The attraction of points for the Yellow Ball team must have been enough to get them out of their beds this morning as there was as fine a roll up as we have seen since before Christmas. We didn’t have to wait for Mehm as he was apparently off somewhere watching that other round ball game – no – not cricket – football!
Needless to say the family name was not let down as Zimmer managed to find some form and quite literally took the course apart and put it back together again producing his favourite number off the stick – 69 – for a total of +8. The handicap took a bit of a beating as a result but it is probably just getting back to where it should be based on form over the past few years.
It was probably down to pure chance, or the playing conditions improved as the day went on, but the cards were handed almost in reverse placement order and for a while there it looked as if a square card was going to be enough the take the cake. Then along came Ed. He strode in and confidently threw down the gauntlet along with his card and said “Beat that!”. And with a six point margin at that stage it appeared as if the confidence was well placed. Not to be, but it was enough to garner a second place and a goodly lot of points without the extra weight of being the winner.
Snags was also feeling pretty pleased with himself after his round of +5 but he seemed more than a little upset by the fact that the Team was on +3 going into the 17th when Pepsi stepped up and went for the green and promptly lost the ball thus cruelling their chances of the bonus points. Pepsi gets the feeling that he is going to hear about this for the rest of the year, if not longer. The 17th was something of a ‘black hole’ for yellow balls as at least one other went astray there and another two elsewhere on the course. So out of six starters, only two finished and the spoils went to Gordo, Targe, ChrisV and Noodles with a result of +2, which goes some way to explaining why Snags was so upset with Pepsi.
Championship points, actually, were pretty thin on the ground today as fourth place was also filled by a singleton in the person of Ryan who came in with +1 and so he seems to be managing his new handicap and maybe the change in grip really was a change for the better. Targe has asked that there be a correction and the secret to a good swing is to practice with small green grapefruit, not nectarines as reported last week, and he was hitting them from his back yard to the front and not over the neighbours fence. Whatever, it continues to work well for him and he came in with Noodles for 5th place. And this was with Noodles being distracted by, and distracting Targe with, his collection of texting friends. Some real beauties it seems.
Allan Davies joined us again and submitted his third card to reclaim a handicap after several years on the bench and the worst that the handicapper was able to do was to give him a 24 to start with but it will be interesting to see if he now suddenly finds form. We also has the pleasure of meeting up with Chrispy’s bro Robert who also used to be a member and who is planning to become a regular again. Welcome back Rob. Trevor called in at tee time to pass the time of year and is looking pretty good but he tells us that it will be a few weeks yet before the medicos will let him get back to his normal rigourous regime.
The ProPin was on the 12th today and the goodly sum in the bag as a result of the good attendance meant that Targe was looking pretty pleased with himself when his name stayed on the board with a shot that finished 2.5m from the hole. The Ball hole was the 15th and the competition was pretty fierce. Harry thought he had a chance but had just rolled off the green leaving it to RodG to get his name on the top of the card. The next change needed careful measuring but in the end it was to no avail when Ryan stepped up and took it away. That sort of accuracy seems to have paid off in birdies and there were a total of 19 carded for the day.
On the other birdie front (the Birthday Birdie that is), there are a couple of celebrations coming up. Targe’s brother Tony will be lighting up the candles during the week but, being the Luddite that he is, he won’t know about this mention unless Targe passes the message on. Keith also has one coming up and that will be next Saturday so if Keith is here try to remember to be specially nice to him for his Birthday.
Gordon and Targe had a bit of a tussle over the scorecards after the game and it took them quite a while to resolve the misunderstanding which arose from the differences between the scores on the inside and outside cards and the fact that there was not the same difference between the par points and the handicaps. Caused by the presence of a birdie is the simple explanation. Michael wasn’t too happy about his performance and was well outside his normal scoring range. Putting was the thing that let him down with one missed from less than 150mm, though to be half fair, he didn’t clean the ball and it had a lump of mud on the side. Just goes to show that you should never take things for granted. And here’s a bloke that was offering putting coaching only a few weeks ago.
The Matchplay will be coming up in a couple of months and the rules have been updated on the Rules/Club menu. In essence, you are encouraged to register on Event Registration/Matchplay Registration which will ensure you a place somewhere in the seedings. The matchplay qualification day will determine the position in the seedings below the reigning Champion (Snags). Those that register but do not play the qualification will fill places below those that do play and the balance of the seedings will be filled by byes. The draw will be filled from the seedings according to the pro-forma that is on the site at Competitions/2015 Matchplay. If you don’t register or play in the qualifying, you will not be in the competition. Please also note, the rules for arranging, playing and reporting of results, particularly for the person on the top of the draw in each match. Dates for each round are on Competitions/Calendar and there will be no extensions of time.
Results for Saturday, 17 January 2015
1st Kazim Akdag(+8) 2nd Ed Kloprogge(+6) 3rd Craig Sharp(+5) 4th Ryan Porker(+1) 5th Stephen Butterfield(□) 5th Targe Mifsud(□)