It would have been pretty foggy down on the river flats of Ivanhoe if the view from an Eltham bedroom window was any guide. Still, it seems that the field did get away and a fine lot of fellows it was. The numbers wouldn’t have been quite so large if it hadn’t been for some ex-members who were in town and decided to chance their arm at Ivanhoe for old times sake. The names were, and I hope these are correct, Jason Gratton, Derek McDonald and Darren Kernow and some of our longer term members should know them. They also saw fit to bring along a couple of extras and so we had a field of some twenty players of which 13 were fully fledged members and Paul Jones was along to get in his third card and so he too now qualifies for competition with a very handy handicap of 28. If past history is any guide then we should be hearing more of Paul in the very near future. Reports have it that he is in negotiations for some new artillery so it does sound as if he means business. Welcome to the Club, Paul.
Now, it has been a little while since we have seen Noodles smiling face on the top podium and this is his first for this year. Maybe he is a bit of a mud-runner although the reports on the course condition suggest that it wasn’t too bad considering the amount and continuity of the rain events that have been passing through. Maybe some of the drainage works are actually having an effect though the carts are causing more than a little damage to the fairways in some of the wetter spots. So, a pretty fair result of 39 points for Noodles and from a quick look at the card it could easily have been a few better.
Brendon has obviously gotten a bit skittish with the prospect of Chrispy breathing down his neck in the Championship and he is keen to keep up the point scoring without doing too much damage to his handicap. And so it was today that he managed to come in second, thereby avoiding a winners penalty, and played to his handicap thereby avoiding any change to his handicap. In the process he managed to get a birdie on a hole that wasn’t on his eclectic card and he now has the outright lead in that event (again). There is only one hole on his card without a birdie against it and so improving further is going to be tough with eagles the best chance from now on. While on the subject of birdies there were a total of 11 for the members today and for some reason, one of the popular holes for that accolade was the first. The hazards of even getting a par on the first have been mentioned before so maybe the birdies had their effect on scoring as well.
Ryan’s life has been in a bit of chaos just recently with a move of household interfering with all sorts of activities. Stuff lost in boxes, internet connections not made and so forth. However, it doesn’t seem to have affected his golf too much as he was able to sneak into third place with a score of 35 points and from the number of singletons on the card, he too could have improved on that without too much difficulty. It seems that he went very close to having a windie on the 11th but the ball did actually move and so it can only really count as a draughtie. Perhaps he is just saving himself for the next two weeks.
Targe and Rob managed to come in in 4th place with a total of 34 points which wasn’t a bad feat given that Rob also managed to pull off a draughtie during the round. Targe was rather pleased that a gentlemen’s agreement allowed to shouts to cancel out otherwise he might have been unable to drive himself home. And, bringing up the rear in 5th spot was Mehmet and Michael who was one of the ones that birdied the first. Whether he feels inclined to use that as an excuse or not, he wasn’t that happy with the way that he played after last week’s performance.
The BallPin this week was on the 18th and Brendon, as usual, used his little measuring device to get the distance millimetre perfect (without the slope of course) but his shot was just a little off and he could only get it within a ‘foot’ or so (still hasn’t completely converted to metric it seems) but that was enough to collect the ball and to break Rob’s heart. Brendon and Rob were deeply engrossed in their semi-final matchplay round and the match had been nip and tuck for the whole round with the largest margin 2 points very early in the round and each had their turn at being up and down. So it was all square after the 17th and with a stroke on the 18th Rob must have been a good chance to at least square the match and take it to a chip off. Needless to say, Brendon got the birdie and Rob needed the par to come home even. Unfortunately, the putt refused to drop and the match went to Brendon 1 up.
Brendon’s laser was obviously on the spot today as he also managed to put it close on the ProPin hole 15th to collect the loot for today and to reclaim the dosh from that old reprobate Jack Potts from last week’s non-event. It seems that baby-sitting duties will keep Brendon off the course for the next couple of weeks which will be a good opportunity to catch up some points with the Winter Cup occupying the attention of members over the next two weeks.
‘Tis the season to be movin’. Gordon got the keys to his new house and had to give the golf a miss to help with the relocating. He’d have been happy to leave it to his wife and a man in a van but the problem was that he had to be the man in a van.
The birthday birdie has a wish for one of our (very) occasional members who has now moved pretty much permanently out of town, so if Graham is listening, don’t celebrate too hard mate.
Brendon (is there anyone else in the Club?) has signed up for DryJuly which is a very worthy fund-raising effort. Probably explains why he didn’t enforce the draughtie shouts today but he wonders whether anybody would like to offer their support in a financial way. You can do so by following this link Support Brendon and he will be eternally grateful particularly if he doesn’t go troppo after a month on the dry. But watch out when he gets back on it.
Simon will be away with a road show for a couple of weeks but Targe has a supply of the Club shirts and has the list for cap orders. So, if you want to look as good as Brendon bring along your cash and put in your orders and maybe you too can get to the Matchplay Finals.
Results for Saturday, 09 July 2016
1st Stephen Butterfield(39) 2nd Brendon Mitchell(36) 3rd Ryan Porker(35) 4th Targe Mifsud(34) 4th Robert Priems(34) 5th Mehmet Akdag(33) 5th Michael Gourlay(33)
Seniors Results: 1st Targe Mifsud (34) 2nd Bill Eastoe (31) 2nd Simon Powell (31) 3rd Bob McDonald (29)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 15th Brendon Mitchell BallPin 18th Brendon Mitchell