Monthly Archives: May 2015

Twenty-three brave souls went over the top and twenty-three souls came back though there were some who were wishing that maybe they hadn’t gone over the top.  But, despite the downcast faces on some, there were those who were smiling and those who could quite easily have done a bit better.  The air temperature started off a bit on the fresh side and the BOM had promised something of an icy blast but thankfully that seemed to have held off though the wind did start to get a bit flukey towards the end of the round.

Now, would you believe that Noodles was one of the ones that could/should have done better than he did?  Well, it seems that he did have a great chance, having taken a two stroke penalty for teeing outside the markers on the 7th and he still managed to gather a point on the hole.  He also managed three birdies and as there were only nine scored for the day he obviously made a fair fist of the rest of the round to rack up a grand total of 40 points.  Down, down, the handicaps are down!

Now that Ryan has finished with handicapping duties, for a little while at least, he is able to concentrate on his golf and did just that to great effect today.  Hopefully it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he was playing with and marking the card of Noodles but, in any case, 37 points was enough to get the points on offer for second place.  Just as an aside, Ryan made 22 points on the front and Noodles made 22 points on the back.

And, just to show that the young ones don’t have it all to themselves, Laurie and Harry played right to their handicap to come in third place with the regulation 36 points.  Harry blotted his copy-book on the 17th when his tee shot finished perilously close to the fence along the path by the river.  So much so that he had to play a ‘horizontal’ swing under the bottom bar to pop the shot back onto the fairway.  Despite that ‘good’ result he managed to end up with a gash after some very ordinary chipping and putting.

Pepsi put in a steady round with a couple of blemishes to card a still pretty handy 35 points and the man who will just not lie down (or go away) Stefan came in next on 34.  And, claims that he can’t play to his new handicap.  Sausage!

So, although the margin has narrowed slightly, Stefan still has a comfortable lead in the Championship table but he can be caught.  After Laurie and Harry, point getters in the Seniors today were Bob and Blighty but Gordon is still a bit in front in this competition.  Pepsi is leading in the Eclectic by a couple of strokes at this stage.  Looking at the colouration of the Eclectic table, it is obvious that the 17th is the most birdie-able hole followed not too far behind by the 14th.  With the recent dearth of birdies, the eagles nest is looking pretty secure and the nest egg is growing.  Almost worth winning these days.

There was one Matchplay quarter-final played today, the last of that round and Zimmer was able to dispose of Whitey without too much difficulty 3 and 2.  Zimmer took an early lead and, try as he might, Rod was never really able to put enough together to peg him back.  So, now it is down to four and just three of them will accumulate some points for their trouble.  Keep listening for more details of the forthcoming ‘Rumble in the Jungle’.

The nearest the Pin for a ball on the 4th seems to have been a no-contest as the first person to tee off on the hole put it to 1.6m just a bit past pin high and there it stayed for the rest of the day. So, one more ball to Harry’s collection.  The ProPin on the 15th was a bit more of a contest with a couple of names on the card but Eddie was victorious once again and collected the cash.  Not sure what it is, but Ed’s name seems to feature on the ProPin record an awful lot.  Maybe it is the smell of money that fires him up.

Now, for those of you who have been asleep for the last eight (and more) weeks, a trial of a competition known as the Ivanhoe Golf League has been running.  The rules, fixture, teams and results are posted on the web-site under the Competitions menu item.  Just this once, today’s results and the League Ladder are reproduced below.  Obviously, the more team members you have along, the more chance you have of getting the scores that count though that didn’t help the Magpies today as they had a full list and still went down to the Saints

Ivanhoe Golf League Weekly Results  As at Saturday, 30th May 2015

Ivanhoe Golf League Ladder  As at Saturday, 30th May 2015

There were some contrasting results off the tee today.  On the 13th, Stefan managed to drive his ball the full length of the fairway, going on 350m, the only minor problem being that it finished on the 10th.  But then Stef had the hide to suggest that he really should have had the courage to go over the hazard on the left to try for the green.  In contrast, there were two draughties today.  Taner had a few attempts as the day went on but he finally succeeded on the 17th while Blighty only had to wait until the 16th to achieve his landmark..  The effort obviously made Andrew hungry as he was tucking fiercely into a pie and sauce after the game with somebody’s lap-dog watching in anticipation of a drop of gravy or a few crumbs – all to no avail as it disappeared down the cake-hole.

Taner was minding his own business on the 17th watching the Beast play a shot when the ball was shanked something fierce and it whizzed past his head, not in any real way of a threat but close enough.  The errant ball then hit a tree and flew back, just missing Taner again on the rebound and came to rest almost a the feet of the Beast.  Now Bill did say that he was channeling Bubba Watson for some of his shots today but it seems highly unlikely that Bubba has ever played any remotely like some that came off Bill’s club.  Needless to say, the Beast did not feature high in the rankings today.

After having his recent form talked up in recent weeks, Mal seems to have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning and even went so far as to tell Gill that he didn’t think he was going to do too well today.  Talk about a good way to put the mockers on yourself.

Not sure whether Bob is supporting the Maglia Rosa in the Giro d’Italia or Breast Cancer Awareness Week, but he was seen sporting a very fetching pink mobile with an equally fetching pink and white flowered cover.  When asked to pose for a photo for the blog, the response could not be repeated in polite society.

Results for Saturday, 30 May 2015
1st Stephen Butterfield(40) 2nd Ryan Porker(37) 3rd Harry Boughen(36) 3rd Laurie Mannix(36) 4th Andrew Petricola(35) 5th Stefan Belevski(34)

Well, it seems that either people’s memories are short or they can’t count.  And it’s not the scores that are in question but the number of weeks in a row that the competition has been Par.  Estimates seemed to range from five to as high as seven (or maybe more).  But, hey, it’s not unusual to have multiples of the same competition in association with Majors and nobody seems to complain if it is three Stableford in a row.  However some people seem to revel in Par  Competition, just look at Stefan over the previous two weeks, particularly the first round of the David Ford.  If he can do it anyone can, well almost anyone!  Still, he managed to line up and collect another point today though everybody was expecting him to be out of contention for a while as had been reported last week.  The big day has been put off and in the meantime he wants to accumulate as many points as possible.  He can be caught though!

However, today’s stars of the course lined up like triplets with big smiles all round and big points onto the tally in the Championship Table.  Brendon’s attendance has been a bit erratic of late but he has still managed to rack up a reasonable total and CraigC has also been quietly putting them together and scored his second win for the season.  The good looking Priems boy, Robert, however got his points off to a flying start gathering the big eight for his first bite of the cherry.  No use messing around with small change, hey Robert?  All in all, +2 was pretty good scoring on a day that didn’t have much to offer on a course that was a bit wet in places after the recent rains and might even have been wet enough to warrant preferred lie on at least some of the fairways if not through the green.

A man who has been there or there-abouts in recent times is none other than Mal, who, after performing well in the David Ford, backed up again today to collect another lot of points in second place, all on his Pat Malone, with a very steady +1.  Mal has yet to get a top spot this year but if he can keep up his steady performance it won’t be too long before he lands the big one.

Noodles and ChrisV managed to play to their handicap for square cards in 3rd place.  Chris is freshly back from his honeymoon and has a certain spring in his step and a look in his eye but whether that is because of his keenness to get back into golf or for some other reason is a bit uncertain.  Noodles always has a keen look in his eye but sometimes it wanders from the task in hand or maybe that should be to the phone in hand.

JohnQ continues on his comeback to the club and managed to be the only one to report in with a score of -1 for the 4th place spot.  Fifth was very popular though and Mehmet, Stefan, Allan and SOS had to squeeze together onto the podium step to acknowledge the accolades.  At least nobody fell off, unlike at the soccer the other night.

The Nearest the Pin for a ball was on the 15th and for a while the green seemed intent on avoiding having a ball finish on it.  However, Ryan eventually managed to put one pretty close and collected a ball for his trouble as well as a birdie for the card.  This was one of only nine reported for the day which perhaps gives some idea of how the course was playing from a total of 21 starters.  There were only 20 finishers as Eddie withdrew after nine holes with a bad case of ‘pigeon fanciers back’ after a heavy night of erecting cages.  In the process, he also seems to have walked off with the tape measure for the ProPin which was on the 12th hole.  Allan, who was in the first group, fairly optimistically put his name on it at 8m but once again Ryan was the man to beat and he collected the money as well.  So, a couple of highlights for the Assistant Handicapper in a day that he might otherwise prefer to forget.

The field in the Ivanhoe Golf League is starting to spread out a bit with Brendon and CraigC (+4) scoring for the Tigers over Noodles and SOS (-2) for the Saints.  ChrisV and Robert (+2) led the Blues to victory over Ryan and Mal (-6) for the Magpies.  Then, there was a first for the season, with a draw between the Bulldogs (Mehm and Allan -4) and the Hawks (Gordon and JohnQ -4).

Targe has a birthday coming up this week and the Birthday Birdie wishes him a happy day, which might be a bit of a contrast to today, though Targe did opine that he was out as much for the exercise as he was for the golf.  He also advised that he is about to retire – from work, not golf – and that things would be a bit different for him from then on though he didn’t elaborate on how this would be so.

Mehm was spotted with his ball placed nicely behind a tree by the 10th green and he asked for a report on the crap golf that he was playing.  The result of the shot that he played was probably as good as you could ask for given the lie and location and the golf can’t have been too crap given that he ended in the points.  Mal was also complaining about not having done too well and wishing for one last decent shot on the 18th at which he proceeded to chip the ball into the hole out of the rough to square the hole which was certainly a bonus as far as the points went.

Allan didn’t start the day too well having had a fairly spectacular draughtie on the first hole.  It didn’t seem to faze him though as he cheerfully shouted the remainder of the group a coffee after the round and recovered enough aplomb to also get into the points tally.  He also reckons that his optimistically claimed shot on the 12th was his best shot of the day.

ChrisP was well down the field, though not quite last, as he reckoned he would be when he handed in his card.  He was playing under some difficulty though as he suffered a significant eye injury at work during the week and some resultant time off.  He described the feeling for some time afterwards as if somebody was gouging his eye with a shard of broken glass.  Not sure how he knows what that feels like unless it is a relic of bar-room brawls past.

Gordon started off like the champion that he is but it seems that he needed a packet of Strepsils or Butter Menthols on the back nine to try to relieve that choking feeling.  Brendon obviously wasn’t hampered by having to tow his buggy as his fancy machine is off the course.  Not due to any misadventure with errant golf balls but merely due to a simple mechanical failure that seems to be a common feature of these infernal machines.

Rest assured that there are no Par competitions at least for a couple of weeks but the next one will be a Yellow Ball Teams and SOS has a goodly supply of said yellow balls in anticipation.  Questions were asked about the Three Club Challenge and a quick check of the Calendar shows that that does not come around until August so plenty of time to decide on which three clubs you will choose to be challenged with.

Results for Saturday, 23 May 2015
1st Craig Cameron(+2) 1st Brendon Mitchell(+2) 1st Robert Priems(+2) 2nd Malcolm Fleming(+1) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(□) 3rd Chris Vinecombe(□) 4th John Quinlan(-1) 5th Mehmet Akdag(-2) 5th Stefan Belevski(-2) 5th Allan Davies(-2) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(-2)

The results are in and after a healthy lead from most of the field Stefan held his nerve to finish on top of the leaderboard in the David Ford Autumn Cup to take the trophy by a single point. With a round of -2 for the day Stefan finished on +2 for the tournament, marginally in front of Bob who put in a consistent effort to finish with +1 after a round of -1.

Valuable points for all, Stefan now holds a healthy lead in first place in the 2015 championship, although some time off over the next few weeks will mean there is still hope for the rest of us. Good luck for the OP Stef!

Ryan ended up in third place on square after going around in +3 after being in 9th place after the first round. A further point back in equal 4th place was Bill and Mal who handed in second round score cards of -1 and square respectively. The final point(s) goes to Chris Priems with a round of +2 and overall score of -2.

It was a healthy turn up with 20 players taking part; could have something to do with the sunny weather (or free feed). Only 11 birdies were scored on the day and we’ve had no eagles for a few weeks now. Although not by a lack of trying. Rumour has it that Alan managed to hit the ball without the ball moving from its initial position, he may have been offering coaching tips for anyone who is interested in learning his technique. Whitey was also doing the unorthodox, cracking his putter off the deck further than he hits his 3 iron.

There were 2 matchplay games today, Mehmet and Johnny Q fighting it out in the first. After being close all day and the lead changing multiple times, John came out on top being 1 up after 18 holes. Mehmet was claiming he didn’t care about the result as he had beaten Pepsi in an earlier matchplay game and was content with that. It wasn’t all good news for Stefan as he was beaten by David H, 2 up (Talk about David beating Goliath). Only 5 players left, with David to play John Q for a place in the final and Craig S to play the winner out of Whitey and Zimmer.

Round 6 of the IGL matches today were between Bulldogs (-3) and Tigers (-5) with the doggies coming out on top.  Blues (+3) defeated to Saints (-6) and the Magpies (+3) defeated the Hawks (-4). 

Happy birthday to Gordon for this week by the way and Chris V was back after his honeymoon, managing to escape injury free unlike the last honeymooner (Priemsy?).

Results for Saturday, 16 May 2015
1st Stefan Belevski(+4, -2, +2) 2nd Bob McDonald(+2, -1, +1) 3rd Ryan Porker(-3, +3, 0) 4th Bill Eastoe(0,-1, -1) 4th Malcolm Fleming(-1, □, -1) 5th Chris Priems(-4, +2, -2) 

Round 1 of the Autumn Cup has come and gone and once again Stefan (Driverman) is leading up front after a stunning round of +4 and 67 off the stick, leaving the remaining 22 players who played with some catching up to do.  There were a few miscalculations in some of the score sheets today so the results are a little different to what was mentioned on the day, it seems adding up 1’s and zero’s can prove quite the challenge.

Running in second place in the standings is Bob with +2. Equal in third are Gordan, Damo and Bill who is back after a few weeks off and put in his best performance since gaining some tips from the Ryder Cup a while back. There were only 13 birdies today, a bit over 1 for every second person. Conditions overall were pretty good although some blustery wind could have contributed to some of the poorer scores on the day (Your still in with a chance Mehmet, only 12 points back).

Rounding out the provisional placing’s is Craig Sharp and Mal Fleming on -1 and Ed on -2. The trophy will be up for grabs next week, let’s see who can rope Stefan back from his early lead.

A couple of results in the Match Play today with  Noodles losing to Sharpy, 4 and 2. Craig held an early lead and held on comfortably for the rest of the round. The other result went the way of David Howard after Michael pulled out after 4 holes due to injury.

Round 5 of the IGL matches today were between Tigers (+4 and -1) and Blues (-4 and-7) with Tigers coming out on top.  Bulldogs (0 and-1) lost to Magpies (+2 and 0) for the pies first win for the year and the Sainters (-6 and-7) lost to Hawks (0 and -5). Apologies the IGL ladder has not updated correctly, Harry will have to sort it out when he gets back from overseas.

Round 2 of the David Ford Cup next week, good luck all!

Results for Saturday, 09  May 2015
1st Stefan Belevski (+4) 2nd Bob McDonald (+2) 3rd Gordon Hill (0), Damien Lee (0), Bill Eastoe (0) 4th Craig Sharp (-1), Malcolm Fleming (-1)  5th Ed Kloprogge (-2)