Monthly Archives: June 2019

Of the twenty one members who turned up today, you would reckon that the one that you could trust would be a copper. But no, when entrusted with putting out the Nearest the Pin markers, Matt wasn’t able to get just about anything right although not all of it might have been his fault. The Grand Pooh Bah swears that he labelled the containers according to his selection but that did not reflect what was delivered to Matt’s ‘safe’ hands. So, there was no BallPin on the 7th, as many expected, and the ProPin was forgotten at the 15th. But more of that later. The day was overcast and calm, the course had softened a little as a result of the recent rain and there was little reason why scoring should not have been good, if not easy.

As it turned out, the goodest that anybody could do was to play to their handicap and the man that was able to do that, despite taking a few cuts in recent weeks was our Pepsi who managed to do the round in three over the course par, exactly matching his handicap to take out the June Monthly Medal. Pepsi has been steadily working his way up the Championship Table and if he can keep up this run of form he could be right in the thick of it by the end of the year.

The next cab off the rank was filled by Mehmet who made a big thing of the fact that he has not played much in recent times and that talent will show through despite the lack of practice. Dale joined Mehm on the podium and could be forgiven for being a bit crooked on Chrispy for potentially costing him the medal. It seems that Dale was putting for an almost certain birdie on the 4th when Chris dropped his ball, that finished near to the hole, at a critical stage of the back-swing. The missed putt avoided the need for a count-back, which, as it turned out, Dale would have lost anyway but the extra points would have been nice. Thanks Chrispy – not.

JQ came in next after a very steady round with nothing great but nothing disastrous either. This probably stood him in good stead as he was locked in serious battle with Ben in their quarter final match. The match was close to being an off-the-stick affair with only three strokes to be given. A very even start was followed by a bit of a surge from Ben and he gained a fairly handy lead of two up after five holes. Something of a slump in the middle third swung the match into JQ’s favour but Ben managed to sink some 10m putts to win the ‘unwinnable’ holes and at the 16th he had a slight advantage on the card.

Then came the 17th. Faced with a side-hill pitch across the penalty area to the green, Ben put the first into the water. Then the second. Then the third. After seven balls in the water, he hit out sideways and carded a 19 for the hole. This leaves intact, for the time being, Mehmet’s record of 22 strokes on the same hole. Needless to say, Ben lost the hole and the match went to the 18th all square. Both were on the green but Ben needed three putts while JQ needed only two and so the match went JQ’s way, 1 up.

Noodles and ‘Forgetful’ both scored 73 to take home fourth place. Noodles didn’t seem too happy about his lot after nearly being taken out by incoming as he trudged up the 13th while playing the 10th. Would have put him out of his misery he reckoned. A broken club, for unspecified reasons, would probably not have helped either. Harry, Adam and Bob managed to get a point apiece for their 74s. Bob put his second into the penalty area on the left of the 13th and had a blind shot over the trees for his trouble. No trouble for Bobbie though as he put it onto the green not far from the pin for an easy putt and a very respectable five.

Now, back to the Nearest the Pin competitions. The BallPin on the 12th, which might or might not have been in the right place, was a hard fought battle that was eventually taken out by Ken. He made the birdie, and in doing so he scored 20% of the total for the day. The BallPin on the 18th was in its correct place but it ended up being controversial because of a decision to ‘separate’ this event from the deferred ProPin. Long story, short version, Bob collected the ball. The ProPin went to Ben with a shot to about 4m and that probably went some way to compensating for the cost of balls on the 17th (and the loss of the match).

David wasn’t present today so the Birthday Birdie will have to flutter off to wish him one of the best for today.

The Priems boys sure know how to look after one another. Chrispy managed to score himself a draughtie on the second despite the white markers being not too far back on the dam(n) wall. Just so that he didn’t feel too bad about having to shout, Rob lined up on the third and returned the favour. Peter had a fair bit of strife with the trees today. And it started early. Approaching the 1st green from just through the tree line on the 10th, Peter got the spotted gum square and almost took his own head off as the ball whizzed back further out into the middle of the 10th. The next shot caught the same tree, though not quite as flush this time. The miscellaneous other stymies and ball between roots don’t bear mentioning.

Allan and Thunderbird were spotted a bit off track and in the depression to the right of the 9th tee rather than on the path provided. Allan’s story was that there are sometimes frogs in there and he thought he might find some. It would probably help if there was actually water in the ‘pond’. Chrispy still reckons that we should consider cutting the round back to eleven holes. However, this week, he wants it to be the last eleven holes. Maybe we should just settle on the eleven best and be done with it.

Blighty was back on deck today looking pretty hale and hearty after the little scare of a few weeks back. Michael has reported that his knee is giving him curry and it is likely to be a few weeks yet before he starts his tilt at toppling the Seniors leaderboard.

Results for Saturday, 01 June 2019
1st Andrew Petricola(68) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(69) 2nd Dale Webb(69) 3rd John Quinlan(71) 4th Stephen Butterfield(73) 4th Matt Hunt(73) 5th Harry Boughen(74) 5th Adam King(74) 5th Bob McDonald(74)

Seniors Results: 1st Bob McDonald (74) 1st Harry Boughen (74) 2nd Allan Davies (76) 2nd Andrew Blight (76) 3rd Targe Mifsud (82)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin18th Ben Akdag BallPin No 1 12th Ken Watson BallPin No 2 18th Bob McDonald