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Senior Men’s Golf Chairman’s Blog

Now that the Club has hosted the Gold Cup and played for its first major trophy (the Centenary Putter) we can truly believe that the season has properly started.

Indeed, playing on Monday morning in the sunshine with some golfers in shirt sleeves, I thought we had left the bad weather behind us. Not so, with rain falling in the afternoon and again on Tuesday. Nonetheless the temperatures are rising and above all the course looks magnificent.

Incidentally the seniors can claim the winner of the Centenary Putter, Ralph Evers, as one of our ranks.

The favourable impression of the course was confirmed by the visitors from Surbiton playing the seniors in our first home match of the season on Monday of this week. This fixture had dropped off the calendar for a few years but such was the appreciation of the visiting Surbiton team that it was suggested that in future years we add another fixture so that we play them home and away each season.

This was the first match captained by a new committee member, Nick Brown, who reported an honourable draw, three matches all. It confirmed my judgment that our course has stood up better than most to the battering of the heavy rains this winter.

Winter Knockouts

Over the past month, we have concluded the two winter knockouts. In the senior winter foursomes Chris Cowan and Tony Durrant defeated Paul Gordon Brown and Alun Hughes in the final.

The Colum Sharkey individual knockout was won by Nigel Brown who defeated Bob Mitchell in the final. Nigel came back from two down to win at the first extra hole. I hope that this triumph was some consolation to Nigel who captains the Roehampton Club team in Surrey’s John Ling trophy. His team lost last week to Bramley by 3 matches to two. This means that the team will now compete for the John Ling Salver which Roehampton Club won a couple of years ago.

March Grail

 

Since the last Recorder, we have held regular competitions on Wednesdays. The most important of those competitions was the March Grail played on 27th March in terrible weather.

 

Because the competition was reduced to carry only and with a number of temporary greens, it was non qualifying. Scoring was not great. Indeed, heavy rain during play led a number of players to walk in early. All the more creditable it was that four players scored to their handicap or above. Congratulations to the winners.

 

1st      Brian Hall                  40 points

2nd     Nigel Brown             39 points (count back)

3rd      Chris Cowan             39 points (count back)

4th      Ken Pratt                   36 points

 

Well played to all who stayed the course!

 

The March grail was also the final event in which scores were recorded in the seniors winter eclectic. Bad weather did not stop the competition being very competitive. The final standings were:

 

1st      Terry Dillon              nett 49

2nd     Alun Hughes            nett 52

3rd      Nigel Brown             nett 52

4th      Ian Taylor-Restell    nett 52

 

Congratulations, especially to Terry.

 

This represented excellent scoring over the six months of the competition. For those of us who did not meet our hopes and expectations, the summer eclectic is now underway and there is still time to enter.

Other Competitions

On 20th March the seniors played a team Stableford in the format step up waltz. This was won comprehensively by a team of Duncan Christie-Miller, Brian Hall and Bill Phelan with a total of 84 points.

Last week we played a team Stableford with Mulligan. This format gives each player the opportunity to retake one shot in the course of their round in the hope of improving their score. It is quite dispiriting when you try to make a three foot putt, having missed it the first time, and then fail again! Our winning team was David Bouch, David Paterson and Chris Cowan who came in with 79 points.

Yesterday 27 players joined in a team Stableford with joker. Each player can double their score on one hole if they nominate that hole before they tee off.

Congratulations to Nigel Karmel, Davood Fallahdar, Duncan Christie-Miller and Ted Nist winning the competition with an adjusted 84 points.

The runners up were David Paterson, Gilbert Ellacombe, Evert-Johan Schenk, Danny Gesua  with an adjusted 81 points.

Reporting scores every week, I find it interesting that a number of golfers seem to have purple patches, getting onto the leaderboard on a regular basis. This month has been no exception with Brian Hall, Chris Cowan and Nigel Brown appearing several times.  Let’s hope that with the better weather we can all reach that elevated level.

Douglas Millar, Senior Men’s Golf Chairman