Monthly Archives: December 2012

Only seven players managed to make it to the manicured fairways of Ivanhoe to test their ability to keep their head down after the recent festivities.  Perhaps the early overcast put a few off and at least one had grandfatherly duties to attend to.  In any case the handicapper is viewing some of the results with a jaundiced eye.

Chrispy did pretty well with a mere 41 points and regarded it as a tune-up for next week where-as Craig would only reveal that his round was a ‘tuna’ – perhaps one that had been out of the fridge a little too long.  Dennis was also well pleased with his round of 42 points with 25 (yes twenty-five) on the back.  He was still complaining about not having a chance to win the inside comp however.

Ken was also there and is playing his cards close to his chest to try to build on his early burst out of the blocks in the Championship race.  Damo lost a bet on the last as to who in the following group would pick up and pocket the ball that he left lying just down the hill from the front of the green.  Ken eyed it with interest but resisted the temptation only to be detailed to pick it up by Damo.  Others might have told Damo where to get off.

Mike managed to leave the shanks at home and played to his handicap and might be considering the possibility of early points in the coming weeks.  Damo drove to the centre of the green on the 14th and went within a Michael-hair of sinking the putt for an eagle.  It looked in for all money until it reached the hole and then deflected to rim out.  Craig denies that his pin tending was at fault and at least Damo didn’t miss out on cleaning out the Eagle’s Nest.  One of the little known facts about Craig concerns his skills in all things computing – it seems he has this new app for paying for things on the net called PenPal.

Another hot topic was the things that put people off their game and that could come in handy when the Matchplay rounds come up.  The burning question is whether to publish or keep it for my own devious means or whether to auction the info on e-Bay.  Perhaps, I’ll just let it out a bit at a time or send it to Julian to publish on Wiki-Leaks.

The Christmas spirit has obviously had an effect.  We could only fill three groups and then only with the help of a couple of guests and despite the picture they didn’t include Santa.  Looks like the old fella’s putting style could do with a brush up and I’m not sure what the green-keeper will think about him tromping all over the edge of the cup.  And he doesn’t appear to be wearing sprigs.

There wasn’t a lot of interest in an informal comp from those that did play so how people actually went is a bit hard to guage.  Plus about four seem to have managed to get lost on the course or nicked off without calling into the Clubhouse. Dennis was insisting that as it wasn’t a formal event it should be ‘no names no pack-drill’ but he was complaining that he was going to lose handicap having returned +2 in the inside comp and it probably wouldn’t be enough to win anything.

Mike the Mann had a really bad case of the ‘shanks’ and managed to give just about every tree on the course some sort of attention.  He did manage to avoid the trees on the 12th, much to his relief.

Bill was trying to persuade his guest, Angelo, that it was a Club rule that guests were required to shout the field.  It also seems that Angelo was so consistently down the middle that Bill didn’t need to point out bunkers and hazards (after the event).

Nobody is sure how it happened, but Harry’s tee shot on the 18th hit the ground so hard that the club shaft struck him just below the knee and caused a nice little bruise and drew blood.

On the basis of the small numbers attending, the number of tee times booked for next week has been reduced to four.  If people can give an indication if they intend to turn up we might be able to squeeze in more.

The first official event for the new year will be the January Monthly Medal on  5th January.

How come some people manage to perform on days when their handicap won’t be affected?  Must be something to do with associating with bird-brains.  Regardless of the circumstances, a great round by Eddie with 81 off the stick and 64 nett was more than enough to snare the main trophy. And it included at least four double bogies.  Ed wasn’t entirely on his own with Oliver only two strokes behind in second place.

These were the only two to better the course with a veritable flock of ducks carding that popular number sixty-nine.  Purely for the sake of curiosity, Mehmet won from the bunch on a count-back.

As well as the Champion of Champions, there was an unofficial event for the Chump of Chumps.  Not sure how to determine the ‘winner’ of this one but on the basis of best nett, Tony scored with a nett 70.  Out of kindness, it won’t be mentioned who came in at the other end of the field

SOS managed to lob one onto the 12th to score a ball for Nearest the Pin but once again the ProPin on the 15th went begging so Double Jackpot for the next official round for the January Monthly Medal.  Lobbying to put it on next week was largely unsuccessful.  There’ll just have to be an unofficial one over the next couple of weeks.

There were a couple of unfamiliar faces on deck today.  Emilio was back to try to build on his early burst of form but the good food and fellowship in Italy and playing on a ‘flash’ course doesn’t seem to have done his game much good as he was well out of contention.

Club Life member, Neil Argall came along for the after gathering and lunch and reminisced about the good old days and helped out with the trophy presentations.

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Trevor hadn’t suffered any ill effects from his fall but it seems that his ankle was much the worse for wear as a result and so he only signed up for 9 holes and hobbled around for the love of the game.  He sprang up pretty lively though when Gordon presented him with his winnings from the Calcutta Auction.

The weather forecast was a bit ambivalent and things didn’t look too bad to start with but after about an hour it started to look as if we would have to call for the lights to be turned on.  And then came the rain – well sort of.  After a couple more holes, it started to brighten and the nervous glances at the sky after the one rumble of thunder soon made way for an appreciation of the lightening (and progressively more blue) sky.  Not sure whether the weather affected the scoring or not but Bill was being a bit erratic on the second and went close to cleaning up the group teeing off on the 5th.  Harry can’t really blame the close call for his score on the front nine but he did manage a fourteen stroke improvement on the back.  Pepsi also had his moments and was 3 under after seven but then, to quote, he lost the plot   Still, 71 off the stick is not too shabby at the end of the day.  Chrispee also had a few moments with a pretty badly shanked chip on one hole – a rare event.

The other item of note was the AGM and the presentation of trophies.  The Treasurer reported on the current state of the accounts and Chris leaves the Club with a good financial buffer that will be put to good use to benefit the members.  Chris expressed his appreciation for the holiday in Thailand, but not at all sure what he meant by that, and the gibes about fine payments are surely unfounded.  Pepsi also expressed his satisfaction at having been able to serve the Club as president over the last few years.  He also presented a token of appreciation to Rodger who has retired as Social Secretary and who is also going to concentrate on his new Club membership though he will still play with us from time to time.

The baton now passes to the new committee with Gordon as President and Mehmet as Vice-President.   The Turkish mafia is well represented with Ben taking on the role of Social Secretary.  David will continue as Secretary while Brendon will take over as Treasurer and will be assisted by SOS who will provide a Police escort for the voluminous Club funds.  Pepsi will be the Club Captain while Chris and Craig will team up to run the tee marshalling – volunteers welcome.  Harry will continue to run the handicapping and website.

For those taking a break over the Christmas period, have a great one and hopefully Santa will bring you all you could wish for.  For those keeping their swing in shape (if not their waist line) there are social events over the next couple of weeks and competitions will be ad hoc with no handicap penalties – unless of course it is on suspicion.

Well, as it turned out, the three point buffer from week 1 was more than enough and Bill was only able to claw back one stroke on the first entrant in this years Champion of Champions, Ken Grist.  Well done Ken on two fine rounds and welcome to your new handicap.  Trevor will be pleased with his investment.  Bill was philosophical about the result and spent some of his earnings by setting up a tab on the bar and then proceeded to twist people’s arms to have something on him.  The rest of the point scorers came from the Senior ranks as well except for Noodles who would have had an extraordinary round if he had been able to putt.  Mike Mann put in a blinder on the back nine with just four over the par including at least a double and a triple.

Ken also scored himself a ball on the 12th for the nearest the pin but the ProPin went begging on the 15th though there were a swag of birdies on the hole.  Must have been some monster putts sunk.  There was at least one memorable one that I can think of.  Laurie saved himself for the Clubhouse ProPin on the 18th but he was quite pessimistic about his chances of holding on having only won it the time he got a hole-in-one.  Or maybe it is just selective memory.  Our ProPin will be definitely worth winning next week.

We are wondering whether Rodger has been pinged for using two spaces in the main car park or is he just easing himself out of the Club by parking further away.  Tarcisio is a bit upset that he has been picked on in the blog over the last couple of weeks.  David got himself into the first group on the grounds that he had to go to his daughters dance class concert however it was also noticed that he didn’t exactly rush off after the round finished.

Craig has been having his fair share of troubles over the last few rounds and apparently he played the 13th via the 10th green, then flirted with a water hazard and then a tree.  Speaking of trees, Allan managed to collect three with the one shot after taking a drop off the 10th green from his tee shot on the 11th.  As an aside, Harry was on the green as well a couple of feet away.  Allan’s well struck blow ricocheted across the fairway to bounce off two more before finishing with not much of a back swing because of the third.  SOS managed to score a birdie today, but not the sort you might think.  A shot penetrated well into a tree and instead of the ball an unfortunate noisy miner fell to the ground.  SOS decided that it should be put out of its misery but from what I saw it was less than a clinical despatch.  Hopefully the Police Manual for dealing with the bad guys aims for a better outcome.

Next week is the final event for this calendar year, the Stuart Clarke Champion of Champions.  The plan is to squad all of the qualifiers together at the tail of the field and the also-rans and casuals will go off in front.  The groups of champions (in no particular order but Rodger’s group probably should be first of these and should be filled from casuals if there are vacancies) are:

• Noodles, Pepsi, Damo, Gordon
• Mike, Oliver, Chris, Bill
• Mo, Targe, Mehm, MalA
• Rodger, Emilio, Eddie, (Laurie to travel with Rodger)

I don’t beleve that I have missed anybody but if I have you can slot into any vacancies.

Results for Saturday, 01/08 December 2012
1st Ken Grist(128) 2nd Bill Eastoe(130) 3rd Mike Mann(137) 3rd Bob McDonald(137) 4th Stephen Butterfield(138) 5th Oliver Gross(139)