As usual, the Stuart Clarke Memorial has attracted a good crowd to compete for one of the big trophies of the year. The twenty three strong crowd of the usual suspects was bolstered by the addition of Rodger and Allan, a couple of life member stalwarts from the Club’s dim, distant past. Laurie was also supposed to be gracing the field with his presence but for some reason he was not able to make it. The three of them are always welcome if they can tear themselves away from the green fields of Yarrambat. The lack of rain means that the watering efforts of the green-keepers is being concentrated on the greens and some of the tees and so there continues to be run on the fairways but it is possible to attack the greens provided, of course that you can get some elevation and maybe a bit of spin. All in all, the conditions were good for scoring and there were quite a few good scores presented and there are plenty of contenders in with a chance with a good score next week.
The man that made the best of it today was Joe who was out in the first group and had to contend with the cool early morning conditions and the dewy greens. He soon adjusted as the first hole was the only blemish (only a single point) on the front nine. The par threes gave him the most trouble on the back for another two singletons and an all up score of 39 points. Now, Joe is about to become a father and it seems that the happy event is imminent and could affect his ability to (or rather the wisdom of) playing in the second round next week. It’s amazing the number of people willing that baby to arrive next Friday night. Regardless of the timing, we all hope it goes well.
Joe will have to keep his head down, because he has the Beast breathing right down his neck and if anyone can put two rounds together in a row it is Billy boy. It took Bill a few holes to really warm up but he fairly sizzled on the back nine to coast into second spot on the leaderboard with 38 points. Bill was obviously feeling in good form as, after his drive on the first, he turned around to the gallery and asked ‘where was the applause’. Probably, the ball was so far out of sight that they couldn’t see it.
When Allan put in his card, the score line at the top said 26 points and the card was heading for the bottom of the pile. Now Allan is known to be meticulous when it comes to card marking and there was no reason to doubt the result except that Trev had been complaining about how many sevens and three putt greens he had been having but his card had 37 on the score line which really did not gel. Seems that Allan had one of those ‘senior’ moments and had crossed over the points scores when he wrote them in and it was he who had the 37 points to put himself into 3rd place on the leaderboard. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to let our ‘lifers’ play from their GL handicaps.
Because, right in the next group on 36 is none other than Rodger who was complaining before tee time how badly he had been playing and that he didn’t know what he was doing wrong. Then again, maybe he has a vested interest in this particular trophy. Now Rodger hasn’t played this course for a while and he opted to take relief under Local Rule P9. When he emerged from the facilities, he hopped into his cart and proceeded to the next tee. When he arrived, he spotted people leaving the green and abused his playing companions (in absentia) for having headed off without him. So, Rodger teed up, sprinted off down the fairway, chipped on and two putted for his par and then looked back and noticed people waving frantically at him from the tee. The problem was, he had just played the 14th instead of the 10th. Next time he played the 14th he didn’t do quite so well but his tee shot did need to hit two trees to come back into bounds. In the meantime, the following group had ‘gone through’ and so, for the second time in recorded history a club group had been ‘gone through’ and in consecutive weeks. Nasty trend there chaps. Brendon, Pepsi and Simon also managed to garner a total of 36 points and are, by no means, out of the running.
Filling out the normal points getting spots on the leaderboard are Stefan and Stephen (aka Stef and SOS) and, with only a four point margin to make up, it will be anybody’s game next week. And there are a few others that are capable of a big turnaround so the eventual winner has not necessarily been mentioned.
The ProPin Jackpot from the 12th last week was fiercely contested but it was the Beast who was able to get it close enough to hold out all comers and collect the fairly bursting bag of money. The one on the 18th ended up being a bit of a no contest after Michael put it inside a couple of metres from the first group although Damo did give himself a bit of a chance to be not that far outside Michael’s distance. There was no birdie for Michael on that one but the group did manage to come up with seventeen all up. Quite a few Eclectic improvements today but nobody has managed to close up the gap that Bob has at the moment. The BallPin ended up on the 7th though it could easily have been announced to have been on the 4th (but who’s listening). Regardless of where it was, somebody did manage to get their ball on and the one that was close enough belonged to Brendon.
Now, after Michael’s little stir up during the week, there were lots of people at the registration desk early and Chrispy, unable to help himself, took on sorting the wheat from the chaff and the lifers from the matchplays. And a very fine job he did until Bob wandered in, looking a lot like a latter day Sam Snead with his jaunty little hat, claiming that he had been here for a while but hadn’t been able to ‘find’ anyone. The rearranged draw looked little like the original but we got there in the end.
There were two matches decided today. Noodles and Craig decided to strike while the iron was hot and actually played their second round match. That’s the sort of initiative we like to see! With them both with a handicap of 9 it was going to be an off-the-stick event. Noodles got the best of it from the get go and had worked his way to be three up at the 13th. He wavered a bit on the run home and the match went dormie at the 16th. Craig won the 17th and there was significant potential for a chip-off but Noodles managed to square the 18th and take the match 1 up. SteveK and Jason slugged it out in the other match and this too was a close run thing with nobody able to really get the upper hand until Steve ran away with it over the last two holes to finish 2 up. Still plenty of matches to play in the first round and if your second round opponent is decided that can be played any time. Whether it was down to being involved in the match but Jason owned up to being pretty calm today which suggests that sometimes he isn’t particularly so.
During discussions after the round and the story of Rodger’s two goes at playing the 14th, it was suggested that the first could be considered to be practice and therefore in violation of the Rules of Golf and thus grounds for disqualification. The suggestion was that that this ‘violation’ should only be considered if he ended up winning the event. In a similar vein, Bob was lining up to play a tee shot and in the middle of his swing when the ball fell off the tee. Bob still managed to hit it though it did only make it just past the red markers. Does this count as hitting a moving ball and thus a violation of the Rules as well?
Our newly elected President is back from his sojourn overseas and he dragged himself and his jetlag along today. He stepped up to the plate to do the announcements and he and Allan paid tribute to one of our foundation members, David Ford, who died late last week. During the announcements there was some consternation when John read out Bob’s handicap rather than his score but it was probably a reasonable mistake as his handicap was higher than his score. John plans to have a Club gathering at his place after golf some time in the near future (it’s only 5 or 10 minutes from the course) and everyone will be welcome. There was also a reminder that next week, it is traditional to wear hawaiian shirts instead of Club shirts as a nod to Stuart’s penchant for this type of apparel and in his memory.
Also, don’t forget to register and pay your deposit for the Annual Challenge at Shepparton. Bank details on the website and let SOS and Gordon know.
Results for Saturday, 18 March 2017
Leaderboard Round 1 1st Joe Wagenecht(39) 2nd Bill Eastoe(38) 3rd Allan Davies(37) 4th Rodger Clarke(36) 4th Brendon Mitchell(36) 4th Andrew Petricola(36) 4th Simon Powell(36) 5th Stefan Belevski(35) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(35)
Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Bill Eastoe (38) 2nd Simon Powell (36) 3rd Harry Boughen (34) 3rd Rod Grant (34)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Bill Eastoe ProPin No 2 18th Michael Gourlay BallPin 7th Brendon Mitchell