It was a lovely day for golf, so where the heck was everybody. After weeks of bumper fields, today we could only manage to put together 14 players to fight it out for the last monthly medal before the hump where this year’s Champion of Champions day is closer in time than last year’s. Granted there was the odd surgery, family event, after-effect of a week of golf and just plain goofing off but the small field did raise the odd flutter in a heart or two at the prospect of some silver-ware at the end of the year or even of the chance to get in on the points distribution.
Now, although the scoring did not exactly set the world on fire, the event ended up being fiercely contested with no less than four members coming in with the same score. This could very well be a Club record for the number of people involved in a count-back. In the end, it was Chrispresident who grabbed the trophy in what was thought to be an unlikely possibility after the first nine. However a ten stroke improvement between the nines meant that Chris was in the box-seat when it came to the count-back and he swept all before him or at least he dodged the fallen contenders in his path. As for the other three, Targe, SOS and Mr T (aka George), they will have to console themselves with a ball, the points and the handicap cut.
There was a two stroke gap from the winning 69 nett to the second place-getters on 71. The Beast claimed that he couldn’t get out of his head, Harry’s idea to make lipping the cup the aim of the game, rather than having to get the ball into the hole and that this contributed to him missing the eagle putt on the 17th though the fact that the ball finished about 3 metres past the hole suggests that something else might have bitten him for that one. Possibly, it was the salivating thought of packing nine balls into his kit that did the deed. Pepsi came in along-side Bill but if it hadn’t been for a bit of a shaky start and a little wobble on the 16th, Peps could have been much better placed than a mere second.
Bob teed his ball up too low on the first and as a result the ground strike behind the ball caused the club to pass clean over the top for a spectacular and potentially soul-destroying airie. A higher ball mounting saw the next shot get away down the track but the first few holes did not augur well for a score that would score. After the 6th, things settled down and Bob came home with a bit of a flurry and managed to sneak into third place with his nett 73 and adding some more points to remain very much in contention in both Championship tables.
Harry’s golf trip to the Murray might have been good practice, or it might have used up all his good shots or it might have worn him out. Alternatively, he might have just played an average game that was enough to pick up fourth place. Brendon book-ended his front nine with double bogies but managed to equal par over the intervening seven holes. The back nine started well but then the engine started haemorrhaging oil and he could only manage to squeeze into 5th place on 75 nett.
The ProPin today was on the 12th hole and after the first group went through it was a bit of a no contest and Targe was able to collect the pool of cash with his shot to 3.7m. The distance was too great for Targe and he had to settle for a par rather than a birdie but the abbreviated field did manage to put together ten for the day. The BallPin was on the 18th and it looked as if the ball was going to be unclaimed but, in the end, Mehmet managed to get his on. Bob also put his onto the green but anyone would have been hard pressed to have been further from the hole than he was.
There were a few improvements on the Eclectic table today but none of them were at the front of the field and so Brendon still has a bit of a buffer going. While on the subject of statistics, after each Monthly Medal, the player statistics pages are updated so if you want to get a feel for how well or how badly you (or your mates) are going feel free to have a look on the web-site. New starters don’t appear for a while until they get a few games on the board.
Steve has forfeited to Harry in the matchplay due to a back injury and Brendon will replace Ed for a couple of reasons. Not least of these is Ed’s recent shoulder surgery that will keep him out of the swing of things for some time. Take it easy Ed and we’ll see you back when it/they are all good again. But do feel free to come along and stir the pot when you can.
Whitey doesn’t seem to have gotten completely out of cricket mode yet as he was heard talking about how he almost ‘made the ton’ today – or maybe that isn’t such a good thing! Ryan nailed his drive on the 15th so well that he ended up OOB at the back of the green and the ball finished out in the middle of the road down to the car-park. The Beast sprayed his a bit on the same hole in the direction of the 16th tee prompting the play of a provisional ball. The provisional proved to be unnecessary when the original ball was found in bounds but Bob did wonder whether Bill should thank the people in the car-park, just in case.
When interviewed by the press-corps, ChrisV would only say that he didn’t want to talk about it. You can draw your own conclusions from that. Chrispresident, on the other hand, was only too willing to talk about his chip-in from out of the long grass in front of the 15th green. SOS, who was hot on Chrispy’s heels on the scoring front put the blame firmly on the fact of missing heaps of easy putts. Ah yes, the old ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’, where would golf be without it?
The Birthday Birdie is taking a bit of a holiday this week as there are no celebrations scheduled.
Gordon is working on the program for the Annual Challenge weekend at Numurkah in August so expect some more information on that shortly.
Autumn Cup starts next Saturday and in the absence of lots of people we made a bit of a guess at who would attend so if we could get an early indication of your intentions regarding this event, it would help us to make the appropriate arrangements. There will be a meeting of the Committee next week as well, so if you have any matters that you would like the Committee to consider, please contact the Secretary as soon as possible so that he can add them to the Agenda. Note, it is Committee only, not a general Club meeting.
Results for Saturday, 07 May 2016
1st Targe Mifsud(69) 1st Chris Priems(69, MM c/b) 1st Stephen O’Sullivan(69) 1st George Tenaglia(69) 2nd Bill Eastoe(71) 2nd Andrew Petricola(71) 3rd Bob McDonald(73) 4th Harry Boughen(74) 5th Brendon Mitchell(75)
Seniors Results: 1st Targe Mifsud (69) 2nd Bill Eastoe (71) 3rd Bob McDonald (73)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 12th Targe Mifsud BallPin 18th Mehmet Akdag