Malling Area Golf Society

2016/17 January 20th Round 10:
The Ridge Golf Club - The Len Hall Trophy

The Ridge Golf Club
Chartway Street
Maidstone
Kent
ME17 3JB

01622 844382
www.theridgegolfclub.co.uk

Full english08:00
18 holes of golf, first tee09:06
Dinner and presentation15:00
Main course.
Dessert course.
Price£38 (£28 non-dining)


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The Ridge Golf Club

Order of Play

Group 1Graham Gove, Geoff Mills, Ian Rowan, Paul Keenor.
Group 2Paul Damper, Steve Tothill, Dave Elseworth, Derek Reed.
Group 3Peter Gray, Mark Parsons, Bob Crouch, Richard Coward.
Group 4Dean Priestman, Dave Verga, Dave Catchpole, Tim Grimes.
Group 5Trevor Woods, Dave Ealham, Dave Smith , Graham Nunn.
Group 6Brian Woods, Barry England, Dave Swinbank, Darren Parker.
Group 7Bill Bevan, Bryan England, Roy Goodhew, Brian Goodhew.
# = non-dining, (G) = guest, (B) = Buggy

Captain's Match Report

With a morning dedicated to jack frost having de-iced the car from its sub-zero slumbers there was a certain trepidation about today’s visit to the ever popular home of course golf the ridge.

Ever popular at this time of year not only for its fantastic breakfasts but also its unique openness, despite frozen everything, greens, bunkers, rough, the rough in the bunkers, the lakes, the lot!

After a typically lovely breakfast I made a couple of parish notices regarding the forthcoming AGM.

Firstly following feedback from our bold new handicap system the committee are likely to propose a refinement. There has been much talk about the handicap system (as there has been every other handicap system) one of the criticisms of this system is its too volatile and erratic ie your handicap can change a lot based on a good round or everyone else doing even worse than you. There is some truth in this but possibly not as much as people think. Firstly to test how much difference it would make if the extremes of the scores were discounted in the calculations our handicap secretary ran the numbers from the last year and took out of the calculation the best two scores and the worst two scores as it was the much mentioned opinion that if anyone carded a 40 plus or a sub 10 that would naturally adjust the averages up or down artificially.(common sense surely) however on reviewing the numbers it seems with these changes the average score only changed by 0.1 of a shot so someone carding an 8 doesn’t appreciably drop the average anymore than someone carding a 42 does so we decided that one suggestion of taking the top and bottom scores out of the calcs was irrelevant.

The next option was to lose some of the volatility around what the average score was, so our proposal is likely to be that if the average for a round is say 22 points, if you scored between 20 and 24 you are not adjusted i.e. a buffer zone of plus or minus two shots is left around the average score so fewer adjustments are made i.e. you have to play appreciably better or worse than average to be adjusted.

After a couple of local rules to counter the weather ie free drops from icy bunkers we all set off wrapped up like turkeys.

I personally played appallingly and can only apologise to Messers Mills and Gove a) for having to witness it and b) for having to listen to me moaning about a bad knee and lack of golfing ability. Luckily GG had a good round anyway narrowly missing out on a shiny medal and once GM managed to switch of from me he carded a much improved back nine!

The round gradually warmed up and by the end the sun was out and some of the ground had de frosted. Luckily not entirely as I skipped over the ice to land on the 18th green which was a nice change! There was a good deal of changing tactics and finding new shots as the greens were hard and frictionless so plenty of balls which would ordinarily have nestled near the pin for a putt, out now shot through to whatever was at the back of the green. The more astute of us assimilated quickly, but it came as surprise to me on every hole. A double edged sword at times as a shot I was sure was very short, rolled to within 100mm of the hole on the 13th for a birdie (which I was naturally upset not to get an eagle on for the sake of 4” rather than pleased with the birdie!)

It also meant that the fairways were very unforgiving and unless the ball was struck in the perfect place the clubface turned off the icy ground and the ball shot of at a surprising angle (well that’s what I was consoling myself with as I wandered of tangentially to what Geoff and Graham considered the “approach”

Being occasionally unable to get the tee into the ground was also another unusual issue but we all persevered beautifully with a grim determination to get out wear our new jumpers and have a giggle I do love this society there was much laughter amongst the frost !

To the results

The nearest the pin winners were Bill Bevan, Dave Elham, our esteemed chair the venerable Peter Gray, Roy Goodhew in three and no one managed one of them (apologies for not knowing which holes were which but I didn’t land on a green and therefore didn’t check the slips amusingly nailed to the greens so didn’t relaise they were not numbered until they were returned to me at the end) mea culpa

Winner of division three was Brian Woods with 31 points, division two was Dave Verga with a very commendable 30 points (who we all thought had learned to count) and on the day I thought it was our non guest Dean Priestman, however Deans card had been marked by Dave V who was obviously having such a good round he scored Dean on a handicap of 18 not his actual 13! So his 35 was reduced to a still commendable if not triumphant 30. The Effect of this was that Dean didn’t win the day Brian Woods did with his 31 unfortunately neither did he win Division on which was won by Richard Coward on countback sorry to Dean for the disappointment and Brian and Richard for the inability to bask in the glow of our envy and praise on the day!

Our only guest Bill Bevan also had a great card scoring 30 points with a handicap of 21 so well done him and we hope to see him as a joining member next month at the usually balmy Tudor Park I look forward to seeing you all there as well as some of you who took the opportunity to snuggle under the duvet for the day and not venture out (or went to work I suppose!)

Happy new year one and all see you in Frozen Feb

Pip pip el capitaine

Results

Division 1Richard Coward30 points
Division 2Dave Verga30 points
Division 3Brian Woods31 points
OverallBrian Woods31 points
Best GuestBill Bevan30 points
Average Score24 players25 points
Nearest the pin(Hole 4)Bill Bevan
Nearest the pin(Hole 9)TBC
Nearest the pin(Hole 12)Peter Gray
Nearest the pin(Hole 17)Dave Ealham
Nearest the pin in 3(Hole 5)Roy Goodhew

Pos. Player Starting
H/C
Starting
Div.
Front 9 Back 9 Total Finishing
H/C
Finishing
Div.
Champions
Points
1 Brian Woods 24.7 3 13 18 31 22.9 2 12
2 Dave Elsworth 26.1 3 13 17 30 24.6 3 10
3 Richard Coward 15.8 1 13 17 30 14.3 1 8
4 Dave Verga 20.8 2 13 17 30 19.3 2 7
5 Dean Priestman 13.3 1 15 15 30 11.8 1 6
6 Graham Nunn 20.5 2 15 15 30 19.0 2 5
7 Graham Gove 11.7 1 12 17 29 10.5 1 4
8 Paul Damper 19.8 2 12 16 28 18.9 2 3
9 Roy Goodhew 5.9 1 12 16 28 5.0 1 2
10 Geoff Mills 28.0 3 8 19 27 27.4 3 1
11 Trevor Woods 11.7 1 12 15 27 11.1 1 0
12 Brian Goodhew 27.2 3 11 15 26 26.9 3 0
13 Dave Catchpole 21.7 2 11 15 26 21.4 2 0
14 Barry England 4.3 1 12 14 26 4.0 1 0
15 Dave Ealham 20.5 2 12 14 26 20.2 2 0
16 Bob Crouch 26.0 3 12 13 25 26.0 3 0
17 Tim Grimes 25.3 3 10 14 24 25.6 3 0
18 Peter Gray 26.5 3 8 13 21 27.7 3 0
19 Ian Rowan 24.3 2 9 12 21 25.5 3 0
20 Steve Tothill 17.9 1 10 9 19 19.7 2 0
21 Darren Parker 20.8 2 8 10 18 22.9 2 0
22 Derek Reed 12.6 1 7 9 16 15.3 1 0
23 Mark Parsons 24.7 3 6 8 14 28.0 3 0
24 David Smith 17.6 1 6 8 14 20.9 2 0
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