Rudding Park Report

After 3 postponed dates, Tuesday 11th June finally saw the start of this years season after the disastrous weather problems and of course the sad passing of Dave Saynor, who a pint was raised in his memory before the prize presentation.

A warm welcome our new members, Alan Johnson, Joe Cooper & Elliot Stocks. Great to have you along and we hope to see you again to our future fixtures.

A strong field of 22 turned out to tackle both the 6 hole Repton course & the 18 hole Hartree course at Rudding Park. The 6 holes were a warm up to zone in the short game which saw plenty of balls swallowed up by the water but a good laugh was had by all.

We then moved on to play for the Hickling Trophy on the 18 Hawtree course which had some long challenges but with wide fairways meant the big dog was used a plenty, however any wide wide shot was punished with knee high rough in many places. The greens didn’t appear too attractive however they did roll pretty quick and there were 2 new holes which I’m sure are temporary while a couple of other holes are being re designed.

The weather just about behaved and although it wasn’t the warmest, it did stay dry for us thankfully.

On to the prizes and the 4 nearest pins on the par 3’s were taken Joe cooper on holes 5 & 8, Lee Worth on hole 11 & Dave Colley on hole 14. Dave also made his 2 on that hole and was the only player in the field to do so meaning he took the whole £22 twos sweep.

In 3rd place on a count back with 35 points (20 on the back 9) was Lee Wetherill. In 2nd place with a great 36 points was James Pickersgill.

The winner of the Hickling Trophy for 2024 with a super score of 38 points was Paul Huddlestone.

The handicaps were reset to the WHS index as per the 3 year agreement made at the 2022 AGM which means there was plenty of movements both up and down after the first event of the year. Please see the relevant results page for the full update.

Onto our next fixture and the one that is fast being proven to be the most popular on the calendar, the Richmond Open. This will take place on Thursday 11th June and full details can be found on the events page. This is a 27 hole competition and a great value day out. Please meet at 0900. The cost will be £51 (including subs) plus £5 on the day for the sweep.

This year we are going to try a new format called “Medalford”. This is where the 9 hole net medal score will be taken from the afternoon stableford score. The player with the LOWEST score will be the winner.

Thanks once again for your continuing support to the society. As said before it really does make the organisation worth it.