What happened out there today? OK, there was a hint of a chill in the air and there had been a hint of a sprinkling of rain, the wind was mostly benign with only a few gusts here and there, so what happened to the scoring? Although the field was reasonably small, presumably because everybody had headed off to Canberra to collect their Australia Day gongs, or something similar anyway, we could only manage four birdies between the lot of us. The event scores struggled as well with the only players suffering cuts being the joint winners, Keith and Pepsi who both fronted the judges with an exactly square card. Keith was looking pretty pleased about his first win since his come-back to the Club and he was keeping a firm grip on his winnings and his brand new Club Shirt which will be quite a change from the vintage one that he was wearing.
Bill and Noodles were the next two to front the judges just a point behind the winners and both left the odd point out there. Noodles is considering changing to yellow balls as about the only time he scored was when he was in the driving seat of the yellow peril.
Then came a veritable herd of players another stroke behind on -2. This elite group included Brendon, Targe, Mehmet, Eddie and Oliver. Oliver only made it into this group due to a small error in working out one of his hole scores. He was in a hurry to get away, but it does pay to check the hole by hole scores before you sign the card. This left Chrispy on his ownsome in fourth place although he did go on record as being a bit embarrassed to be getting points with that sort of a score. How then must MalF, MalA and RodG feel getting points with even fewer. And what about Harry and Laurie who were the only two that didn’t get points.
The other event for the day was the first of the Orange Ball Teams which ended up being a bit Irish as it was played with yellow balls. Oh well, can’t have everything. It is a bit unclear what caused the most confusion, how to play the coloured ball event or how the new GA handicap system was supposed to work. In the end, most seem to have got the hang of the event and the field was evenly divided on whether to score the event with both Par and Stableford points. One possible cause of confusion on the scoring front. Next week in the stroke event, you will definitely have to record Stableford scores on your card but you still have to play the hole right out for the purposes of the competition result.
Anyhow, despite all that, only two teams produced viable cards, the others either losing or OOBing balls both of which are equivalent and result in a NCR result. Between the two teams that did survive the distance, the winning score of -2 was carded by Team Eddie, ably assisted by Mehm, Oliver and Keith. One stroke behind, and good players out of luck, were Harry, Peps, MalA and Noodles. Noodles was wondering whether we could allocate points to the winning team members in a sort of Coloured Ball Championship. Hmmmm! have to think about that one and Brendon is having enough apoplectic fits about the finances as it is.
The Ball Nearest the Pin was on the 12th (and a thumbs down to the last group for not picking up either marker) where Harry eased Brendon out of the contest and this after Brendon made rude signs as he held up the following group while he put the marker on his spot. The ProPin on the 4th was collected by a yellow ball struck ever so delicately by Targe who even seemed a little surprised that he had won it.
First of all, there are some congratulations to Craig and his lovely wife who are now the proud owners of a bouncing baby girl named Dakota Rose. It has been suggested that Snags went through more pain than the mother but he seems to have settled into the fatherly role with ease and is goo-ing and gaa-ing like a seasoned performer. Well done the Sharps.
MalA was hitting the ball right on the button today. In particular, the button on Brendon’s electric buggy that was parked, with Brendon fairly adjacent so could have been worse, near the 14th green. The knob was broken and the shaft was bent so that no power could be applied and Brendon had to push for the rest of the round. It was lucky it wasn’t earlier in the round or the pain might have been even greater.
Pepsi kept making the point that he hadn’t picked up a club for four weeks and as a result he was a bit rusty. After a tee shot on the 13th that ‘should’ have been OOB and a second that ‘should’ have been in the lateral hazard, he still managed to par the hole. Laurie was another who made a valiant effort on the 16th when he was in the drivers seat for the Orange ball and managed to bring in a plus for the side only to be disappointed that it was to no avail as the ball had been OOB on the 14th and no longer in the competition.
Mehm and Ed had some sort of a discussion about whether to play a shot over trees and Ed’s advice was that Mehm should. As Mehm was taking his swing to attempt the shot (and could this be construed as taking advice?) Ed made the throw away comment that he would not try that sort of a shot. Keith’s reputation has apparently gotten around the ibis population on the course. Walking past a foraging ibis on the course, Chris made the comment that it should watch out as Keith was in the group behind with which the ibis looked startled and flew off never to be seen again. Maybe Keith can get rid of the fruit bats at Yarra Bend as well. Editor’s Note: no birds were injured in producing the ibis photographs in last weeks blog.
Don’t forget, subs are due. The new Club shirts are available. The matchplay draw will be made next week. It will be an all in affair. If you can’t play or can’t play within the deadline, it will be a walk-over for whoever draws you. There will be no extensions of time and no correspondence will be entered into.