The FROGS 2015 season is officially up and running, with 32 eager Frogs & guests lining up on the 1st for round 1 of the CITCO Grand Prix. Most of us managed to get to the tee-box on time and in an orderly manner, some even managed to get themselves off the tee-box on time & in an orderly fashion. A standard scratch of 14pts indicates that many managed to keep this good form throughout the round … although considering the actual strokes played seems not to have been considered when calculating the scores, this may be adjusted after final auditing is completed.

Many thanks to our starter Richard Neale, who managed to point us all in the right direction.

There were clear intentions from the reigning CITCO grand prix champion Dennis Robertson, who spent the week prior at a training camp in Dubai. Unfortunately overtraining resulted in a blistered pinkie, which curtailed his time on the range and this resulted in his absence from the pointy end of the scoreboard. Looks like Dennis will have to repeat his late run up the leader board again this year.

Intentions are also clear from the returning Colin Cameron, who hit the best of the shots on the 7th to claim the NTP award and a fine bottle of wine. Congrats Colin & welcome back.

Despite Jonny ‘Boom Boom’ Hill’s best efforts, Craig Ferreira continues to dominate the long drive & adds more FROG logo’d balls to his growing stockpile.

Emulating Jordan Spieth’s performance at the masters, Robert-Jan Bertina led the ‘Best Guest’ category from the moment he hit his first drive. No other guest was able to claw back his lead.

As usual, the pink ball was a hotly contested prize. Steve Br(a)un and John Sutherland both hit a sufficient amount of shots to earn themselves 6 points, but were eclipsed by Steve Kaiser who greedily hit the most shots on his way to earning 4 points. I am sure you will remember to tee off with that pink ball at your next FROGS event, Steve.

Low light conditions in the shadow of the scorer’s new facial growth is being blamed for more position swapping than an Essex swingers party. Merve Herneman will have to settle with having received the applause on the night, having been bumped from 3rd to 5th, losing out to Luc DeVet & John Brophy on countback. John has claimed the third rung on the podium ahead of Luc. Gerry Mullen & James King went toe-to-toe for the top rung on the CITCO grand prix leader board, both scoring 19pts. Despite having a -0.5 handicap, The King wins … all hail The King. Congrats on the win James & we look forward to seeing how many shots you have to give the course on May 6th, when the CITCO grand prix moves on to Preisch.

Thanks to the continued support from our main sponsor CITCO.

SHRM Matchplay
The SHRM Matchplay also got underway, with matches being played on the night.

Andrew Paton bt John Sutherland 4&2; Paolo Tarakdjian awaits you in the next round.
Neil Underwood bt Steve Kaiser 3 up in order to advance to meet previous SHRM matchplay champion – Johan Terblanche. Ian Doherty bt Tony Nightingale 4&2 – Rob McCorduck waits for the next round match.

Thanks to SHRM for their continued support of the Matchplay event.

The next event is in Preisch on May 6th. Dinner will be at the Hotel de la Frontiere.
After much squabbling, it was decided your starter will be Francis Parisis so watch out for a mail from him. Don’t worry Dennis Robertson, your offer will be carried forward.