What a difference a week makes! Or did it? The weather was still pretty inclement with rain fronts to the left and rain fronts to the right. The course was pretty soggy, even water-logged in places and the enthusiasm of , at least some of, the Club members had not waned in the quest to take home the Fred Howe Cup. At least they would have been able to take it home if last year’s winner had brought it along to be presented to the new winner. No names but he has a golf ball named after him and it is long and soft.
Nothing soft about the man who seems to revel in the soft conditions about the course at the moment having broken his old handicap two weeks in a row to leapfrog from second spot to the top with 37 points this week on top of his 40 points last week making an aggregate of 77 points and an easy victory in the end for Rob. He was obviously a man on a mission to pick up his Dad’s trophy and the old fella would have been pretty proud to see him get his name on the ‘auld cup’. And last week’s prediction that he shouldn’t have a 2 in the front of his handicap has also come to pass. Have to keep your head down now Rob.
Now, the big question is, did he leave his Strepsils at home? That’s Mehm, of course. There were some saying he just had to turn up to hoist the trophy but it was not to be and the cause certainly wasn’t helped by a pretty average performance on the front nine. The final margin (77 to 73) might have been a bit closer as well if it hadn’t been for a four putt effort on the 14th though it must be said that that particular green is one of the trickiest on the course.
Blighty looked a bit taken aback when he was Club House leader for a while but he obviously had hopes as he went around because he trudged manfully back to the tee on the 17th hole when his tee shot could not be found. Surely somebody must have seen it land and plug into the mud? And so, consistency from week to week paid off once again and a nice little batch of points for his aggregate of 70 points. Pepsi was up and in with a chance from last week and in an attempt to distract Mehm he is reported to have made a bet with said Mehm that he would catch him by the end of the day. Pepsi is seriously out of pocket if the the ante really was a bottle of Chivas. Pepsi did make up some ground but did fall a little short of his target with an aggregate of 69 points.
Five places, five place-getters, that is something that doesn’t happen all that often. But that was the case today and the final spot was grabbed by a man who was a bit off the pace after week one but put together the second best round of the day to give CraigC fifth spot with an all up score of 67. This result gave Craig second spot in the Seniors after Blighty and now that he has been credited with his entitlements in the Seniors Championship he is well up there with a fair chance that there could be a bit of a competition coming into the end of the year. In the main Championship Table, the gap is closing on Stef with Mehmet less than a win behind and still without a win against his name. Let’s hope todays result doesn’t cost him dearly at the end of the year.
As for the rest, there were some pretty ordinary scores put in on both weeks and if you really want to find out who is feeling miserable tonight just have a look at the Leaderboard menu tab. Still, despite all the doom and gloom on the scoring front, we carded 16 birdies today so obviously birdies don’t translate into good scoring. CraigC got one on the 7th after putting his ball inside 1.5m to collect the Nearest the Pin. And despite the tee being well back, the event was well contested with three names on the card. The Jackpot ProPin on the 18th on the other hand belonged to just one man and that was Brendon who made it to 1.9m but unfortunately he was not able to convert it into a birdie. SOS put his ball onto the 17th again this week and only took two putts to put it away this time. Still, the eagles nest isn’t worth raiding just yet. Not sure whether the nest is going to be filled with ProV1s or the Callaway equivalent. On the subject of birdies and eagles, Pepsi now has a three stroke break on the Eclectic so we need a lot more of the bird varieties to give him a run for his money.
The other Birdie that flutters around from time to time whispers that there will be a celebration in the US of A this week as Oliver racks up another milestone of the birthday variety. Hippy Birdie Oliver!
In the IGL, the ladder leaders both had victories and so the positions at the top of the table remain unchanged. The Tigers accounted for the Bulldogs 68 to 62 and the Hawks rolled the Magpies 67 to 59. By a similar margin, the Blues defeated the Saints by 70 to 63. With four rounds of the Home and Away season to run, the top three are looking pretty secure. The big question will be who of the others will make it into the five?
Stef monstered one of his tee shots again on the 8th and finished on the front of the 9th tee with the big tree between him and the green. Ryan reckoned he couldn’t get it over the tree from there – but he did – putting it just onto the green. Went close to snagging the birdie. So there, Ryan! There are all sorts of records in the Club, not all of which are recorded in the annals or the Hall of Shame (if we had one) but there was one that rates mentioning today. Four players teed off on the par 3 12th and four players finished the hole but only after they had accumulated a total of 19 shots between them. And they were all evenly distributed between the four. Maybe they were planning for their MasterChef experience.
Trevor was back on deck for the first time in a while and while he was his normal cheerful self, his recent ups and downs took their toll and he didn’t quite finish the round. Maybe next week Trev. Noodles was also back – back to spending most of his attention to his mobile possibly to the detriment of his game. Seems he was arranging a social outing for tonight, whatever that might mean. Our winner had a bit of luck on his side when his ball looked to be going out of bounds on the 14th and it just managed to trickle back into play. But, in the scheme of things, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference to the result as he only made one point on the hole anyway.
As usual, after the round, we had out bar-b-q lunch and players rolled up expectantly to the bar-b-q that had been located in its usual spot for the MasterChef group to do the honours. But, no smells of burgers cooking or sound of sausages sizzling. It seems that somebody didn’t do their homework and the gas bottle was empty. Presumably, IPGC management will cop it sweet for that one. After the snags and bread had disappeared (literally) down the assembled cake-holes, Pepsi made the presentations (well the announcements anyway – thanks Noodles) and spoke a few words about Fred and his involvement in and dedication to the Club over many years. He particularly remembered his powerful handshake, his enjoyment of life and the game and his encouragement of having fun with your mates. Then followed a small ceremony with Chris and Rob spreading a small part of Fred on the 17th tee so that he will forever be out there on the course that he loved. Despite a fair northerly wind blowing, somebody observed that Fred did not make it past the ladies tee and it was therefore his shout. Fred would have liked that.
Results for Saturday, 25 July 2015
1st Robert Priems(40, 37, 77) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(42, 31, 73) 3rd Andrew Blight(36, 34, 70) 4th Andrew Petricola(36, 33, 69) 5th Craig Cameron(31, 36, 67)