Wowsers! The competition out on the course today was almost as hot as the temperature was yesterday. Thank goodness for the cool change – even if it was a dry one. Speaking of dry, I gather from the ground staff that the river is reaching restriction levels for pumping and so I think we can expect to see the fairways getting a lot drier especially with some more scorchers predicted for the next week or so. Certainly the drier conditions brings the run along the ground back into play. Though, it was noticed that the 10th green today was verging on becoming a water hazard. A couple of weeks ago they had to come and sweep the water off – perhaps a bit unfair on those who had already come through and had to deal with it.
As far as Mike the Mann is concerned, the ‘shanks’ are well and truly forgotten and he mostly played like a demon today. I seem to recall that he got a mention in despatches last week as a man on a mission. Except – a rather unfortunate triple on the 6th and a couple of other slips of the club let the sharpster, Craig through to breast (or should that be stomach) the winning post. Still and all, the 60 and 61 nett that they carded will keep the handicapper happy and the points will go some way to narrowing the gap on Ken.
Bob continues to enjoy a bit of a purple patch and if he can keep from playing for the cover drives could end up being a force to contend with as the year progresses. Tony is so short of balls that he was psyching himself up on any par 3 that might have a ball riding on the outcome and he was grinning like the cat that got the cream when the ball run stretched to fourth place. Brendon and Chrispy rounded out the point getters, just edging out Mal and Harry from opening their scoring for the year.
The big biccies for the jackpotted ProPin on the 15th went off to none other than ex-pres Pepsi who put it just inside 4.5m. So there wasn’t an awful lot between that and another jackpot. Damien had to console wimself with a ball for the NTP on the 12th. There were eight birdies plodded today, down a bit on normal. And, as an aside, one player wrote down an incorrect handicap and his score has been adjusted to suit. It pays to check the sheet, despite what you might think, your handicap does change from time to time – in both directions.
Ken is philosophical about his handicap after his win in the Vin O’Meara last month and seems to be keeping himself amused by pulling off impossible shots. It seems that this week he ran a ball up the trunk of a tree and lodged it in the fork. A lindrum was his only chance of being able to play it.
Mal should have been up there with the front runners except for some errant play on the 13th. Mal is well known for a fairly consistent fade/slice but for twice, it didn’t come into play and he put two OOB on the 13th and ended up legs eleven on the hole. Give him a five and he would have been equal second.
A couple of players also had the in-coming Treasurer cowering behind a tree as he came up the 10th. At least he was able to spot Tony’s ball where it rolled into the hazard. SOS also had a fair amount of strife with the greenery so it is told. Pepsi claimed to be playing Army golf – left, right, left, right… And I think that somebody must have mentioned Julia to Dennis and distracted him so much that he couldn’t find his ball on the 6th. He chose not to replay because of the congestion behind us.
Speaking of which, there were definitely six spots booked last weekend but it seems that during the week somebody looked at an old attendance sheet and decided that based on that we didn’t need that many places and cancelled a couple.
Results for Saturday, 05 January 2013
1st Craig Sharp(60) 2nd Mike Mann(61) 3rd Bob McDonald(63) 4th Tony Mifsud(65) 5th Brendon Mitchell(66) 5th Chris Priems(66)