The annual battle of the sexes – renamed by one of the newer members as Love Island when the women & men pair up…except the idea is to beat each other!!

An amazing and unexpected result as it ended 5 wins apiece – according to the engravings, this was the first such result since 1984 which is quite incredible.

The winning men were: Nick, Captain Paul, Maher, JamesD and DavidG.
Which means the winning women were: Sheena, Ellie, Niamh, Doreen & Els.

Looks like the closest match was played by captain Paul who got his win on the 18th.

A re-match in November was suggested when I don’t think there’d be many women signing up. The hard parched fairways probably give the women more help than they do the men who don’t want to ball to keep running when it’s getting close to those ditches that don’t tend to affect us.

The weather was somewhat cooler than in recent days, with something of a gusty breeze at times. The fairways remain very fast, and ditto most of the greens. The flags were in a reasonably central position on most greens.

In Division 1 Richard Owen led the way with a 4-under par net 64, whilst in Division 2 Cheryl Woodhouse won the monthly medal glass on countback from Alex Braun (both on net 65).

After 6 rounds of the Grand Medal Accumulator, Angus Robertson (334 strokes) leads by 8 from Richard Owen, whilst in Division 2 David Grace has a 9 strokes lead over Graham Cull.

Women

For most of us it seemed more of an endurance test than a relaxing round with all 3 games on the same hole probably more often than not and another round not much short of 5 hours. After the challenging pin positions of 2 weeks ago, today’s were a lot more ‘get at able’, not that it looks from the scores as if many of us took much advantage of this.
The ball may be running a lot, but in many cases not necessarily in the desired direction and the hard baked ground makes many shots more of a challenge.

Doreen was her usual straight down the middle self and but for Jenny’s excellent net 66 would have won another medal.
Congratulations on your win by 5 shots Jenny and on a good cut to your handicap tomorrow..

Men

Congratulations to:

Division 1

1st Brian McMahon (63)
2nd Kerry Sargeant (68)
3rd Paul Kamerling (68)
4th Tom Simpkins (68)

Division 2

1st Richard Hanna (62)
2nd Toby Hunt (64)
3rd Mike Shabani (68)
4th Seymour Laird (68)

In the Grand Medal accumulator, Brian McMahon leads the way in Division 1 on 343 points, from Peter Harrison (347) and Toby Hunt (354). In Division 2, Greg J-B (351 points) and David Grace (353 points) lead the rest of the field by a long way.

The protected pin positions probably required either a super high shot, to get it to stop, or somehow lots of back spin. That may have been difficult for many players today. Any slightly off target shots could also be severely punished due to the slippery baked hard fairways. A PCC of perhaps 1 tomorrow may be a possibility.

Brett Colley nonetheless managed to figure it all out, and was the one and only player in the whole field to play to his handicap. Really well done.
On countback with a very good 34 points, Bella Mahale secured second place, along with Cheryl Woodhouse in third. Tom Simpkins also had a very good 34 points but, and perhaps too much information, carded a 9 on 18, Costly, but then the 18th from the white tees always a tough shot.
Only a few men played white tees today..

NTPs as dollows:

In 2 2nd – Hunt
NTP – 7th – Tom Simpkins
NTP – 10th – Suhail Salim
In 2 15th – Richard Marriot
NTP 16th – Toby Hunt
In 2 18th – Brett Colley

A bottle of sparkling wine or 3 Pro V1’s to the winners

Women

Much better scoring today on the course that is generally considered the tougher of the 2 – but the greens on Duke’s are much less contoured in general, even if the pin positions were tucked behind bunkers or at the far most point (as expected of course).
Going in to today Lia had a 2 shot lead which she extended today to win the Club Champs by 4 with a gross 189 from Joan on 193.

There is no divisional split in the gross event and Jenny is 3rd in this with 195.
This converted to net 142 in the Pembroke Cup which Jenny wins by 8 from Seshi on 150.
Lia also wins the net in the Handicap Cup division by 5.

With only 13 women involved in this, prizes will only be awarded to the winners of each net trophy.

Lia & Jenny brought their A games to this event for both weeks and will get handicap cuts tomorrow – it looks like both will be cut to their current ‘low’ handicap index.

Congratulations to Lia & Jenny

Men

Overcast early morning but the sun broke though by mid morning to provide a very warm and windy day. Although the fairways were ‘rock hard’, the rest of the course was ‘well presented’ by the greens staff to provide an appropriate challenge for our club championship, with all pins sited close to the edges of the greens, and often on tricky slopes.

In Division 1 Richard Smith is crowned Club Champion with a total gross of 158, 4 clear of past champion Aiden Hurley, who had lead by 3 after round 1. Paul Kamerling retained his place in 3rd on 165 strokes. “Well played Richard”.

In Division 2 there was also a significant change with Tony Kopczak clawing back a 9-strokes deficit to equal Ed Hall, both with a combined gross of 185. In the event of a tie, an 18 holes ‘play off’ is required to determine the Junior Champion. Just 1 stroke behind, in 3rd place, was James Deissler (186), with a best net score of the day (67).

The Handicap Trophy is won by Richard Smith (140 strokes), from Tony Kopczak (144) and Paul Kamerling (146).

There was a slightly unusual separation of 3 players at the top who were well clear of the rest of the field by 5+ shots. Not sure how to explain that, although the tricky pin positions might be something to do with it. Many pins needed Scheffler’esque discipline to aim nowhere near them.

Kevin Prendergast was the well deserved winner, and now holder elect of the iconic Claret Jug, not only with an impresssive net 62, but also the lowest gross. Very well done. (It could have been very different though…with a thinned wedge on 18, but the ball happily managed to stop short of the pond.)
In second place was James Deissler, who looking at the other scores would be forgiven for being fairly confident of victory. James in the end fell just one short.
The final spot for the top 3 went to Julian James, with an equally excellent net 64.

Women

The pin positions made life tricky for most out there today, but not for the Division 2 (Pembroke Cup) women where both Doreen & Jenny played to net 68 & 69 respectively. They are also 5th & 3rd in the gross event.
The reports have divisional splits for both handicap & gross events, but there is no split in the gross.

Leader in the clubhouse for the gross is Lia on 92, 2 shots ahead of Ali & Jenny just 1 further back.

Lia also leads the Handicap Cup by 3 from Ali and as already mentioned Doreen leads in the Pembroke Cup.

After a 5 hour round today, no doubt next week on the longer stretch of Duke’s won’t be any quicker!

Well done to those in the mix – all to play for next week.

Men

The bone dry course, tricky pin positions and blustery wind were not conducive to good scoring and only one player (Ed Hall) scored better than their handicap.

In Division 1, Aiden Hurley leads the way with a gross 77, 3 shots better than Richard Smith (80) and with Paul Kamerling (81), Allan Boyd and Oz Doyle (both 82) just behind.

In Division 2, Ed Hall (gross 82) is 4 shots clear of Dennis Keough and 7 ahead of Duncan Taylor.

After round 1 of the Handicap Trophy, Ed Hall leads with a net 65, from Ox Doyle 68 and both Duncan Taylor and Seymour Laird on net 70s.

So all to play for next Sunday on Duke’s.

Another fine and sunny day for today’s golf competition on Duke’s.
Scoring was good and top of the pile was Bella Mahale with her 41 points, beating Fhorkan Uddin on countback over the last nine holes. This score was Bella’s best on her recent record and resulted in a 1 shot reduction in her Handicap Index.

Brian Ransom was third with 40 points just ahead of Jonno McLean and Gina Jillett on 39. Toby Hunt and Sheena Harrington were 6th and 7th with 38 points each.

Another hot, sunny day after a cooler early morning than we have been used to.

Scoring was good, especially for our winner Alex Catlow playing at the back of the field (47 points) and for Giovanni Caboni, playing in the first game (45 points). Brian McMahon (40 points) continues his recent good form in 3rd place and Lia Donath was the highest placed woman on 38 points.

In the men’s Top Dog accumulator, Brian McMahon moves into first place after 4 rounds in the Senior Division (25 points), with Allan Boyd (20 points) and Richard Back (18 points) in 2nd and 3rd places, respectively. In the Junior Division, Robin Thomas and Mike Shabani retain their 1st and 2nd places (18 & 16 points respectively), with Sean O’Sullivan & Gio Caboni both just behind on 14 points (points table below).