Competition Reports
Competition Reports
September Monthly Medals (Men GM 7 of 8)
Women
A double blow for Bella who went home thinking she was the monthly medal winner only to be beaten by Seshi who probably finished a couple of hours later and recorded a net 68 and a gross 94 which is her lowest score since joining us. Bella was also one of 2 women who incorrectly entered their score into the system – both resulting in a worse result.
The course is noticeably softer underfoot and is starting to green up. The downside is that the badgers have also noticed this and there is considerable damage around many of the greens as they take advantage. The upside is the greens seem to have benefitted well from the tining and sanding done a few weeks ago.
Men
Today’s winners in Division 1 were:
1st James Smith 63
2nd Alan Treacy 67
3rd Paul Kamerling 69
and after 7 rounds of the Grand Medal the leading scores in Division 1 are:
Brian McMahon 343 shots, Peter Harrison 347 shots and Richard Smith 348 shots
Today’s winners in Division 2 were:
1st Olav Bridie 68
2nd Tony Kopczak 68
3rd Paul Gullet 71
and after 7 rounds of the Grand Medal the leading scores in Division 2 are: Tony Kopczak 342 shots, Gregory Jean-Baptiste 351 shots and David Grace 352 shots.
Ballantyne Trophy Final
The Final of the NAPGC Ballantyne Trophy was played at Winter Hill Golf Club, near Maidenhead, on the Saturday of NAPGC’s 2026 Finals Weekend. The Ballantyne finalists, Richmond Park B and Wycombe Heights C, tee’d off at 1pm on a sunny, warm, but breezy day, following the teams playing for the Hawtree and Siemens trophies. The Winter Hill course was in great condition, showing very little sign of the multiple summer heat waves that have affected so many courses, including Richmond Park.
The teams and handicaps are shown on the tee sheet (link below). Richmond Park’s first pair of Richard Back and Joe Gonclaves were ‘running late’ and arrived just 10 minutes before their tee time. Neither had played the course before but competed in a close match which finished with a “1 down” loss. Richmond Park’s second pair of Nick Rogers and Aiden Hurley also had a close match throughout but closed it out with a “2 & 1” win. Richmond Park’s third pair took the lead on the 5th hole and built a 4up lead after 9 holes. This lead was pegged back to 3up after 11 holes, 2up after 13 holes, and just 1up after 15 holes, however pars on the 16th, 17th and 18th resulted in a “1up win” at the finish. So Richmond Park retained the Ballantyne Trophy for another year with a 2:1 win. Although extremely competitive, the matches were played in a very good spirit and the Wycombe team were very gracious in defeat.
Midweek Club Championship Round 2
It may not have felt like it to Angus at the time, but he had a very comfortable cushion of 6 shots to win the Division 1 MW Club Championship – he had the best gross score in both rounds. Jonathan and Bill both recorded 85 for today’s round, but Jonathan’s better score on Prince’s gave him the runner-up spot.
In Division 2, the top 2 in round 1 swapped places as David Grace’s 96 gave him an overall lead of 2 shots to win Div2 from Jonno who finished as runner-up.
The women’s MW club champs was a runaway win for Gina who finished her round as the only other 2 women playing started theirs. with an 11 shot lead from the first round the result today was never really much in doubt and neither of the others put up much of a fight!
Very impressively with her low single figure handicap Gina is also the net winner from Richard Owen on the back 9 of today’s event. Both players had the same net scores of 68 and 74 in the 2 rounds.
None of those who were ineligible either played today, or had NRs so results include those as well.
Conditions underfoot today reminded us that autumn is well on its way and there was definitely less run on the ball. The course was already showing signs of green returning to some of the fairways after yesterday’s rain, the downside making the ground that much softer for the badgers who looked to have been feasting overtime on a fair number of holes.
Golden Jubilee
A very pleasant, partly sunny early Autumn day with a noticeable southerly breeze and temperatures rising to 26 degC. The greens seemed to be well on the way to recovering from their recent hollow tining and other restoration treatment but were slow and still a little bumpy.
Only 5 players played under Par and our clear winner of the Golden Jubilee Shield was Oz Doyle with a net 66, playing off 17. 2 shots back was Peter Needham net 68, playing off 14, and in the 3rd and 4th places Jonathan Evans and Richard Smith, both net 69. It is surprising that the top 15 places taken by the men were all Division 1 players; the best Division 2 player was Tony Kopczak (net 75) in 16th place overall. Sali Davies recorded the best women’s score (net 72) in 11th place overall.
This was the 4th round (of 5) in the Anniversary Cup series and the latest position is shown in the report attached. Richard Smith and Niamh Grace share the lead on 281 shots, 3 ahead of Nick Rogers (284) and Kerry Sargeant (286).
In the men’s Top Dog competitions, it is very close at the top in both the Senior and Junior divisions (report attached). In the Senior Division, Iker (26 points) leads from Brian McMahon (25) and Allan Boyd (24). In the Junior Division, Sean O’Sullivan leads on 23 points, from Mike Shabani (22) and Seymour Laird (20).
Women’s Weekend Away 2026
This year, 19 of us went to Wokefield Park, near Reading, for our annual Women’s Weekend Away. It turned out to be glorious weather that compensated for the challenging golf course with 73, pretty large bunkers. Two people mastered it well with Cuneyt as the overall men’s winner with rounds of 28 and 37 points and Joan, the overall women’s winner with rounds of 29 and 34. Joan won the Gills Hibbs Trophy and well done!
There were other prizes for teams each day, best of two scores. On Saturday, it was a combination of Peter Harrington, Hilary, Susan and Christine, 75 points and on Sunday it was Christine, Maher, Ellie and Cuneyt with an impressive 83 points.
Jayne and Susan did a masterful job in all the organisation both before and during the weekend.
Midweek Club Championship, Round 1
Good day for golf, only slight rain for the later starters.
In the men’s scratch competitions, Angus Robertson leads the way in Division 1 with 78, three shots ahead of 3 players on 81. (Richard Back’s 77 and Duncan Matthews 80 will not count, as they hadn’t played 6 qualifying Midweek competitions this year). In Division 2, Jonno McLean (84) has a 3 shots lead over David Grace, with Leigh Drake a further shot back. In the women’s scratch competition, Gina Jillett (77) has a commanding 8 shots lead over Jayne Maxwell.
In the Handicap Cup competition, the best scores in Round 1 were Mike Sands net 65 and net 66s for Richard Marriott, Pralab Barua and Jonno McLean, who lead Round 1 because Mike Sands hadn’t played 6 Midweek competitions this year.
Bank Holiday Plate
Despite the course getting some rain it didn’t seem to affect the run on the ball today and the cored & sanded greens didn’t appear to faze too many especially not Hilary who was 5 points ahead with her 44 point win. Behind her were 3 players on 39 points, 3 on 38 and 4 on 37. Hilary’s round resulted in an ESR of 1 shot.
40 birdies recorded today plus an eagle 2 for Ed Hall on the 14th – it was either a relatively uncommon straight drive for Ed or a great chip in. (sorry Ed but your partner from yesterday alluded to some fairly wild drives!!)
We also seemed to luck out with the weather despite the grey clouds rolling in and over us without stopping to drop any rain – driving home the radio was reporting the covers still on at Lords as they’d been rained off for a bit.
David Lloyd Hampton Friendly Match
A mixed team of 12 RPGC players took part in the annual match against the David Lloyd Hampton (DLH) club and secured a 5:1 win, to retain the trophy. This fixture has been played for more than 10 years against the DLH club, which used to be known as Amida. The RPGC team held the honours for the match, winning at home last year and hoping to retain the bragging rights following this away fixture.
The match was played on the DLH course, which is a 9-hole course where we played two circuits of the course making 18 holes. The front and back 9 holes were played from slightly different tee positions, with the women playing from the red tees and the men from the whites. The format was four ball better ball matchplay.
Unfortunately, the fairways had suffered a similar fate to Richmond Park where the dry summer has burned off the grass, so most lies were on bare turf. As a result, there was a lot of run on the ball along with unpredictable bounces. The odd bladed shot was hard to avoid but that’s been summer 2026!
We started to play on what was forecast to be quite a wet day but thankfully the weather forecast was more pessimistic than reality and whereas we had to have brollies at the ready for the odd shower, the match was played in relatively good conditions.
To the credit of all players who had signed up for this fixture, and despite the BBC promising monsoon conditions, everyone turned up for the challenge and, after a very tasty morning roll and a hot drink, we headed to the first tee at 10.00am to begin the first of 6 four ball better ball games.
The first Richmond Park team of Alison Chadwick and Aiden Hurley halved the first hole with birdies, Alison and Aidan steadily built a lead to be 3 up after 9. On the 12th Alison’s tee shot hit the flag stick and she tapped in for birdie and a five-hole lead. Another birdie and par followed to secure a 5 and 4 win for team 1.
Team 2 comprised Sheena Harrington and Russell Stewart playing their game against the DLH women’s and men’s captains who came out of the blocks quickly and, after the third hole, we were two down with the short game of the DLH team proving to be the difference. But battling on, after the 9th it was all square and team 2 went on to go 2 up at one point only to lose that lead heading into the 18th hole all square. However, after both men thinned their approach shots to the 18th, it was Sheena who finally stepped up to win the hole and game 2 for RPGC.
The game 3 pairing of John Cho and Richard Owen alternately won and lost holes to their opponents through the front 9 scoring pars and birdies. The back 9 second loop started “all square”. A one-shot lead was then taken at the 10th, increased to 2up on the 13th, 3 up on the 15th and the match closed out at 4 &2 on the 16th.
Game 4 was played by Caroline Stillwell and Paul Green. This game was nip and tuck from the start and there was never more than a hole in it. Level after nine, Paul and Caroline snatched a draw with impressive birdies at the finish.
The game 5 team was Ellie Rhodes and Maher Sharma. They had a similar, tightly contested game which finished in another draw and a second consolation ½ point for DLH.
The final RPGC pairing comprised Lia Donath and Ed Hall. Both pairs started scruffily in the heaviest shower of the morning but thanks to some great play from Lia they took a 2-hole lead early on. The match stayed tight until the RPGC team pulled away on the back 9, sealing a 4 and 2 win on the 16th green.
So, overall, a big win for Richmond Park taking four of the six games to a win and drawing two, therefore, the team won the match by 5 points to 1 on the day. An excellent result made even more impressive given this was an away match on an unfamiliar course for the significant majority of the RPGC team. We were all invited for food at the end of the match in the conservatory area of the David Lloyd club which was welcome. All games were played in good spirit and the DLH team proved to be excellent hosts and seemed to enjoy the challenge but perhaps, not the result! The DLH women’s Captain (Veronika Wyper) therefore handed the match claret jug back to us to keep for another year with a short address thanking RPGC for participating. Thanks to all our hosts on the day including the DLH men’s captain Keith Mitchell.
Midweek August Plate
There was some early confusion, as the touchscreen was ‘down’, sign-in wasn’t set up for mobile phones and the start sheet indicated only white tees for the men (not a choice of white or yellow). However all these issues were overcome and the clear winner was Aiden Hurley (39 points), continuing his recent good form
The greens proved to be particularly hard to read as they had just been spiked and hollow tined, and this undoubtedly upped some final scores.
August Plate
A dry, warm , sunny day with temperatures in the mid 20s and very little breeze. The greens had been spiked a few days ago and were ‘bumpy’ and slightly slower than of date.
Scoring was good and, surprisingly for a mid-summer mixed competition on Duke’s, the top 10 places were all taken by the men.
Kerry Sargeant was the winner of the August Plate with a very impressive 43 points (74 shots, 3-over-gross), pipping Aiden Hurley and Brian Ransom, both on 41 points. Aiden was just 1-over-gross, taking just 72 shots. Both Kerry and Brian had their best round for more than 12 months, giving them a new Low handicap Index.
Three players scored 39 points and took the minor monies in the sweep, namely Simon McKnight, Richard Owen and Peter Harrington.