Next Week’s Details

Some of the forecast rain did arrive during the week, but the last couple of days have been dry, if not drying. The greenkeepers did manage a bit of mowing, but there is still a fair bit of fur around out there. The soggiest patches look to be capable of swallowing a ball whole, but, other than that, it was a pretty nice day to be out and about. The fact that a swag of people had better offers meant that, at one stage, there was a chance that there would be no competition for want of sufficient numbers. However, a few ‘forgetful’ members meant that we did manage to get eight to the tees to tackle what the day had to offer.

Ryan was spotted taking delivery of a handful of new clubs in the ProShop, which raised a few eyebrows given the newness of his current outfit. Turns out the manufacturer had redistributed a little too much mass away from the face, resulting in warping and failure in some cases. So, a recall was issued, and Ryan was picking up his replacements. Being of an engineering bent, he decided that he wouldn’t risk his usual full-blooded swing, and only took ‘half’ a back-swing. He was so pleased with the result at the end of the round, that this could very well become his preferred option. With a fair sprinkling of five singletons on the card, the general standard was obviously better than the thirty-five points that he ended with.

Harry had a few problems with some of the wet/furry lies playing havoc with approach shots to the green. One such ‘failure’ did prove to be rather fortuitous on the 12th, where the duff skittered up onto the green, and went close to finishing in the hole for an easy par and three points. He also topped the Senior’s competition today, but he reckons he should get all the points, as he really did fill all three places. Marc has been out of the loop for a while due to work commitments and a bout of the bug that is going around. He was a bit rusty from time to time, but he did scramble his way into third place, helped along by a four pointer for his par on the third. JQ was adamant that he had been driving well all day despite the fact that his playing companions tried to rope him into the debacle on the 2nd where the three of them (not counting JQ) accumulated a total of about 100m off the tee. All passed the red markers, reportedly. Porks managed two points for the hole, but used driver, mini driver and three wood to get to the green. Nalin was the other one who gave the red markers a scare, at one stage. Raj played a steady enough game, but his ridiculously lofted chip shots tended to leave him just a little too far from the hole on the day. A couple of triples made the difference. Nalin was a bit tentative on the green, leaving quite a number of putts well short of the hole, and misses from close range did not help the cause. SOS reckoned that he wasn’t at all embarrassed about taking the points for his tally of twenty-eight. He also laid claim to scoring two birdies on the one hole. One, he named Kevin, the other scored him three points on the 12th. That was one of just four birdies that we managed for the day. We won’t mention that Brendon was the only member not to score at least one point today.

The first BallPin was set on the 4th, and, as is often the case, it went begging, and there will be a jackpot on offer next week. The ProPin was on the 12th, which was SOS’s glory hole where he sank the putt from 2.02m to take home the $8 on offer. The BallPin on the 18th went close to being declared a Jackpot, when JQ suddenly piped up – *&%#, I forgot to put out the marker. The evidence of his name being on the ProShop marker was sufficient to ratify his claim. He is being a bit precious about his balls, though. Although he has a preference for ProV1, he is highly suspicious of the provenance of those on offer with two-digit numbers on them. Probably reckons it throws them off-balance or something! While on the subject of JQ, it was his birthday today, and, over a couple of drinks, he did reveal that Pepsi was coming around tonight. Don’t expect to get too much sense out of either of them later. Next Saturday, Dan will be lining up for a similar occasion, so, if he doesn’t show, the Birthday Birdie says hello.

Harry and Nalin fought it out in their semi-final match today. With six strokes the difference, the match promised to be a hard-fought affair. Harry won the first, and took the early advantage, although it was short-lived when he lost the second. The situation fluctuated over the next few holes, but a string of halves meant that, after the 10th, Harry was clinging to a single hole advantage. A couple of wins, including the result of his fortuitous duff on the 12th, put Harry in a much stronger position at three up, going into a stretch where the received strokes were few and far between. Another series of halves brought the match to dormie three after the 15th, and Nalin was faced with the prospect of having to win all three to force a chip-off for the result. He won the 16th easily, dormie 2. The 17th was a half, and the match ended Harry’s way 3 and 1.

Results for Saturday, 15 Aug 2026
1st Ryan Porker (35) 2nd Harry Boughen (33) 3rd Rajesh Mahto (32) 3rd Marc Phillips (32) 3rd John Quinlan (32) 4th Nalin Samaranayake (29) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan (28)

Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (33)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 1 – 4th Jackpot BallPin No 2 – 18th John Quinlan

People were wondering how wet under foot the course would be today. If the rain forecast for the coming week comes to pass, there is little doubt as to how wet it will be next week. The management have even taken to laying out great swatches of plastic ‘duck-boards’ in selected areas to try to minimise the damage by carts. Of course, another option would be to ban carts for the interim. Despite all this, we had fifteen people venture out to try their hand. There were twelve members, with the numbers being bolstered by three guests. Dan brought along Rick (aka James), Nalin brought along Shab, and CJ brought along Jake. Jake’s round did not get off to a great start, as his drive from the first barely made it off the tee peg, and trickled down into the garden bed in front. He went close to repeating the performance on the second, and by the sixth, he had managed to score as many as two points. He then managed to birdie the 7th for four points which seems to have lifted his spirits more than somewhat. Another birdie on the 11th helped him to a total of twenty-six points over the final twelve holes. The membership could only manage two birdies between the lot of us.

Michael was exhorting JQ to give Matt a towelling, if not a four iron, to try to keep some interest in the remains of the Championship. JQ heeded the call, and set about making a pretty good job of it, considering the conditions on offer. He didn’t feature in the birdie count, but he did manage to score ten pars on his way to thirty-eight points, a clear win to take the top spot on the table, and to cement his position at the top of the Order of Merit. Harry was a bit cheesed with his start to the round, particularly after a tap-in putt on the first, didn’t. However, from the third hole on he scored pretty steadily, made the highest points on the back nine, and finished the round reasonably happy with the result. Brendon had dashed off to some important happening like a basketball game or a ballet performance, so there was little commentary on his very steady performance to share second place.

Dan took a bit of a towelling on the handicap front recently (when he didn’t qualify for points in the event), but that seems to have worried him little. Despite three gashes on the card, he still managed to come home into a tie for third. Pepsi also managed a gash on his card, but his main complaint seemed to be about the quality of SOS’s vision. Seems that SOS stepped on Pepsi’s line on a green, and when reminded to take a little more care, SOS retorted – well if you would get a decent sized marker! Turns out, Pepsi’s ball was still on the green. Now, here’s where things get interesting. At the call of the cards, Nalin had fourth place on his own, and there was much glee in the ranks when Matt looked like being limited to just a single point. However, a poor correction to the points record led to an arithmetic error, and Nalin then had to share fourth place with Prez and Matt. This will just add salt to the wound caused by missing an Eagle putt on the 17th. Matt did mark Rob’s card, but there is no hint of collusion as they played in a three with JQ. Prez was claiming some bragging rights about his second shot on the 7th from the tree-line on the right, over the protruding greenery to stop about half a metre from the hole, and a par. Raj will undoubtedly accept the point that was gifted to him.

The ProPin was a Jackpot from last week on the 4th hole. It promised to be tough again with the soft ground offering little in the way of run if you were short, as CJ found out on his approach shot. As the last group walked up to the green and eyed the position of the shot marker, there was an almost universal estimate that it was further than 5m from the hole. Even pacing the distance did not settle the question. So a check measure was made, and, sure enough, the distance was 4.8m as dutifully recorded against Prez’s name. When it was suggested that Prez might shout, big brother opined that he wouldn’t shout if a shark bit him. The first BallPin was on the 15th, and Matty tried to close it out from the first group, but, he didn’t count on Pepsi, who managed to get just a little bit closer. Harry was pin high and maybe a little closer, but not on the dance-floor, so no cigar. Dan managed to leave his ball teetering on the brink of the apron slope on the 18th to take out the BallPin there. When asked how he had managed to pull it up there, it came out that the ball had actually run back down from the upper deck, so, possibly, even more miraculous.

In case you are wondering about Rick/James, as Prez was preparing to do the call of the cards, he checked with Big Brother for the names of the two guests. He should have known better because BB pranked him something fierce. The Birthday Birdie is going to be busy over the next week, with visits to Ken, Brendon, ChrisV and JQ.

Results for Saturday, 08 Aug 2026
1st John Quinlan (38) 2nd Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Brendon Mitchell (35) 3rd Dan Marie (34) 3rd Andrew Petricola (34) 4th Matt Hunt (31) 4th Robert Priems (31) 4th Nalin Samaranayake (31) 5th Rajesh Mahto (30)

Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Matt Hunt (31) 2nd Robert Priems (31) 3rd Chris Priems (29)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Robert Priems BallPin No 1 – 15th Andrew Petricola BallPin No 2 – 18th Dan Marie

Did you hear about the golfer who took his girlfriend out into the fog and mist? Well, it could have happened today. Not only was it cold, it was pretty misty as well. It did warm rather sharply between nine and eleven, so, at about the thirteenth, it was just about time to think about discontinuing some of the layers. Also, about that time, the hand-warmers were getting to be just about warm enough to do some good. Brendon decided that opening his early was the go, the only problem was, he opened it last night. He was very careful to lay it gently on the kitchen table in the mistaken belief that it was only activated by vigourous shaking. The mud was just as sticky as last week, so the preferred lies were much appreciated by the eleven members who ventured out. We were joined by Brad Mecozzi who has recently relocated from Sydney to work on the SRL (or not as the case may be). Hopefully the course conditions and general frivolity did not put him off too much. There is a fair chance that we will see him at least one more time as he is owed a beer by none other than Prez himself. Not that Brad was innocent in that regard either as he managed to make use of Charlie’s bush off the first tee, so he was introduced to some of the Club traditions very early on.

Matt is in desperate need of a knee-job. No, he doesn’t need to join Gordo in the reconstruction side of things, the rest of the Club want to do something to stop the rape and pillage of the Championship Points that he has been wreaking in recent times. About the only thing that prevented him from playing to his handicap was a sneaky little triple on the 10th. Ryan didn’t have any triples, but a couple of doubles in the home stretch possibly prevented him from matching Matt off the stick, but the handicap differential would have still resulted in the second placing that was his lot. SteveG managed to spray his drive on the 18th into the shrubbery, and, assuming it ‘lost’, he played another ball. He did not distinctly declare that he was playing a provisional. Thus, that ball became the one in play. As the group rounded the end of the greenery, there was the first ball sitting up as pretty as you like. In spite of a ten elsewhere on his card, Steve was able to play well enough to score a share of third. Raj was anxious to get away after the round to a very important basketball game, and he was one of several who played significantly better on the back than they did on the front. He helped his Eclectic with his birdie on the 11th, which was just one of the four that we scored for the day. JQ joined in with the merriment on the third podium step and is keeping the placings high enough to retain his spot on the top of the OOM, although Ryan and Brendon are back knocking on the door. John did have to deal with a complete stymie on the 7th, where his ball finished hard up against a tree between the root buttresses. The preferred lie did allow him some sort of a shot. Harry couldn’t really make a fist of it (figuratively and actually) on the front nine, and the score showed it. Things were not hugely better on the back, but a pair of pars on the final two holes added a modicum of respectability and bought him fourth place. Brendon smashed his drive on the second from the far-back tee down into the depths of the pine tree on the corner. With no chance of sensible relief from an unplayable, he took four shots to get it out for a clear shot. He did manage to avoid double figures, but only just. Still, he gladly took the point on offer for his seventy-eight.

The ProPin was set on the 4th to give everybody some chance from the black tees. As it turned out, that was to no avail, and nobody got within the circle, and there will be a jackpot to next week. On the 12th, for the first BallPin, SOS left himself with a pretty long putt, but it was close enough to win him the prize. Not only did he sink the long turning putt, but he called it from the moment it left the face of the club. On the 18th, Ryan put his ball to 11.1m, which was enough for him to take the goodies on offer. He made a putt, but didn’t put it in the hole. In fact, his second putt was taken from 11.5m after the first didn’t quite hold on the slope and ran back. He did manage the bogey, though.

The Birthday Birdie has been a little remiss in recent times. SteveG had one a little while ago. This week Wazza and Heath will have reason to celebrate. Harry is also looking forward to having another stroke to play with, in his quest to take fewer strokes than his age in a round, though, if today’s score is any guide, he will have to live to a fine old age to do so.

Results for Saturday, 01 Aug 2026
1st Matt Hunt (70) 2nd Ryan Porker (74) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (76) 3rd Rajesh Mahto (76) 3rd John Quinlan (76) 4th Harry Boughen (77) 5th Brendon Mitchell (78)

Seniors Results: 1st Matt Hunt (70) 2nd Steven Gervasoni (76) 3rd Harry Boughen (77)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Jackpot BallPin No 1 – 12th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 2 – 18th Ryan Porker

There was a certain amount of speculation last week as to whether a catchup of seven points was within the realms of possibility as that was the margin covering the likely eligible field after the first round. A delve into the Fount of All Knowledge (aka website Statistics menu) shows that it is, indeed, possible. Mehmet Akdag, managed to turn a nine point/stroke gap into a win in the 2012 Stuart Clarke Memorial. The next best catchup was six with a swag of contenders, so the conclusion is that seven might be pushing it a bit.

The Bureau promised a 30% chance of rain, but only small totals if any. Nalin was calculating the odds, and predicted that we would play 14 holes in the dry. There were a couple of mizzles before then, but the only significant (inconvenient) shower came after the fifteenth. The course was blessed with preferred lies, and that was much appreciated, as the mud was particularly tacky, and there were several reports of plugged balls, particularly around the greens. Thirteen members, and CJ’s mate Peter, took on the task of completing the second round of the Fred Howe Winter Cup (or not, as the case may be).

The scores today fell into two distinct groups, brilliant and below average. First, let’s have a look at the better half. The round of the day would have to go to that soft-handed surgeon, Dan, who absolutely blitzed the course to card a personal best of 77 off the stick for a massive forty-four points. Would that have been enough to snag a catchup gong if he had been in the running for the major? Unfortunately not, he would have had to be only four strokes behind the leader to have beaten the eventual winner.

Last week, our tipster-in-chief made a couple of prognostications. The first was that CJ could win. He failed on that count. The second was that, if CJ didn’t win, then SOS would. In that case, he got it just right. Rumour has it that SOS has been getting in some quiet coaching in recent times, and that seems to have stood him in good stead today. He managed a very commendable twenty-one points on the front nine, and, if it hadn’t been for a miss and a singleton on the back he could easily have challenged the heady heights attained by Dan. He did reckon that Pepsi and Matt were trying to put him off by chatting away while he was taking shots. His forty-one points propelled him to the top spot in the event, leaving all and sundry in the wake of his seventy-five overall. His winning margin of 12 strokes/points matched the equal best so far.

SOS was also ten clear of the next best scores of the day with the leaders of the below average group being Brendon, JQ and Nalin. However, Matt only needed twenty-seven points to secure himself second place and yet another first in the Seniors where he looks to be building up an unassailable lead. Brendon, JQ and Pepsi lobbed into third place with sixty-one points. Brendon and JQ did it with identical totals on both days while Pepsi suffered badly after five gashes on the trot on the back nine. He can’t blame to greens as he was saying how good they were after the round. CJ was threatening to give his clubs away after today’s performance, though it was suggested that it was probably the nut on the end of the shaft that was the problem. He’ll take the points going for fourth place, though. Raj and Rob finished out the points allocation. Rob was apparently helped on at least one occasion by a typical Priems tree-return-to-play.

The first BallPin was on the 7th, and Harry cracked a beauty that was right on line, but a couple metres short of repeating his previous moment of glory there. He didn’t make the birdie, and we could only come up with four for the day. Two of those were down to Nalin, who was testing out a new driver, which might need a little more work, although some shots were right up to standard. The ProPin on the 15th was a double Jackpot with lots of moolah on offer. JQ put in a valiant effort to just over four metres, but he was well outdone by Peter, who rocked in with 3.49m. CJ reckoned that the money should be his, as he put in the money to pay for Peter’s entry. Nalin scored the BallPin on the 18th, although Brendon reckoned that he would have had it, if not for the amount of backspin causing his to suck back too far.

Stan turned up for the barbeque, and he is looking and feeling well. He has been getting in a few holes at Heidelberg with some mates, and played a full nine yesterday. He reckons he will be back on deck in a week or two to show us how it is done. On the new club front, Ken has a new five wood, and rumour has it that he could be sleeping with it tonight, he loves it so much. Perhaps not the same feeling for his driver which alternated between smash and shank just about all day. He also managed a nice little chip in on the second to score himself a three pointer.

By the way, Stan has discovered a left-hand Ping three wood in his bag. If anybody is missing such a club, contact Stan, and he will happily return it.

Results for Saturday, 25 Jul 2026
1st Stephen O’Sullivan (34, 41, 75) 2nd Matt Hunt (36, 27, 63) 3rd Brendon Mitchell (30, 31, 61) 3rd Andrew Petricola (36, 25, 61) 3rd John Quinlan (30, 31, 61) 4th Chris Priems (33, 27, 60) 5th Rajesh Mahto (29, 27, 56) 5th Robert Priems (30, 26, 56)

Seniors Results: 1st Matt Hunt (36,27,63) 2nd Chris Priems (33,27,60) 3rd Robert Priems (30,26,56)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 15th Peter Stevens BallPin No 1 – 7th Harry Boughen BallPin No 2 – 18th Nalin Samaranayake