Before tee time, Damo asked of the assembled 15 members what would be a winning score. When 39 was suggested, Damo was a little surprised and posited that he thought 35 or 36 would be the upper limit. Everybody had chosen their three clubs with all sorts of reasons for the choice ranging from professional advice through to it was dark so the first three that came to hand. Extra-club Eddie was spotted with four clubs in his bag and despite his promises to only use three he was prevailed upon to return one to his car. Allan was spotted with a similar club count but he claims that it was a genuine mistake when he was a bit undecided about whether to take his eight or his nine. He is a senior after all. Though he did claim to not know what the Seniors Championship was all about. He has been away for a while.
At the end of the day, the prediction of 39 points did not quite come to pass though it could easily have been beaten had Noodles not had a gash on his card for the 3rd hole. Noodles went a long way towards proving that you don’t really need a bag full of clubs to score well and he obviously put his three iron, pitching wedge and putter to very good use to come home with 38 points and one stroke less to play with next week. There were eight Championship Points and balls in compensation.
Allan seems to be relishing the move from Yarrambat to the shorter course here at Ivanhoe as he featured again today having held the Clubhouse leadership from the first group through to the last when Noodles came home to snatch the bacon. The handicapper was more than happy to shave a little more off to try to keep Allan under control.
Presumably, due to the Easter weekend, Snags was able to tear himself away from the buses and made it to the course. There were all sorts of predictions as to how out of form he might be after a lengthy break but it was agreed that he didn’t have to put in cards to be re-handicapped. He was in the same group as SOS and the pair of them went head to head and hammer and tongs the whole way. The score was tilted slightly in Snags’ favour at the 18th when SOS started to play mind games about letting Craig in on a little secret. Whether this got to him or not, he missed a putt that would have kept his lead and the pair of them ended up equal on 36 points and one stroke the difference off the stick. The secret, it seems was that today was SOS’s birthday and that as a result Craig owed him a beer.
While on the subject of birthdays, the Birthday Birdie was a little remiss last week and failed to mention that RodG marked another little milestone in his quest to play a round under his age. No, he didn’t have a good round, he just had another birthday. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Rod and SOS.
Porks also played in the last group so maybe it was that the conditions improved as the morning progressed resulting in better scoring in the later groups. As it was, there were a few disappointed faces when he presented with a card of 30 points because, up to that point, nobody else had and the new score pushed a number of people out of the points tally for the day. Ryan managed to get at least one birdie on his card but there were only six reported for the day.
One point further back were a trio of players by the names of Damo, Michael and Simon. They all managed to come in with 29 points which is still a pretty fair effort. By all reports, Damo was thoroughly sick of his eight iron by the end of the round. There were no reports on his opinion of the rescue that he was using for long shots.
The BallPin today was on the 12th and once again it was a virtual no-contest after Allan got his name on the card from the first group. Targe did try to put up an argument that his was closer using a perpendicular from the line joining the tee to the hole. Unfortunately for Targe the conventional wisdom is that it is the direct line to the hole that is taken as the measure of closeness to the pin. The roving ProPin was on the 4th and yet again it was the first group that shut out the rest of the field with Simon managing to put his to 4.56m which was just within the 5m limit. The fixed ProPin on the 18th went pretty much the other way with nobody laying claim to it until Damo went close. But, unfortunately, it has not close enough with a measurement made at 5.2m. As a result, there will be a Jackpot of the funds to next week.
During the week, Mehm was onto Chrispy about playing Matchplay today claiming that he wasn’t worried about it being the Three Club Challenge as he would need only two clubs to beat Chrispy. No deal to play was struck but when Mehm was a non-starter today, Chrispy reckoned that he should be able to claim a walkover for the round. As a result, the are no Matchplay results this week. There are still three weeks to finish Round 2 but sooner rather than later would be better and if Round 3 know their opponents there is probably no reason why they should not get ahead of the game.
ChrisV generally didn’t have much of a day but there was one highlight with a birdie on the 4th. The tee shot was pulled severely and headed for the forest on the left side of the fairway where, fortunately, one of the Priems trees stood at the ready and flung the ball back into play on the fairway. From there, Chris proceeded to chip it in to the amazement of all concerned. A couple who didn’t get off so lightly were Snags and Keith who both suffered the indignity of pulling off a draughtie each on the 2nd. Chrispy was overheard hoping for them to lift their game if he was to get home sober.
Targe, for one, might be going to reconsider his club choice if he ever plays the Three Club Challenge again (he said he wouldn’t). Trying to analyse what was going wrong, he decided that he was standing too close to the ball. Whether it was the big one he was standing on or the small one he was trying to hit would be a moot point from any number of aspects though the ‘dropkick’ count was fairly high. Allan on his motorised sit-upon reminds Chrispy of his younger (or maybe, not so younger) days watching Thunderbirds. Allan reckons he can remind people of anything they like as it allows him to get out and play golf.
There was some discussion about the local rules (you can guess who started it) and for everybody’s edification a complete copy (the card only has a part copy) of the IPGC Local Rules has been obtained and the page on the website will be updated forthwith.
Results for Saturday, 15 April 2017
1st Stephen Butterfield(38) 2nd Allan Davies(37) 3rd Craig Sharp(36) 3rd Stephen O’Sullivan(36) 4th Ryan Porker(30) 5th Michael Gourlay(29) 5th Damien Lee(29) 5th Simon Powell(29) 5th Chris Priems(29)
Seniors Results: 1st Allan Davies (37) 2nd Simon Powell (29) 3rd Harry Boughen (28)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 4th Simon Powell ProPin No 2 18th Jackpot BallPin 12th Allan Davies