Club Matches
Club Matches
Surrey Fives Round 2 contd
The Richmond Park B team unfortunately lost their round 2 match against Epsom B 3&2 on the Duke’s course, Uli and Tamas both winning their matches.
Surrey Fives Round 2
The Richmond Park Surrey B team welcomed the Woodcote Park A team on a beautiful Saturday morning. The match was played on Prince’s which was in magnificent condition with fast greens and fairways manicured to perfection.
Will Balakrishnan led the team off and went down fighting to a narrow 4 & 2 loss to give the visitors a 1 – 0 lead in the match. Brendan Sullivan started the fight back with a commanding 8 & 7 victory which was quickly followed by Richmond’s Pete Malla winning 7 & 5 to give the hosts a 2 – 1 lead.
Richmond’s Ryan Wilson was beaten 5 & 4 to set up a tense and nervy finish, as it stood at 2 – 2 with one match remaining on the course. Those nerves were quickly banished when Bernie McDermott displayed some excellent short game wizardry to prove it’s not all about hitting it 300 yards off the tee to win 5 & 4, ensuring that Richmond Park B team progressed to the third round and another home match against the winners of Wimbledon Common vs Walton Heath.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 3 contd.
The club’s Richmond Park ‘C’ team, captained by Paul Green, were soundly beaten by Wimbledon Common who now progress to Finals Day. This defeat marked the end of what had been a strong challenge by the club to get to Finals Day and again bring back the trophy.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 3 contd
On a cold and wet April 1st, the Richmond Park “Early Birds” team welcomed Wycombe Heights to the park for their 3rd round Gordon Foster match. Conditions at Wycombe Heights on Friday night resulted in the closure of the course due to waterlogging and the rescheduling of the away leg until Saturday April 8th. A slender lead was established at home on April 1st, however our away pair suffered a 17points defeat on April 8th meaning Wycombe Heights progress to Finals Day.
Although there was lots of water on both greens and fairways at the park on April 1st, John Perkins scored a excellent 20 + 20 for 40 pts and Brendan Sullivan had 17 + 15 for 32 pts. Our opposition had 32 pts and 37 pts respectively, so Richmond Park 72pts – Wycombe Heights 69pts. Will Balakrishnan and Ryan Wilson made the journey to Wycombe on the 8th and both scored 21pts for their respective 18 holes against Wycombe’s 35pts and 24 pts.
We wish Wycombe Heights all the best at the Finals and captain Brendan says a big thank you to everyone who represented Richmond Park and volunteered to travel to play the away legs at short notice.
Gordon Forster, Round 3
The match between Richmond Park ‘B’ and Thorney Park ‘C’ was set up, after initial problems of the opponents’ team to find enough players, on Sunday, March 26. Conditions were pretty humid and muddy.
Thorney Park won with 133 : 130 aggregate points.
The home team, playing at Prince’s, was Kim Chaffart and Alvaro Garcia-Hoz and they amassed 70 points, while Richard Owen and Uli Katte came up with 60 points playing away.
Surrey Fives, Round 1 (contd)
The Richmond Park B team won their round 1 match against Kingswood and now face the winners of Woodcote Park or Lingfield Park in Round 2.
The day started extremely wet with the first 3 greens on Prince’s having lots of standing water, which made putting extremely difficult. As the rain eased and play became more tolerable, Will Balakrishnan continued his excellent form of late with a comfortable 7 & 5 victory over the Kingswood captain. This was quickly followed by Brendan Sullivan also winning 7 & 5. Kingswood then fought back with both John Perkins & Russell Stewart going down 3 & 2. With the match score level at 2 v 2 we then waited nervously for the final match to reach the clubhouse as nobody knew what the score had been throughout but Peter Malla put us all at ease with a 5 & 4 demolition of the Kingswood player.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2 contd
The club’s Richmond Park ‘C’ team, captained by Paul Green, progressed to the 3rd round with a comfortable 124-109 points win over Little Hay golf club and now progress to their last pre-Finals Day match against Wimbledon Common.
Surrey Fives Round 1
The Richmond Park A team were successful in their 1st round away match against Reigate Heath and can now look forward to a home tie against either Cuddington B or Epsom B in Round 2.
On a chilly and cloudy morning, the team of Uli Katte (captain), Roger Rojas, Richard Owen, Tamas Ladacs and Justin Wildman travelled to Reigate for a 9am first tee time. Reigate Heath is an interesting and challenging 9-greens course, with 2 sets of teeing areas for each hole and the home team made us very welcome with coffee and bacon rolls before the start. The competition is singles matchplay, with the games played as 2-balls. The result was a 3&2 win for Richmond Park, with Roger, Uli and Tamas winning their games and the other two games being very close losses.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2 contd.
The Richmond Park “early birds” team, captained by Brendan Sullivan, won their Round 2 match against the Huntswood “D” team. The match was played in nice sunny conditions with the Prince’s course in fine condition.
The match tee times were arranged for 08.00am (home & away). Alan van Wyk & Ryan Wilson made the early journey to Huntswood. Conditions were calm and they both combined to score Alan 24pts + Ryan 32pts (total 56pts) against the home pair of Martin Rogerson 37pts + Mike o’ Reilly 34pts (total 71pts).
Meanwhile back on Prince’s, Brendan Sullivan & Russell Stewart built a commanding score of 40pts + 39pts (total 79pts) which had an excellent 21pts on the back 9 by Russell, whilst our travelling opponents found the Prince’s course significantly more difficult, with Lee Coughlin 24pts + Sam Stevens 27pts (total 51pts).
So, overall Richmond Park played the better golf for a well deserved 135pts – 122pts victory. The team’s next opponents will be the winners of the match between Tilgate Forest & Wycombe Heights.
Gordon Forster Bowl, Round 2
The Richmond Park ‘B’ team played their 2nd round match against the Huntswood ‘C’ team and won through by a close margin (back 9 countback).
It had been a very cold night and both the Richmond and Huntswood courses were frosty and ‘frozen on top’ when play began. The Richmond home team of Alvaro Garcia and Alan King (a very late replacement for Kim Chaffart) dealt with the conditions better than the visiting Huntswood players, winning by a combined 5 stableford points overall (56 vs 51). The Huntswood players just couldn’t cope with the “very small” frozen greens.
The away team of captain Uli Katte and Richard Owen had a 45minutes delayed start due to fog and had to play the first 5 holes with less than 100m visibility on occasions, relying on their opponents to tell them which direction the green was ! It was a relatively close away match with Huntswood winning by a combined 5 stableford points (70 vs 65).
So the match was decided by countback on the back 9, which Richmond Park won by 5 points (6 up at home and 1 down away). The team’s next opponents will be the winners of the match between Thorney Park & Haste Hill.