I think we are going ot have to declare the eagle an endangered species what with all the raids on the poor old bird’s nest. One last week, two this week. The two this week went to Chris who virtually slam dunked his on the 3rd while Damo’s was never in doubt as it rolled up the green to fall in the hole on the 11th. According to the Club Rules the single ball in the nest should have gone to Chris having scored his earlier in the round, but an executive decision determined that both would be paid. Well done chaps and as a result the Nest is back to one egg for next week.
The course was in pretty good nick considering the lack of rain recently and the management had obviously done some serious watering and the greens had been mown so it is not surprising that some good scores were turned in. The king of the castle this week was SOS with 39 points which will set his handicap back just a tad. The fact that his card was marked by his mate from the Academy, Andrew, caused some questions to be asked. Andrew Costello might be joining us and will be putting his cards in but it does depend on whether he gets posted to the bush or not when the postings come out. Mehm is probably hoping that it is SOS who gets posted to the bush.
Targe was hoping to get his handicap down to match his brother but was foiled by a card with three gashes that still managed to accumulate 38 points. Targe almost didn’t get to complete the round when his talking GPS insisted in telling the group that they were on the green while Craig was putting. Oliver, Rod, Trevor and Damien were not too far behind on 37. All had their excuses but Damo was testing a new driver and after about three holes, steam was seen coming out of his ears as he struggled to keep to his own fairway. He calmed down by the back nine and managed to pull together a reasonable score (helped by the eagle of course).
Mehm, Harry and Gordon didn’t do their handicap any good or any harm by coming in on 36 points and the last of the championship points went to Mal Adey who absolutely burned up the back nine for 24 points after taking Damo’s advice to ‘play better’.
The ball for the nearest the pin and the ProPin went to the same golfer, Targe Mahal – the eighth wonder of the world – according to Targe anyway.
Bill was standing next to Harry before some long putts on the 11th and commented that one of these putts is going to go in. Harry proceeded to sink the putt for the birdie. Unfortunately Bill just lipped the cup and had to settle for the par. Speaking of birdies, besides the two eagles there were a total of 19 carded today. That’s just about as many as I can recall since I’ve been paying attention to it.
Tony seems to think that he has some sort of magic powers because (according to him at least) somebody in his group always has a good round. Maybe that’s just relative. There were also a couple of ‘near misses’ reported today, some of which had a call, some of which didn’t. Although a call might not necessarily prevent a strike, it’s not much of an effort really.
Ken still seems to be intent on leaving a ball up a tree somewhere with another effort today. Another player had some tree ‘difficulties’ managing to tangle with three on the third before almost slam-dunking it into the hole for his par. Well done Pepsi. Although Chris and Mehmet played in the same group you would never have guessed since Chris wasn’t held up but Mehm had to wait for every shot.
Speaking of speed of play, it is recommended that you do keep up with the group in front and if there is a fairway free in front you should consider letting groups behind through. Playing ‘ready’ golf can have a remarkable effect in speeding up the play. On the other hand, if the group in front has their running shoes on, it can be off-putting trying to hurry your game.
There was another case today for checking scores hole by hole although this week it did not affect potential point-scorers. This involved different score recording as well as point calculation errors that disguised the discrepancy when only the card totals were compared. As the player signed for more strokes, those strokes stand and the points were adjusted accordingly. If the strokes signed for had been less, then, theoretically, the person could be disqualified from the competition. That could be embarrassing if it was someone in the winners circle.
Quite a number of people ante’d up their annual sub today and Brendon will be only too happy to collect the rest at your earliest convenience. Also don’t forget to let Ben know your thoughts on the Murray Downs venue for the Annual Challenge.
Results for Saturday, 19 January 2013
1st Stephen O’Sullivan(39) 2nd Targe Mifsud(38) 3rd Rod Grant(37) 3rd Oliver Gross(37) 3rd Trevor Jackson(37) 3rd Damien Lee(37) 4th Mehmet Akdag(36) 4th Harry Boughen(36) 4th Gordon Hill(36) 5th Malcolm Adey(35)