2013 News
Additional pictures can be seen in our Photo Gallery and detailed match results/reports via our Competitive Play page
8th December – First Winter One Ball
11 people attending our first one of the Winter. We’re running a competition throughout the Winter (highest percentage with a minimum of 5 games), so please sign up and write the results of your games on the sheet.
1st December – Shirley Jones wins our Golf Ladder
Our Golf Ladder has now closed and there are four players who have played five or more games.
The winner with 4 wins from 5 games is Shirley Jones, with the other players being Duncan Cox 5/8, Bob Bruce 4/8 and Sandy Smith 4/9.
27th November – Pub Lunch
Our first pub lunch of the winter was a record: with 25 people attening – more than 50% of our membership! It was good fun too.
31st October – LAWNS REOPENED
22nd October – SECF League Results
We’ve come first in the Golf Restricted League, 4th and 10th in the Handicap League (East), 3rd in the U League and bottom in the A League.
19th September – LAWNS CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE
15th September – Finals Day
We managed to stage just two finals this year on Finals Day – must try harder….
In the Lustau Richard Mann was in stonking form, going round without using any of his bisques, so ran out an easy winner against Jon Diamond +17.
After the Kitching Rose Bowl semi-final in the morning between Derek Crocombe and Jeff Chapman, Jeff beat Ray Meech 7-2, 7-6 in the afternoon rain.
13th September – SECF U league beat Surbiton 4:3
Congratulations to our U league team of Jon Diamond, Mick Belcham, John Hobbs, Richard Mann, Geoff Croxford, Jeff Chapman on a clean sweep!
12th September – SECF A league loss to Dulwich 1:6
7th/8th September – Paul Miles wins the Honeygrove Cup
Ten players, with handicaps from one to seven, played five rounds of a Swiss in our Autumn Advanced tournament. At the start of the fifth round there were four players with three wins, including Jon Diamond and Jolyon Creasey. But although Jon won his game he was the runner up, because the other player with four wins, Paul Miles from Medway, had earlier beaten Jon. The heavens opened just as the last game finished, so ending the tournament on a suitable note…
The final table is:
| Player | Club | Wins | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Miles | Medway | 4 | 1 |
| Jon Diamond | Tunbridge Wells | 4 | 2 |
| Jolyon Creasey | Tunbridge Wells | 3 | 3= |
| Philp Mann | Medway | 3 | 3= |
| Alex Jardine | Medway | 3 | 3= |
| Howard Bowron | Penrith | 3 | 3= |
| Trevor Longman | Ramsgate | 2 | 7 |
| Sara Anderson | Worthing | 1/4 | 8= |
| Jon Bateson | Medway | 1/4 | 8= |
| Charles Martin | Ramsgate | 0 | 10 |
5th September – Michael Sander wins Golf High Bisquers
He beat newcomer this year Bob Bruce 7-5, 7-6.
16th July – SECF Golf Level league win over Medway 5:2
Congratulations to our team of Mike Gentry, Duncan Cox, John Moore, Frank Gunstone, Derek Crocombe and Derek Heath on a clean sweep!
3rd September – Jon Diamond & Sandy Smith win the Golf Doubles
The first of our internal competitions was played today, with Jon and Sandy running out winners over John Hobbs & Kate Sander 7-2, 7-6. Congratulations to them.
2nd September – SECF U league beat Canterbury 4:3 – with a perfect 3 wins record. Here’s hoping for a clean slate.
29th August – SECF U league beat Medway 4:3
22nd August – SECF Golf Handicap Team A league beat Canterbury 5:4
18th August – Martin Lester wins Pegasus Plate
Martin Lester, from Oxford University, and handicap 10 won our AC Handicap Tournament, with the previous holder, Ann Brookes from Colchester (handicap 11), second.
Richard Mann and two other were equal third, out of 8 players. Chris Barham was in contention at the end of the first day but “fell away” in the second.
The format of 18 point games, 2 1/4 hour time limit and working from a handicap base of lowest handicap person (Mick Belcham on 4) …. voted a success.
12th August – SECF Golf Handicap Team B league loss to Parsons Green 2:7
8th August – SECF U league win over Compton 4:3
2nd August – we win the SECF GC Doubles trophy
Winning team!
Our team 2 won all four of the doubles matches, so winning the trophy out of 22 teams – Duncan Cox and John Moore beat Guilford & Godalming (1) 7-3 and Angmering 5-4 (out of time), whilst Derek Crocombe and Sandy Smith beat Rother Valley 4-2 (out of time) and Reigate Priory 7-4. This was a good introduction to competitive play for Sandy and her confidence grew as the day went on!
The trophy is in the club house for you all to see.
Our team 1 came 5th out of the 22 teams in the Singles.
Sandy and Derek
Duncan
John and Jeff
The photos are copyright Derek Heath.
31st July – SECF A league loss to Sussex County 2:5
22nd July – SECF Golf Handicap Team A league win over Cheam 7:2
21st July – Kent Cup (Golf)
For the first time we had a significant presence in this annual event held in Ramsgate, with 4 players – Derek Crocombe, Frank Gunstone, Derek Heath and John Skates.
In a very tough tournament, dominated by the English internationals with handicaps 0 and 1 from Ramsgate, Derek Crocombe did very well, coming 4th. Congratulations to him!
16th July – SECF Golf Level league win over Ivychurch 4:3
8th July – SECF Golf Handicap Team B league win over Ivychurch 7:2
7th July – We’re 7th in the Southern Challenge
10 teams from the South and South East Federations competed in this challenging Golf Croquet event. Our noble team were unable to repeat our performance of last year’s event, when we came fourth, as this year we had a slightly weaker team due to illness and holidays. In fact having lost the first 5 games we were extremely lucky not to finish in the bottom two and risk relegation to Division 2!
The Southwick lawns for this event were fast and uneven, so making it more of a challenge than some of the team desired and we were up against some tough teams, since this was a level play event. [Merton were a surprise with a team consisting of handicap 3 and 4 players.]
Dulwich won again (no surprise there), with Ramsgate the runners-up.
In terms of matches our results were:
| Round | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ramsgate | 1:2 |
| 2 | Merton | 1:2 |
| 3 | Dulwich | 0:3 |
| 4 | Sussex | 0:3 |
| 5 | Canterbury | 0:3 |
| 6 | Compton | 2:1 |
| 7 | West Worthing | 1:2 |
| 8 | Littlehampton | 1:2 |
| 9 | Ryde | 2:1 |
| S1 | Littlehampton | 2:1 |
| S2 | West Worthing | 1:2 |
| S3 | Canterbury | 2:1 |
There were a mixture of Singles and Doubles for each player and the Singles results were:
| Wins | Games | |
|---|---|---|
| Jon Diamond | 5 | 6 |
| John Hobbs | 2 | 6 |
| Frank Gunstone | 2 | 4 |
| Duncan Cox | 0 | 3 |
| John Moore | 1 | 3 |
| Jeff Chapman | 1 | 2 |
1st July – SECF Golf Handicap Team B league loss to Woking 3-6
15th June – David Thirtle-Watts wins the Montevideo Cup
The Montevideo Cup is our one day Golf Croquet tournament. A full complement of 12 players enjoyed(?) the gales and lively showers of TW.
Montevideo Cup winner
Richard Brooks had returned to defend his trophy, but lost decisively in the final (10-4 in a 19-point game) to David Thirtle-Watts from Hunstanton, who got his handicap reduced from 4 to 3 as a result.
Block results are:
Block A
| Player | Handicap | Club | Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Brooks | 1 | Sussex County | 5 |
| John Hobbs | 2 | TW | 4 |
| Derek Crocombe | 4 | TW | 3 |
| Maggie Webb | 3 | West Worthing | 2 |
| Michael Sander | 7 | TW | 1 |
| John Skates | 7 | TW | 0 |
Block B
| Player | Handicap | Club | Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Thirtle-Watts | 4 | Hunstanton | 4.5 |
| Keith Webb | 2 | West Worthing | 4 |
| Jon Diamond | 1 | TW | 3.5 |
| Frank Gunstone | 5 | TW | 2 |
| Derek Heath | 7 | TW | 1 |
| Sandy Smith | 9 | TW | 0 |
In the semi-finals Richard Brooks beat Keith Webb 7-6 and David Thirtle-Watts beat John Hobbs 7-3.
3rd June – SECF Golf Level league win over Merton 5-2
10th June – SECF Team B Handicap league loss to Caterham 4-5
31st May – SECF Golf Handicap league win over Surbiton 5-4
30th May – SECF A league loss to Surbiton 1-6
22nd May – SECF Team A Handicap league loss to Sydenham 3-6
10th May – SECF A league loss to Medway 3-4
20th/21st April – Kent Cup (Association)
Yet again our stalwarts have failed to get our club’s name on the Kent Cup!
Robert Alexander from Medway defended his title successfully, this time defeating Jolyon Creasey by two games to one in the best of three final on home turf.
Our other players were Jon Diamond, Mick Belcham and John Hobbs, with Mick Greagsby being hors de combat because of his shoulder.
Our lawns were extremely slow, which contributed to the poor play. Sadly, there’s not much we can do this season to improve things, except hope that the ground dries up a bit more…
8th May – Grant applications successful
We’ve been successful with some grant applications with the Gatwick Airport Community trust and Kent County Council, so we’re
- adding some more club mallets, so that visitors can have something we find acceptable to play with, repairing the grips etc of some of the other ones and
- some primary colour balls to replace the ones we regularly use, which are showing some signs of wear and also
- replacing the flag which has worn out (it’s been flying too much)
14th April – Opening Day
Opening day started soggy and very damp – there were many calls in advance to see if we were still going to play, since there had been more than an inch of rain in the last few days. After a short delay it was decided that Lawn 1 was just about playable, but the other weren’t, so our One Ball was going to be a bit tricky to organise!
14 players turned up for the CA Charity event and everyone envied Barney’s sailing wellies on this occasion, since we all got very wet feet. Despite the late start and the mess caused by having 4 games going on at the same time (Mike Sander: please watch where you’ve going to hit a ball to as there might be other players already there…) Kate Sander managed to play and win four games and therefore gets the privilege of going to Winchester for the UK final of this event. John Skates also won 4 games, but lost his last one to Kate. We raised £115 for the Marie Curie charity – thanks to everyone who played.
The sun came out in the afternoon, so that the late comers could enjoy the play and the warmth (has spring arrived at last?) and even play some Golf after the tasty lunch provided by Kate (thanks).
13th April – Winter One Ball results
John Moore wins the One Ball event which ran over the winter period with 5 wins out of 6 games, closely followed by Barney Lewis with 7/9, Ray Meech with 4/6 and Michael Sander with 5/8.
3rd March – New Club Session
Although the AGM voted against moving the Wednesday club afternoon to Thursday, we’ve decided to add a Thursday late pm session from 18th April, primarily aimed at people playing One Ball or Association.
As part of this we’re introducing regular coaching sessions, starting at 4pm, during April and May at least, led by Jolyon Creasey.
23rd February – AGM
The full AGM minutes can be accessed here, but the following is a summary of the meeting:
- The death of Peter Howell, our ex-chairman, was recognised with a short eulogy by John Hobbs
- Jon Diamond summarised the news and activities from last year (covered in these pages)
- Richard Mann reported on the accounts, which are healthy, but we must expect a much larger spend on Lawn Maintenance this Autumn as we failed to do any in 2012
- For this reason Jeff Chapman has planned for a much earlier Lawn Closing (14th September) in 2013
- A suggestion to change the Wednesday club afternoon to Thursday was rejected
- Jon Diamond is the new Golf Croquet Handicapper
- A constitution change was approved (to add Corporate Membership)
- The first year’s membership rate was reduced from £75 to £50 and the Green Fees increased
- The committee were re-elected
- A presentation was made to Derek Crocombe in recognition of his services in 2012