 73 with 5 birdies); José had 2 10s but otherwise excellent round which earned him an ESR of -1.0 and a cut in HI from29.4 to 27.1.

The midweek Handicap Trophy was tied with 131s from Rob Smyth and Hilary Casey 131s. Mike Sands and Mayumi were amongst chasers with both sixties rounds on 134.

In the overall men’s scratch the deserved Senior division winner was Richard Back 147 from Rob Smyth 148; the Junior winner being Roland Godfrey 173 from Colin Price 175.

The women’s scratch was won by Silvia Bortoli 161 with Sheena runner-up 169.

The wind ran counter to normal direction; green shoots of grass recovery were evident and as on Prince’s seeded grass in new drainage channels had germinated with rain earlier in the week.

Brendan Sullivan off 12 was the winner of the Bank Holiday Plate with an excellent 43 points just beating Robin Thomas on the back 9. Excellent golf. Curiously, WHS awarded Brendan a -1.0 ESR but HI didn’t change [‘hard cap’ ?] whilst Robin cut from 18.5 to 17.5. George Taylor and James Parker followed with very good 40s.

Best woman was Jayne 37 with 22 points on back 9. In the last game the author scored most on the par 3s [9pts] whilst another Paul (Kamerling) joined Kerry Sargeant and Richard Back with a ‘Two’ – only Russell also had a Two on 10th.

The quality of the golf today was excellent. And it has to be said that the pace of play was pretty decent too.

Senior Division

Naveed went out early. 3 birdies set him on course for a very tidy 71 (gross) to become leader in the clubhouse. 2 other early starters (John Perkins and Rob Smyth) came pretty close but couldn’t better Naveed’s marker. Richard Owen as per usual posted an excellent round on Prince’s. None of the late morning starters threatened Naveed’s gross score. The last remaining threat were the pm starters. And the sting was clearly in the tail. Strong of his win in the main CC RIchard Back managed to record no less than … 7 birdies. Scores of 34 (gross) on the front 9 and 32 (gross) on the back 9 give him a reasonable cushion for Round 2 next week. Jay must absolutely hate hole 10 on Prince’s now. Rather uncharacteristically he experienced the same problems as in the main CC. Despite that costly misstep he remains within touching distance of Richard B.  Silvia put in an excellent round and is first woman today (no trophy for that unfortunately).

Silvia leads women’s round 1 scratch 76 from Sheena 83′

Junior Division

Roland ended front and back 9 with birdies to take a 1-shot lead into next week. Colin made a good birdie on the 6th to fully remain in the hunt. Chris Jones and Pat Dalton are a further shot back. Not surprisingly the field is much tighter in the Junior Division.

Nett Results/Handicap Trophy

Results are a bit different re: the MW Handicap Trophy. Hilary is keeping up her recent good form by posting an incredible score of 58 (Nett). Richard B is a close second with his score of 60 (Nett). John Perkins and Naveed are a bit further back on Nett 63’s.

Conditions were cooler than of late with sunny intervals extending to sunny periods. After rain a week or so ago random bounce was not quite so pronounced and still plenty of run.

The deserved winner of the President’s Putter with an immaculate 45 points was Susan Smith and she also earned an ESR with HI dropping from 17.8 ->15.7. Ryan Jones led the challeng with and excellent 42 pts with Silvia and Charlie Whiteman 40s Charlie’s 40 included 2 ‘blobs’. Brian McMahon had best back 9 – 23 points.

There were novelty NTP par 3 prizes as below
NTP 2nd Louis Dickey
NTP 4th Tim Rose
NTP 11th Paul Kamerling
NTP 13 in 2 Richard Inglis
NTP 16th Roger Rojas

The competition was the 6th of 7 for the men’s Top Dog:
Senior division is headed by Richard Smith 24 pts from Ryan and Richard Owen 18s
Junior division is a 3-way tie on 24 points for Duncan, Goran and Charlie Whiteman.

Avoiding the forecast showers proved a bit more straight forward than expected. The apocalyptic forecast of the Met didn’t materialise. So luckily the field was spared thunderstorms. Truth be told the late morning starters experienced the heaviest downpour. But everybody made it to the clubhouse without too many problems.

A stellar performance (24pts on front and back 9) by Adrian Wells was the biggest highlight of the day. On top of some sweep money Adrian will also receive an ESR. Best of the rest was John. The MC had had a very rewarding couple of days. After a thumping in the Bontor he put up 19pts on way out and 23pts on the way in to take second. 3rd place goes to Rob. But his scores on the 6th and 18th will leave a very bad taste in his mouth. Oliver was a late starter and struggled through the downpour. But his perseverance gets rewarded with a nice 4th place finish. Toby is keeping up his good recent form and is the last of the players on 40+ points.

Anther hot day – and the author stayed away.

Conditions suited the day’s winner of the Golden Jubilee – Sheena with a net 63. She stamped her authority at beginning of both 9s with birdies at first and10th. Sheena shrugged off another -1.0 ESR (first on Captains’ Day last year with HI reduced from 14.5 to 12.3.
3 behind were Goran 66 on countback from Mike Shabani. Former captain Kim shot lowest gross 68 and last week’s winner Nick continues to impress {with Louis] on back 9 -39.

This was 3rd of 4 Jubilee rounds and the Anniversary Cup sees John Morris leading 204 from 3 on 206 -Mike Shabani, Sheena and Oz.

Divisional Top Dogs for the men show Richard Owen leading Senior on 18 from Oz and Richard Smith 16s. The Junior currently has a tie – both Duncan Taylor and Goran with 24 pts.

A small field met on the scorched ground of Princes today to compete in the August Midweek Monthly Meda [August Desert Classic].

Playing early to avoid the heat proved a sound strategy for quite a few players (numbers 2-5 in the rankings today went out before 8AM). Second observation is that the women in particular seemed to deal pretty well with the conditions (suppose the extra run didn’t hurt). Maybe this explains why a lot more women signed up for the sweep than usual.  Pralab survived bogeys on the final 3 holes to take the clubhouse lead with a score of 63 (Nett – 78 Gross). Pat Barbour came in 3rd with an excellent score of 64 (Nett). Giles and Pat were 1 stroke further back with 65’s (Nett). Hilary seems to keep up her recent good form to finish alone on 66 (Nett). Gina had the best back 9 overall. But no-one was a match for the best thing to come from Canada since Bryan Adams, Wayne Gretzky, Pamela Anderson, maple syrup and poutine (the spelling is correct – it is a dish) (FYI: ranking is totally random) . Ann Gardner shot a remarkable round of 61 (Nett) to steal today’s honours. Her result could/should’ve been better had she been able to avoid an ugly 7 on the 18th hole. You probably saw Oliver copying Omar Sharif/Lawrence of Arabia by showing up all dressed in white today.

MW GMT ranking: Tamas (335), Gina (339), Peter G (344) Mayumi (350).

Humidity increased as temp nudged 29C for the Midweek Captain’s day – and there was a wind with which to contend; sunny intervals developed into sunny periods.

The individual winner with an outstanding 46 points [26 out!] followed by Chrs Jones (24 back). It was a pleasure to welcome best woman Mayumi Takahashi into the winners’ enclosure (24 back) In 4th position on countback was Ronnie from Rob Wilhelmsson and Seymour. Both Ronnie and Chris Newman had a couple of birdies whilst Teddy had the only 2 on 10th.

Captain Henry arranged some novelty challenges :

Nearest the Pin (NTP) after 2 shots – Hole 2 Pralab Barua
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 7 Paul Giles
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 10 Henry!
Nearest the pin after 1 shot – Hole 16 Angus Robertson

Henry also arranged a mystery [random draw] teams comp with all 3 stableford points counting. A separate results report file is attached confirming the team of Pat Dalton, Chris Jones and Rob Wlhemsson to be winners 125 pts 9 clear from ante-post favourites Seymour, Ronnie and Sheena.

6 shared in sweep and with some non-participants 9th place earned last prize.

Windy but humid conditions greeted players for round 2. Ground continued to be bone dry with random bounce etc. but greens watered and green. Some ‘old’ scorecards were initially issued by Glendale.

Women

A very impressive round today from our new club champion, Silvia, which I’m sure will be no surprise to anyone. Recording a gross 77 which was a net 70 she also included a pair of 7s but 3 birdies effectively wiped them out. Silvia’s total score is 156, just 14 shots ahead of Ronnie who was sinking putts all over the place (apparently just 10 on the front 9). A few loose shots on the back 9 though did her no harm at the end of the day as she finished back in what had almost become her usual spot as winner of the Handicap Cup (last year being an aberration for her). In this handicap event Silvia and Ronnie swapped places with Silvia the runner-up.

In the junior division for the Pembroke Cup, Jenny was 2 behind Katharina at the start of the day but a very impressive net 67 saw her steal the win by just 1 shot. In doing so she is rewarded with an ESR of 1 shot to drop her HI by 2.2 to 25.2. Katharina had a net 70 which also reduces her HI tomorrow.

Special mention to Ros Williams, playing just her 3rd round of the year with us who was pin high for 2 on the 17th, duly sinking the putt for her eagle.

Lots of good scoring in from the 5 women just playing today. Joan also got a net 67 also giving her an ESR to drop her HI 2.2 as well to 19.8

Men

Richard Back held his lead from round 1 to win the senior division scratch with 2 round total 151 from Jay Barker. Richard had 74 first round and started Rd2 with front 9 36 but Jay piled on the pressure with 37 out 37 back for 37 – so winning margin of 1! A classic finish…Roger R also had 36 front 9.

In the junior division scratch another great round from Julian James saw him the overall winner 176 from Dave Chilvers 177; first round leader (and 2012 champion) Tony K saw a 3 shot lead fade away.

The Handicap Trophy (net 2 rounds) saw a deserved win for Kevin P 131 from Dave C 133 and Roger R 135

In the net for the day Sean O’Sullivan led the way with a glorious 65 from Ryan Jones 67.

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.