Perhaps it was all the chocolate that was consumed over the Easter break or maybe the school holidays kept a few away but we could only muster 18 players on what was a really magnificent day for playing the beautiful game. The sun was shining and the wasps were out in numbers and according to all reports there were some fine golf shots played.
Trevor turned up with his waist pinched in almost as fine as Ryans thanks to his new back support system and it certainly seems to have kept him pretty well on the straight and narrow. Except for one occasion when he showed his support for the West Indies Cricket Team and that caused him to force himself to buy drinks for his group after the round.
He didn’t have it all his own way though as there were three others champing on the bit in the Clubhouse and working through the machinations of first and second stage count-backs but to no avail as Trevor ended up doing it easily, carding a nett 32 on the back nine to beat out Michael and Chrispy, who could only manage 32.5, and Harry, who was a bit further back with 33.5. Playing exactly to handicap (68) eased the handicap pain for the four of them to just the leaders penalty.
Mehmet squeezed into second place on his own and a couple of strokes further back was none other than Laurie who seems to be hitting a bit of a purple patch in recent weeks. Then followed a veritable horde including Steffie, Blighty, Whitey, Kloppie and DayLee. Just couldn’t resist trying to get all the ‘e’ endings.
And last on the podium for his maiden Championship point was Taner who had a pretty fair old day of it by seeing off the Beast in the Matchplay 4 and 2. In a couple of other matchplay results today, Targe was able to come out victorious over Gordon 3 and 1 while Stefan was able to deal with CraigC 2 up. Ed advised that he would not be able to play his round against David and conceded the match and earlier in the week the Angel conceded his match to Michael. That puts the event on schedule and one match of the second round has been completed. Keep up the good work and let’s keep the Event on track.
The Nearest the Pin for a ball was on the 12th and wouldn’t you know it, somebody from the first group put it so close that it was almost no contest from there-on in. And the person who put it so close and collected the ball was Chrispy who claimed to be suffering all day from a bad case of bridegroom’s groin. Gordon seems to have had his priorities all wrong when he was sledging Chrispy while at the same time being shown how to play Match by Targe. The lead did not change once during the match (or even get square). The ProPin was on the 18th and the three of the four members of the third group put in a good show of fighting it out for the honour only to be trumped by Noodles who put it within a whisker of a metre from the hole. He then took three putts to put it away so no birdies to add to the tally on that occasion.
There were 11 birdies plodded for the day and, would you believe it, an eagle on the 8th by Whitey who tonked it in from about 145m out (according to some reports). Not much to show for the effort as only one ball in the nest but it did help his Eclectic score on a little. Speaking of the Eclectic, once again Noodles has his nose in front which he managed to do for a fair bit of last season as well. Seems he is pretty good at getting birdies but manages to protect his handicap by stuffing up on others. Stefan currently has a healthy lead in the Championship and after daylight in second place there is a fair herd of contenders but it is still early days and there are any number of majors still to come to give the points a boost. The Seniors is also a fair contest at the moment with a bit of a blanket to cover the first four places at least. But, anything can happen.
Today was also the first round of the IGL Competition and the results were as follows (remember this is stroke so lowest score wins): Bulldogs 143 defeated Tigers 150, Saints 136 defeated Blues 140 and Hawks 148 defeated Magpies 150. The Teams, Draw, League Ladder and Rules are on the web under the Competitions Menu.
The Birthday Birdie has checked his calendar again and our recently blooded Treasurer, Stephen (aka Constable SOS) will be fronting up to the candle fire during the week. Hopefully, the missus will give him something nice.
There were a couple of up and downs worthy of note today. On the 14th, Harry played his third shot from between the tee markers for the 15th to finish about 1.5m from the hole and sank the putt for the par. On the 17th, Damo put his tee shot on the side of the 18th tee mound and from an awkward down-hill lie played it over the fence and finished about 5 metres past the hole – a pretty good result in anybody’s book. He then rattled in the putt for a calm as you like birdie. Damo did say that he played much better when he gave up hope and relaxed.
Mehm and Noodles played in the same group and by the end of the round Mehm reckoned he was well sick of Noodles borrowing his lighter. You could give up smoking, Mehm. Chrispy is sticking by his resolution never to play with a white ball this season and today was no exception as he strode out with a fetching pink number that he agonised over last week while collecting for an inside win a week or two ago. He had to settle for the fluoro yellow from the Club bag for todays ball-run hand-out. Michael continues to report problems with his shoulder but claims that it is helping his game by making him concentrate and slow down his back-swing. It must be said that he was noticed with some fairly significant grimaces on his face particularly after tee shots.
And what is it about our marriageable members and getting to the celebrations on time. It seems that the blushing bride that joined in holy wedlock with ChrisV yesterday also ended up running late with the grid-lock in the city due to the sit-in demonstrations at Flinders and Swanston. Hopefully the travel connections will work better and Chris doesn’t come back with bridegroom’s groin. The reception must have been pretty good as Ryan was heading off home after the game to get some shut-eye.
Results for Saturday, 11 April 2015
1st Harry Boughen(68) 1st Michael Gourlay(68) 1st Trevor Jackson(68 MM cb) 1st Chris Priems(68) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(70) 3rd Laurie Mannix(72) 4th Stefan Belevski(73) 4th Andrew Blight(73) 4th Ed Kloprogge(73) 4th Damien Lee(73) 4th Rodney White(73) 5th Taner Kemal(75)