Where we are!
There was a cast of thousands on 01 August 2020.
It was a pretty special day that dawned this morning. The Perseverance rover was on its way to Mars, the astronauts were preparing to take their chances in coming back to Earth in the Endeavour and Chrispy was lining up for his thousandth game at Ivanhoe and for the matchplay of his life against the young fellah, Jake. There were congratulations all round and a nice little hip-flask and badge were prepared to mark the occasion. Whether the flask was full or empty is yet to be determined.
After a certain amount of wheedling by the GOATee marshal and others, we had the OK to squeeze in a couple of extra groups and, as first light approached, there was much searching around for the tee markers for the first hole. It wasn’t that the ground staff had forgotten to put them out, it was just that they were on a previously unknown teeing area over towards the 10th tee. This certainly changed the character of the first hole and could go some way to explaining why Daniel ended up playing his second shot from out on the 13th fairway. Fortunately, our two fearless leaders for the day, Bill and Ben, managed to spot their shots and we were off to a good start. It wasn’t actually a cast of thousands but a total of 26 players was a pretty good impression.
With nothing that could be called rainfall for over a week, the course has dried out more than somewhat and the greens were rated to be a bit on the faster side of recent. These conditions obviously suited a couple of members and the judges had to lay out the Welcome Matt. Now, if this had been an actual Monthly medal and we had played Stroke, there would have had to be a count-back to decide the winner. And, in that case, MattH would have won the medal. As it is, MattH and MattA will just have to fight over dividing the spoils, unless, of course, Noodles does the right thing and divvies it up for them.
The Beast obviously liked the early start and fairly took the front nine apart to turn with twenty-two points. The back nine was not nearly so productive though there were quite a few chances left begging to bring home the final total of 38 points. Peter was not quite so early a starter but he also reveled in the conditions to also post 22 on the front. His back was a little more disappointing and he just managed to play to his handicap with 36 points. Twenty-two was obviously a popular score as Gordon also managed to repeat Peter’s combination to join him on the 3rd spot. He blames Targe saying how well he was playing at the turn for his decline in performance on the back. Brent, on the other hand, did it the other way around with fourteen on the front and twenty-two on the back.
Mr Onagain Offagain, Stef, was just the one point behind with a fair chance that there were a few left out on the course. Mark continues to play nice consistent golf and continues to hint that it will not be long before he lines up for the big time. Brendon, as usual, played his measured game and reckons he would have done better if he hadn’t collected one of the barrier stakes in front of the 10th green full flush with his approach shot. Porks went uncharacteristically astray on the 14th and could easily have done better. Blighty and Jake rounded out the field of non-point getters.
Jake was also heavily involved in the family match in the Matchplay competition against father, Chris. Now, let it be known that Chris had to concede 17 strokes to Jake. Because, Chris certainly did. The match was pretty even for all of six holes. Then Jake woke up to the fact that all he had to do was play it safe and let Dad make the mistakes. Which he did for six holes in a row. A square gave a slight glimmer of hope for Chris but a loss on the 15th sealed the deal and Chrispy had to admit defeat 6 and 5. After that, Chris played better and Jake’s game went off, wouldn’t you know it. Now for the semi-finals where Jake has to meet up with Dave and there will be the battle of the Andrews (No, not Dan!).
The ProPin today was on the 12th hole and Ben and Harry both had hopes of having a little extra to help celebrate their forthcoming birthdays. Harry disappointed Ben by carving close on a metre off the separation from the hole, only to be disappointed in turn by Dennis who managed to halve, almost exactly, Harry’s distance with a shot to 1.91m. Harry, at least, managed to sink the putt for the birdie, which is more than can be said for the other two, and added to the rather small tally of seven from what was a fairly large field. Harry also managed to get onto the 18th (just) for the BallPin only to be foiled by Stef who got within a few metres on a green that scored very few ‘hits’ for the day. The slope up from the lower deck to the upper was taking no prisoners and there was at least one case of three attempts to scale the heights and quite a number of doubles.
Chrispy doesn’t know his own strength. Or maybe he can blame to ball for his Matchplay loss but on one tee shot, the ball he was playing with ‘exploded’ and broke in half. Power or crap golf ball? Make up your own mind! In playing the 6th hole, Noodles managed to play shots from three different teeing areas including the actual 6th tee. Rob’s tee shot on the 16th finished about 300mm from a VW parked in the adjacent car park. Dennis and Jason were playing very social golf, consistently placing their golf balls in the same general area, including on the 15th where they both scored draughties. Our birdie total could have been much higher if Brent had made the seven that he putted for, instead of only one.
Targe was having trouble with shanking the ball on the front nine. It turns out that he was having trouble with his glasses fogging up due to his mask and so he wasn’t wearing them. When he put his glasses on later in the round, the shanks went away. JQ wasn’t shanking them, at least not on the fairway, but he did manage to rack up thirteen putts on the first four holes. As Chrispy trudged despondently up the hill after being bundled out of the Matchplay, he reckoned that he felt like he had just played every bit of a thousand rounds of golf. In a similar vein, Daniel reckons he will stay off the grog on Fridays in future as he struggled to score points and trailed in to bring up the rear of the field.
Results for Saturday, 01 August 2020
1st Matthew Aforozis(41) 1st Matt Hunt(41) 2nd Bill Eastoe(38) 3rd Peter Damou(36) 3rd Gordon Hill(36) 3rd Brent Rowley(36) 4th Stefan Belevski(35) 4th Mark Minney(35) 4th Brendon Mitchell(35) 4th Ryan Porker(35) 5th Andrew Blight(33) 5th Jake Priems(33)
Seniors Results: 1st Bill Eastoe (38) 2nd Gordon Hill (36) 3rd Andrew Blight (33)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin12th Dennis Ward BallPin No 1 18th Stefan Belevski BallPin No 2 – No contest