Wednesday Swindle

Swindle Result 26th November

31 players joined forces for a team event that proved to be a closely contested event between 2 of the 8 teams. Bonus points for staying on the Par 3 greens from the tee were occasionally used. 20 added points taken out of a total of 128 points on offer! Falling foul of the water for the loss of 2pts caught 3 players out. The winners on 87pts (by 1 point - tough luck the PBI team) were Tony Coomber, Dom Johnson, David Coutts and the Brynmeister each picking up £11.

Although Tony had the best Stableford of 39pts - he generously donated the £6 to the 35 pointers - so Chris Manners, Graham Waller and Jeff Titman covered their costs with £2 each.

The Boss (£5) nipped in for nearest the Pin on the 17th hole on a close measure edging out Graham by 4 inches. The stride pattern looked the same for both measures!

A gentle reminder about slow play as the final group had to put their headlights on and still did not finish in daylight.

One final outing on the 3rd Dec before Averages for 2025 are finalised. All to be announced at the Xmas Dinner on Monday 8th Dec.

Swindle Results 19th / 20th November

The Wednesday Swindle was cancelled due to SNOW - in Nov !!, where is the global warming when you need it!!

The final of the Hall Trophy was re-scheduled to the 20th when Ali and Kim tee'd off at 9am. It was all looking good for Kim, 3 up with 3 to go. Pressure built and Ali won the last 3 holes to take the match to sudden death. Alas there was no reprieve for Kim as Ali won the 19th hole to put a new name on the trophy. A marvelous year for Ali - looking like a clean sweep.

Swindle Results November 12th

Conditions were fairly brutal this Wednesday. The rain held off but the course was both muddy and leaf-strewn. In combination this made it a hard slog, with little carry on the balls and lots of searching under leaves! This was reflected in the scores with an overall average of 26.5 stapleford points being the lowest of the year and possibly in living memory!

Credit then to newbie Gary Fowler who picked up his second win in just 3 outings with a score of 36 points. £22 and a 2-shot cut for Gary.

In second place was Kim with 34 points for a prize of £11. The bigger prize was that Kim was also playing Steve Mummery in the second semi-final of the Hall Trophy and prevailed 5&4 to go through to the final. More on that later.

Chris Manners completed the podium in 3rd place with 33 points for a £6 prize.

The front nine fiver was awarded to Trevor Hones with 19 points, whilst the back nine, after a recount, was won by Kelvin the Bionic Man with, it has to be said, a paltry 16 points.

Leaderboards

The RED league has been pretty much in the bag for Ali for some time now, with no-one seriously challenging to catch him up. In BLUE, the tough conditions lately have finally taken their toll on Jimbo who has been toppled from top spot, not helped it has to be said by a level of inactivity by his nearest challengers!

Hall Trophy

The final will take place next Wednesday November 19th, with Ali giving Kim 11 shots. It would have been 12 shots except that Kim's second place this week cost him a shot. In all fairness tjhough, Ali's win last week cost him 2 shots! It should be a cracker of a match - good luck to the pair of them.

Swindle Results for 5th November

The only fireworks on Wednesday came from Ali, who stormed to a 4-stroke victory on 39 points. Ali gets a 2-shot cut to go with his £22. I'm sure whoever he plays in the Hall Trophy final will be very sad about that!

Joint second with 35 points were Stuart and Dom for a tenner each.

A special mention must go to the Brynmeister who also managed 35 points but these were scored in only 16 holes. Bryn was unavoidably detained on faithful husband duties prior to teeing off late! Some compensation was had though, in the shape of the fiver for the best back nine with 20 points. The front nine prize went to PBI with 19 points.

With the course getting muddier and playing longer, birdies are getting harder to come by. The Hickmeister however takes all this in his stride and still managed a couple of birdies this week - impressive!

Parish Notices

In case anyone didn't play this week and missed the memo, don't forget to fit your hedgehog wheels before venturing out on the course again.

Finally - we're now up to 23 for the annual dinner. There's still plenty of room for more - all swindlers welcome!

Swindle Results October 9th

A slightly reduced field of 22 golfers took to the course for the latest team competition. The team scores were:-

Team C - 101 points
Team G - 98 points
Team F - 97 points
Team A - 96 points
Team E - 89 points
Team D - 88 points

The eagle-eyed among you will note there was no Team B. See The Boss for details.

The winning team was made up of John Barrett, Peter Miller, Dave Robson and Don Dobbs. £8 to each of them for their trouble.

The best stapleford of the day of 38 points (and by a clear 4 shots, no less) went to David Coutts, a more recent recruit to the ranks of the Wednesday Swindlers. David picked up his maiden swindle prize of £4. Likewise Peter Evans, whose 8 point haul across the 3rd, 9th and 18th holes earned him the other £4 on offer. Well done to the pair of them.

Many leaderboard contenders seem to have gone into hibernation, but not so Jimbo, who turns out come rain or shine. Sadly for him it was a bad day at the office on Wednesday, which saw his lead at the top of BLUE trimmed to a mere 0.19 points! No real change on RED, since the Hickmeister was the sole player amongst the top 6.

Final note - we are now up to 17 attendees for the annual Swindle shindig on Monday December 8th at the George in Harpenden. Get your entries in please!

Swindle Results 20th and 22nd Oct

18 brave golfers ignored the dire weather forecast to brave an Away day at Hertsmere GC. Heavy showers at the start of play and mid round were inter dispersed with light drizzle leaving thoughts of 'we got away with it' - somewhat! 6 teams x 3 players ventured out and the Eugene, Chris Butler and Graham Waller combo with 81pts won by 2 pts (£15 each).

The conditions suited Don Dobbs (sheltering in his buggy and sporting his fisherman's attire) who picked up £5 for the best stableford score of 37pts and Ali's early bid for nearest the pin on the 11th hole never got beaten : £4.

Back to APGC for the 22nd Oct with perfect golf weather, no wind and sunshine but the 2nd lowest stableford average for 2025 of 27.9 confounded expectations. Only 7 players out of 26 who completed their rounds scored more that 30 pts.

Newbie Gary Fowler won with 37pts (£23) and immediately picked up a 2 shot permanent cut to 12 - well done. In joint 2nd place was Tony Coomber (averaging 36.8 on his last 6 outings and on the leader board 4 times!! - noted) and Eugene who patiently waited 293 days in 2025 for a handicap rise to 6 only to see his £9 second place winnings taking him back to 5 again for the next 4 outings. It lasted all of 3 days - It's tough at the top!

Front and back 9's (£5) were won by Stuart Insall (18pts) and Jeff Titman (19pts).

Jeff has now moved up to 5th position on the Red Division. Clever tactics by non playing David Reynolds and Iain Pritchard see them move up to 2nd and 3rd in the blue division as previous incumbents faltered.

DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE XMAS DINNER ON THE 8TH DEC

Swindle Results October 15th

A return to form for Kelvin saw him take the win on 38 points, picking up £22 and a 3-stroke cut in the process. Kelvin will tee it up next time out with a new handicap of 26.

Second with 37 points was Trevor Hones (£11 and a 4-match cut of 1 stroke) whilst 3rd place was shared by Iain, The Boss, Pablo and Terry Cook on 35 points. A handsome £2 to each of them. At least they broke even on the day!

Front nine honours and a fiver went to David Coutts with 18 points. The back nine was won by Malcolm with 20 points.

There was a rare sighting of a certain John McCullen this week. I'm not sure all that Norfolk golf is doing him any good, judging by his performance on a proper course...

No change at all on the leaderboards this week.

Annual Swindle Dinner

So far we have 10 people signed up for the dinner on Dec 8th. We need more! Just a reminder - please put your name down by submitting an entry on the swindle website in the standard way, with 8/12/25 as the date. Thanks!

Wednesday Swindle October 8th

A relatively small field today; 24 golfers. Not sure what the rest of you were doing! Dave Smith and Tony Coomber burned up the course to share the win on 39 points. £18 and a 2-stroke cut to the pair of them. Following close behind on 38 points was Chris Manners - no prize for him (with 24 players there is only a first and second place) but Chris did have the distinction of being the first recorded Swindler to shoot 4 birdies in one round. For the record, the 5th, 9th, 15th (!!!) and 18th. Awesome display Chris!

Crofty took the fiver for the front nine with 21 points, whilst the back nine was won on countback on 19 points by David Cheek.

Yet another good round saw Ali stretch his lead in the RED division. In BLUE Jimbo is still out in front with Robin leap-frogging Kelvin to be Jim's closest challenger. Remember that the league placings are fixed after the last Swindle before the annual dinner, which this year is on Monday December 8th. Speaking of which...

2025 Annual Dinner

This year's dinner will be held at the George in Harpenden on Monday December 8th. If you would like to come, please use the standard webform to enter on that date. I've put my name in there already to start the ball rolling. Please get your name entered by the end of October if you want to come. At that point, everyone who has put their name down will be asked for menu choices - this will be via an online link.