Today was a happy day for twenty one of our members but it was just touched with a bit of sadness for the passing of Fred Howe, a founding member of the Club, a mentor to many and beloved Dad to Chris and Robert. Black arm-bands showed as a mark of respect but, by and large, it was more a day to celebrate a life well lived and quite a bit of that on the green green grass of Ivanhoe. And, despite his failing memories, Fred never forgot his beloved Club and right to the end was keeping tabs on who was winning despite the fact that there were many he did not know but the many knew of him by tall tales and true and the trophy that bears his name.
After last month’s effort in which he blitzed the course but missed out on the silver-ware, Dennis at last joined the ranks of the first time medallists with a 65 nett from a 90 off the stick. He is obviously getting his swing back into the groove and has jumped up the Championship table with two wins to his credit in a very short time. In fact, there is only one other person in the Club with more than two wins in their tally and that is our current table leader, Stefan. Dennis also took out the Senior points today ahead of Taner and Laurie. There is actually a bit of a sting in the tail of this story when Dennis, being a bit uncertain about the fate of his first ball off the tee, played a provisional which definitely went OOB. The second provisional was OK so he was staring a potential 5 off the tee in the face. As it turned out, the first ball was found and OK, so a minimum of four shots was wiped from the potential total. Dennis was obviously meant to win today.
The man who was relegated to second place by dint of this latter good fortune was Damo who came in a single stroke behind. Damo was a bit unlucky not to tie it when his tee shot on the 17th rolled up to and across the hole to miss the HIO by a hairs breadth and left the easiest of putts for the eagle to clean up on the Eagles nest which was just getting to have enough in it to be worth winning. The unfortunate thing for Damo was that he had already eagled that hole so it didn’t improve his eclectic. While on the subject of the Eclectic, Pepsi has a comfortable break on the field at the moment of just over two strokes and he still has a couple of holes without birdies. The beast reckons he will catch him by the end of the year by getting his handicap out far enough though the maths would be somewhat against that theory without at least some movement in filling the gaps in the birdie file.
Just one stroke further back on 67 were Chrispy and Noodles. Chrispy played to a cunning game-plan today by keeping quiet about how he was going and letting his playing partners psyche each other out while competing for honours and, but for a couple of double bogies, he could easily have trumped the lot. Noodles had a fair bit to say about the cut to his handicap after last week’s win before the round but it obviously wasn’t enough as he still managed to play under it. His hard luck story also involved the 17th where he missed chipping in for an eagle as well and had the shortest of putts for his birdie. The problem was that it was somewhat overshadowed by Damo’s efforts and the effort was largely ignored by the group. However it was one of fourteen birdies carded today so that, plus the eagle, was the best showing that we have had for a little while. Perhaps we are getting used to the soft conditions and the greens are settling down after their recent scarification and sanding.
CraigC seems to be pretty comfortable with his handicap and played exactly to it to come in and share 4th place with that other Craig, also known as Snags. At one stage, late in the game, Snags was threatening to throw his putter into one of the hazards or even the river after a couple of less than stellar performances with the flat blade. There was certainly a good chance that it wasn’t going to take the ride back to Dandenong. But, having promised Harry that he was saving his best shot for the 18th and the money hole, he proceeded to do just that to put it within a couple of metres to collect the ProPin and the flat blade came good to slot the birdie. At last reports the putter was safely on its way back to Dandenong.
The last player in the points today was SOS just another stroke back scoring his favourite number – 69. Most of the rest of the field were within another five strokes back and, as for the rest, the less said the better. Though the Beast is beginning to be convinced that there is a hex on him when he plays with Harry. And, speaking of Harry, he managed to get his name on the marker for the Nearest the Pin for a ball on the 4th for the second week in a row.
In the IGL, the results today were quite close in two of the matches. The Blues (Laurie and Chris – 139) defeated the Hawks (Pepsi and Taner – 141) and the Bulldogs (Damo and Snags 134) defeated the Saints (Noodles and SOS 136). The Tigers (CraigC and Dennis 133) were way too good for the Magpies (Targe and Mal 147) which propels the Tigers to the top of the table and leaves the Magpies languishing on the bottom with the season getting close to the half way point. Questions were asked about the possibility of a trading session but at the moment there is no provision for this sort of activity but if a sensible scheme could be worked out it could be considered in the future.
After Gordo’s day out on the course, he was obviously in need of some consolation and that might go some way to explaining why he was gazing so soulfully at the head on his glass of beer after the round. Or was he just trying to decide whether he had been robbed by dint of an excessively large one. Trevor put in an appearance today but was wondering whether he should even have gotten out of bed. As it turned out he really wasn’t all that well and had to retire part way through. Early reports are that he is OK and we hope to see his smiling face back on deck soon.
Mehmet and Stef were back in the Club-house well and truly and were still in deep discussion about their scores up to several holes back leading some to wonder whether they were just making them up as they went along. If they were, then they didn’t do a very good job of it. One player who did a good job of it on one hole was Taner on the 4th where, after a less than stellar second shot, he ended in the rough west of the green and almost out of bounds. His shot out skipped and skittered through the intervening grass, struggled onto the green and just kept running to fall into the hole for what was considered to be the unlikeliest of birdies. Go figure.
Next week is a Yellow Ball Teams day, just to liven up the interest for the scheduled Par Competition. Then, there is a full month of regular golf in the lead up to the Fred Howe Cup. By that time, the Matchplay should be all but finalised and we can all settle down for the race to the end of the year and try to catch Stefan.
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Results for Saturday, 06 June 2015
1st Dennis Ward(65) 2nd Damien Lee(66) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(67) 3rd Chris Priems(67) 4th Craig Cameron(68) 4th Craig Sharp(68) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(69)