Whinging and moping and whining and crying, Sledging and swearing each day on the course, That won’t get you into its arms…..
It turned out to be anything but a ‘Dusty’ weekend away in Numurkah. The drive up from Melbourne, for most at least, was through continuous rain and the course manager reported that they had 15mm so, although the whole course was open, things were a little damp (make that wet) underfoot. Some, unkindly, likened it to playing in a swamp. Now, Numurkah is known as a course that favours those that can hit it straight and that was never truer this weekend as the rough was long and wet and watery and many who strayed off the fairway paid a pretty heavy penalty both in strokes and frustration. Saturday was cold and there was a bit of wind but the weather stayed fine, at least until most of the field were home and hosed (or at least hot showered). Sunday was much warmer and mostly sunny though a few clouds did come along and threaten with a few drops of water but barely more than was noticeable or could have been shaken from the trees as remnants of the previous day’s falls.
One person, though, was obviously unfazed by the tricky conditions and, if he did stray from the fairway, he was good enough to recover without undue problems. A very commendable 36 points on Saturday really set up the weekend for Matthew and left it for the rest of the field to improve and catch him on Sunday. A slight hesitation on the second day with only 31 points promised for a bit of a contest but, in the event, nobody could catch him and so it was that Rob, ever so reluctantly, handed over the mustard jacket to Matthew. Now, the venerable old jacket showed quite a close fit on Rob at the Saturday night dinner causing some to overly (and overtly) admire certain parts of his anatomy in the upper body area. However, let the record show that the jacket looks as if it could have been tailor-made for Matthew and he will surely be striving to maintain his grip on it at next year’s Challenge.
Noodles also had not too bad a day of it on Saturday and he managed to put together 34 points on his first outing. So, he went out on the second day with great expectation that he would be able to wear Matthew down despite the need to outscore him by at least four points. After nine holes the points tally for Sunday was all equal and it was going to require a dash to the post to settle the contest and Noodles reached for the whip. By the 15th, Noodles had a five point advantage on the day and a one point lead in the total. All he needed to do was to match Matthew on the last three. Maybe he whipped out the whip too early and, like a lot of race-horses the previous afternoon, he faded in the straight and threw away all of the hard gotten gains to finish exactly where he started, two points behind.
After three holes on Saturday (really probably after one, but who’s counting) Bob was declaring that he wasn’t going to enjoy this and maybe he should just go home. But, he did stick to it, even if only to mark SOS’s card, and, as the day wore on, his game improved and at the end of the day he had managed to put together a slightly better than middle of the field result of 28 points. On Sunday, Bob turned around and served up the best card of the day with 34 points and in the process, leap-frogged himself into third place. Just goes to show, you should never give up the ghost, especially early in the round.
Ryan started off like a house on fire and managed to get his name on the first two of the markers on the par 3 ProPins. Maybe it was the excitement of having done that, but, whatever the cause, he went through a bit of a slump for about five holes before finding his mojo again to romp home with a total of 33 points for the day. Sunday was a day of ups and downs with four three pointers being more than offset by five blanks but his total of 59 for the weekend was just enough to garner 4th place in the field. Although Rob had high hopes of seeing his name embroidered once more on the ‘Auld Jacket’, it was not to be but he should probably be reasonably happy with his 5th spot. Damo shared the podium with Rob which isn’t too bad a result considering his lack of training in recent times due to the son’s footy committments. Of course, the cricket season is coming up so we might still miss Damo’s smiling face around the Club in the future.
There were a swag of Nearest the Pin competitions over the weekend. The Big Kohuna ($5/head/day) was on the 18th but the largesse was not shared around a great deal as ‘Dead-eye’ Hunt managed to get his name on the marker both days. He didn’t have it all to himself as he had to squeeze out Team SOS on Sunday. Well done Matthew and you should be able to afford to come again next year to defend your title. The regular ProPins went to Ryan (2), Damo (2) and Matthew (2). There were a couple that did not go off and the funds will be added to Club funds. The ProPin in two on a par 4 didn’t go off on Saturday and jackpotted to Sunday. And, on Sunday, it did go off. Gordon hit a great drive and left himself in a great spot with a shot to the green from about 100m. He took out his trusty 8-iron and proceeded to skinny the shot that never got more than 300mm off the ground and just kept running and running (despite the wet and soggy conditions), dribbled onto the green and rolled down the slope to finish a mere 75mm short of the hole. So, a shot that started as a contender for the worst shot of the weekend finished up being one of the ‘great’ shots of the weekend. Needless to say, he got the birdie and added his name to the rather short list of birdie getters for the weekend. There was a total of five amongst four players which is probably indicative of the difficulty of the conditions and the trickiness of managing the greens at Numurkah.
There were a fair swag of draughties over the course of the weekend and this is probably not a complete list but some who did make it were Gordon (multiple and two on one hole), Chrispy, Ryan, Blighty and Harry. Now, you might very well ask, how come so many. There were probably a couple of factors. One was that, on a few holes, the red markers were quite a distance in front of the white markers. Not that the distance was necessarily so great as to be out of range even for the shorter hitters. It’s just that they happened to fall on holes that were well populated with trees and with a narrow entrance to the fairway and any shot that tangled with the trees was a fair chance to come up short of the red markers.
There used to be a trophy for the Annual Challenge weekend, known as the Cocks Plate, reserved for the member who pulled off the ‘worst’ shot of the weekend. The plate itself has been ‘missing in action’ although there are rumours that we know where it is but just have to get around to collecting it. Long story short(ish). Gordon acquired a new trophy for the Cocks and the award this year went to SOS. It wasn’t that the shot was particularly worse in execution that many other potential contenders but for the fact that SOS ‘searched’ for his ball behind the red markers and when it couldn’t be found there he declared that it must have gone past and therefore didn’t qualify as a draughtie.
A weekend such as this wouldn’t be complete without the award of a trophy for the NARGA. Now, while some might cavil at making such an award it really is not meant to be denigrating, just a bit of fun. Whilst there was only one trophy to be awarded, there were two contenders and so it was that JohnQ received that accolade by a count-back from Gordon.
Now we all know that SOS is a gentle hearted soul who’d let a Pokemon playing driver off because he wouldn’t want to spoil their enjoyment. He must have also been taking in the principles of Buddhism and he showed this in spades when a bee settled near his ball on one of the greens. After several attempts at shoo-ing it away, he marked and lifted his ball and eventually herded the hapless creature away to what he deemed a safe distance. He replaced his ball and turned to take his stance for the putt and promptly stepped on the poor creature. Perhaps Karma explains why SOS didn’t do so well on Sunday.
Chrispy was rather taken by some balls, in the clubhouse, decorated to look like soccer balls (as you do). I’ll have one of those says Chris and hands over his hard earned $7.50. Walks out to the tee and whacks the ball to who knows where never to be seen again. Should have stayed with the coloured ones Chris.
Now, you heard about Gordon and his shot to take the nearest in two. He left it 75 mm from the hole. Mehm was 130m out in the rough and he put it to 10mm of the hole. Anything Gordo can do, Mehm can do better! Not sure whether that shot was with his 8-iron but Mehm so much likes that club that he played the last three holes with only that club. Apparently it was some sort of bet with one of his playing companions. He didn’t do too badly, at least on a couple of those holes and he managed to par the 18th though he did look a treat, putting with the club gripped down almost to the shank.
And, while speaking of shanks, Damo was guilty of one such shot and in the process hit the golf-cart that was parked only metres away. Harry also managed to hit a cart on one of his three attempts to chip onto a green (told you they were difficult to manage). Blighty managed to play two (or three?) holes with a ball that belonged to Targe. The exact sequence of events is a bit vague and whether Targe was guilty of the complementary sin is not clear. Still, it was preferred lie throughout the course so there was no real excuse for not being able to check properly.
So, another great weekend away. A good time was had by all even if some of the golf wasn’t all that great in standard. There was some discussion during the weekend about whether to retain Numurkah as the venue or whether to try another course. Lots of suggestions were put forward and the Social Secretary would appreciate your input to discussion over the coming months so that a recommendation can be made to the Committee in good time to arrange next year’s event.
Results for Weekend, 20-21 August 2016
1st Matthew Hunt (36,31,67) 2nd Stephen Butterfield (34,31,65) 3rd Bob McDonald (28,34,62) 4th Ryan Porker (33,26,59) 5th Damien Lee (31,27,58) 5th Robert Priems (27,31,58)
Nearest the Pin Results: BIG KOHUNA ProPin 18th Matthew Hunt(2) Ordinary ProPin Ryan Porker (2), Matthew Hunt (2), Damien Lee (2), Gordon Hill (1 fluke)