Monthly Archives: January 2016

Well, what a turn out for the first round of the New Year.  Speaking of which, Happy New Year to all members and, of course, not forgetting their families and loved ones.  There were twenty players gracing the course today, and that included DennisT who has a bit of a respite from his duties at the Darklands and Bobbie’s son Mick who is planning to make a comeback from time to time.  Dennis was well pleased with his performance after his extended time away from the clubs and Mick was all smiles as well with what he reckons was a personal best result.  Keep up the good work Mick, and the new healthy lifestyle will pay off big time.

But, it was the man who spent the morning with Macca(s) who managed to prevail over the rest of the field to collect his second Medal in a remarkably short space of time as a member, and that was the other Dennis.  A fairly sizzling 62 nett from a card that included a sprinkling of double bogie holes was a performance that deserved some attention from the handicapper and Dennis will have to work a little harder now to emulate today’s performance.  Gordo reckons that Dennis’s clubs are as old as Mal but Dennis is adamant that while they are working as well as they did today, he has no plans to upgrade to more modern kit.  Be that as it may, just imagine what might be possible with some modern engineering instead of hickory and persimmon.

Noodles would have been quite justified in thinking that he was in with a chance with his card of three over, off the stick, for a nett 63 but he will have to be happy with his ball and the five points for second place.  At least the handicap didn’t take too much of a battering as a result.  Chrispy was also hopeful that his card would do the trick but he will have to be satisfied with his ball and points.

Mehmet claims that he would have played better if he hadn’t had to play with Pepsi and SOS and also that this year he is going to be runner-up in the Championship without coming first or second and that today was the first shot in that campaign.  Good luck with that one Mehm.  Still fifty times two points would give you 100 which would be a winner most years.  Gordy was Club-house leader for quite a while and there were some thoughts that his 65 might be enough to take out the trophy but as you can see that was not the case.

But, there was quite a gap of daylight to the 5th place-getter and that was Targe who graced the podium with a card carrying a nett score of 70.  As for the rest, less said, best.

Harking back to the runner-up in last year’s Championship, President Pepsi presented Mehm with his trophy since Mehm wasn’t able to be present on the day to collect his loot.  Well done Mehmet, more shiny stuff for the games room.

Being so early in the season there plenty of moves on the Eclectic and the major position changes were as much due to members not being here rather than out-standing performances.  Pepsi has moved to the top of the table (again) but there are plenty of contenders within a stroke or two and most of the year untouched.  We managed to put in 13 birdies today which, given the pretty low scores from the first four placings, probably wasn’t a huge number.  Pepsi, got close enough on the 4th to take out the Nearest the Pin for a ball.  However there was no name on the card on the 18th for the ProPin and so that will Jackpot for next week.  Blighty did claim to be only 5.01m away but I’m afraid that near enough is not quite good enough.

Speaking of near enough.  This was the position of Mal’s second shot on the 17th.  Very close to a slam-dunk for an eagle (note position of pitch mark) and an easy tap-in for the birdie.  It would have been only one ball though, so not really worth the extra effort of trying to do it.

Harry was bemoaning the fact that he had six pars on his card but languished at the tail end of the field.  Perhaps it had something to do with the draughtie that was almost an airie on the second followed by several duffs and shanks that took him across to the vicinity of the 5th green on his way to completing the hole.  Perhaps it had something to do with a courageous (or foolhardy) attempt to play out of the 13th hazard that resulted in two lots of penalty strokes as well as the wasted shot.  Still, he wasn’t alone on the draughtie front, as Blighty managed one on the 17th.  And, he wasn’t alone in the shanking department either.  Apparently, Zimmer managed a ‘power’ shank from the tee on the 12th and he was joined soon after by Pepsi who managed quite a spectacular result from the same tee.

The staff photographer managed to capture some of the drama of this little episode with a shot from the 11th fairway looking towards the 12th green showing the position of the ball and a fairly dejected looking Pepsi plodding has way to take his next shot.  Such a shout went up after the famous shot that Chrispy was convinced that there must have been a Hole-in-One and he was quite prepared to start handing out congratulations.  Despite the kick in the guts, Pepsi still managed to card a four for the hole.

Hand-outs of a different sort came from Targe who went to great lengths to explain his technique for setting up for putts which seems to stand him is good stead, at least some of the time.  After demonstrating the method, with explanations, he proceeded to miss the hole.  Fortunately, this was after the hole had been completed and Targe’s excuse was that he was distracted by having to explain what he was doing.  Don’t give up your day job, Targe.

As mentioned before, Mick played a good round and it was noticed that his fingers were heavily bedecked with rings and his arms with bracelets.  Maybe the extra weight helped him with his swing.

The annual subscription for the Club and VGL (GolfLink) is now due and payment, sooner rather than later, would be appreciated as we would like to get this matter finalised as soon as possible.  Anybody not paid up by the beginning of March will be de-listed and ineligible for Competition.  Bank transfer is preferred (account details under the Contacts main menu item).  Members who are, or who want to be, Home Club members with us will be up for $110 while those who are non-home members or who do not wish to be VGL members will be up for $20.

Results for Saturday, 02 January 2016
1st Dennis Ward(62) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(63) 3rd Chris Priems(64) 4th Mehmet Akdag(65) 4th Gordon Hill(65) 5th Targe Mifsud(70)

Seniors Results: 1st Dennis Ward (62) 2nd Gordon Hill (65) 3rd Targe Mifsud (70)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 18th Jackpot BallPin 4th Andrew Petricola