It was a fine autumnal day and a huge improvement from the wind and rain of last Wednesday. It was noticeable that the Park is steadily changing colour ready for the big leaf drop.  Our winner was our very early player Mel Dunn (playing off 12) with an exceptional six under total of 41 points.  Mel was just ok at the half-way stage but he changed gear and finished the back nine holes by dropping just one shot to par.  Also out for an early game Greg Poyser (playing off 23) was close to three under with this runner up score of 37 points.  Losing out to Greg on the countback and taking third place it was Captain Paul (playing off 11) who was more than two under his handicap with his 37 points. 

With less run on the ball the course is playing harder than during the dry hot spell and we see that less than 10% of Wednesday’s players managed to play to their handicaps or better.  Rather surprisingly, the stats show that the hole found to be the third most difficult was the first.

The standings after the first round of the Prince’s Eclectic show Mel (68.7) has a 3 strokes lead from Bill Norman (71.6) with Paul Green third on 71.9.

The first 2 named storms of the year resulted in both courses being closed due to saturated greens.

Fingers crossed that this isn’t the start of many closures this winter.

The forecast wasn’t great and a large number had withdrawn. As is often the case the earlybirds had the best of the day, getting wet on the last couple of holes only with good scores recorded by Mel (39) and Brett (37). A somewhat different experience for the rest of the field with many deciding to keep dry & just go home. A few ventured out and got soaked as their reward and the competition was abandoned as the course started flooding and then there were the four stalwarts who battled the gale force gusts and horizontal rain – all in vain!

After so many months of hard dry conditions, the sudden change whilst expected still takes some getting used to!

It was a pleasant dry day at the Park but it became uncomfortably cold as the final groups finished.  The format was greensomes and, with a stroke allowance of 21, our winning pair with 42 points were Ed Hall and Tony Kopczak (who was wearing his hot summer outfit).  They were out in 20 points and on the more testing back nine they managed 22 points.  ,

Taking second place with 41 points were Jim Matthews and Richard Back who were limited to a stroke allowance of just 9 shots.  Jim and Richard dropped just one shot to par on the front nine to give them 21 points and with a succession of pars until the last two holes the back nine ended with 20 points.  Peter Needham and Julian James, playing off 16, finished in third place with 40 points, with equal halves of 20 points. 

A lovely bright sunny day greeted the October Midweek Medal players. A breeze was around to add to the proceedings but was pleasant. 37 players competed in the 2 divisions.
After a 2 weeks layoff, Dave Cato cruised to the top of Div 1 with his net 65, 42 out and 39 back. Richard Owen was 2nd with his 66, 40 out and 37 back, with a birdie on hole 2. Angus Robertson came 3rd and had the lowest gross of the day 39 out and 33(level par) on the back. He had 2 birdies on 14 and 18,
In Div 2 Kim Jabbour also had a net 65 with 39 out and 43 back. He had two 7’s on his card and a 9 and 18!! Paul Hackett was 1 behind on 66, 46 out and 45 back. Cheryl Woodhouse was 3rd with her net 68; she had an up and down round out in 50 and back in 42.

This was the last round of the 2026 Midweek Grand Medal. For a long time Angus Robertson looked like the likely winner and indeed, no-one could catch him. Angus finished on 331, 5 ahead of Richard Owen (336), with Julian James and Dave Cato a further 9 strokes back on 345.

Women

Turned out to be a lovely day weatherwise and very warm when the sun came out. Apart from our esteemed captain it would seem that the change in conditions underfoot caught a few out today. Despite the roll on the still very bare fairways, more club was required to get the ball to the green and over the badger damage around the fringes of many greens..

Congratulations to Ali for her 5 shot win with a net 69 ahead of Doreen on 74.

Men

After a chilly start, a very pleasant partly sunny day with only a gentle breeze. Not much rough and plenty of run on the hard, still bare fairways, enabled good scores by the leading players.

Henry takes home the monthly medal glass for Division 1 with a sparkling 5-under net 63. Henry had the lowest score on the front 9 (just 2 over gross) and finished with 3 birdies on the last 4 holes. James Smith was 2nd in Division 1 with a net 64, followed by Joe and Lee, both net 66’s. Joe was just 3-over-gross for his round and level (33) on the back 9. Mel Dunn notched up an Eagle 2 on the 17th as the highlight of his round.

In Division 2 Gio Caboni takes home the medal glass with his net 67, followed by Robin Thomas (net 69) and Tony Kopczak and Steve De Long, both net 71s.

Today was the last round of the 2026 Grand Medal (cumulative best 5 rounds from 8) and the report on the final standings is attached.

In Division 1 Toby Hunt leapfrogged from 5th place to the top of the table, improving his score by 11 shots to 343 shots and sharing the trophy with Brian McMahon (on the same score). Pete Harrison was a close 3rd on 345 shots, with Oz Doyle a further 2 shots back.

In Division 2 today’s scores did not affect the top of the table, so Tony Kopczak is the winner on 342 shots, from Gregory Jean- Baptiste (351) and David Grace (352); the rest of the field was a further more than 10 shots back.

Well, what a day it turned out to be. A lot of constant rain nearly all day with many puddles on the greens.
There were lots of players who, for one reason or another, pulled out of playing and a lot of shuffling of pairs took place.
However early starters Mel Dunn and Billy Jackson topped the pile with 43 points. 24 out and 19 back.
Paul Gullett and Richard Marriott claimed second place on countback with a superior back nine from Kim Jabbour and Brian Ransom both on 42 points.
I think that everyone was glad to get back into the clubhouse and out of the rain. Just need to dry all of our equipment and clothing. Well done to all competitors who took part.

Heavy fog in the Park lead to an interesting start today, with Manny doing sterling work half-way down the first to assist with ball-spotting and to relay back when it was safe for the next group to play. The very early starters must have played a good half, or more of their game with next to no visibility whereas the tailenders probably had very little in the fog. For some it looks like having no view of the hole helped and certainly there was some good scoring.

As seems to often be the case, the clubhouse leader gets pipped for the win at the end and in Division 1 Maher went home in the hope that with most scores in, he would keep hold of his very slender 1 shot lead over Toby. It was not to be with Bill Norman playing more consistently across the 2 rounds (36 & 37 today) to give him 73 points and take 1st place from Maher whose stellar performance last week was not matched today (40 & 30). Toby finished with 69 points and Paul Kamerling & Nick 3 further back on 66.

In Division 2, the first round leader (Niamh) was playing a match, but following her were, Kelly, Tony and Paul Fulham all on 36. The result at the end of the day was an 8 point margin for Kelly who recorded the highest one of the day (& her best since joining us) with 43 to take the Division 2 win with 79. Again Tony was leader in the clubhouse for a good while and with his chauffeur (Nigel) 2 behind him alongside PaulF he was no doubt also hoping to end the day at the top, but his total of 71 was some way off.
Kelly can be sure of a handicap cut tomorrow.

A warm but showery start followed by a warmer sunny back nine greeted the players today.
Andy Johnson topped the leader board with 39 points 20 points out and 19 back. A good steady round.
Julian James was 2nd with 37 points 19 Out and 18 back. 3rd is Robin Thomas with 17 out and 19 back including birdies on 13 and 18. 4th is Richard Owen 16 out and 19 back for his 35 points. 5th is Mehmet Akdeniz 13 out and 21 back with a birdie on 15. Mehmet beat 4 others on countback who also scored 34 points!!