Well, it was bound to be a bad day for some. And if the videos posted to the Facebook page early this morning are any guide, then Chrispy could very well have had a bad day. But at least he did cancel himself out last week so he obviously had a mind to have a good time at the party, if not afterwards. As for the rest, they were fortunate that the earlier forecasts for the day did not eventuate and it really was a beautiful day for golf even if some of the golf was not so beautiful. Nineteen of the original twenty five starters made it to the tees for the second round of the David Ford Autumn Cup and at least some started off with hopes of a big turn-around. And there were some big turns-around but not always in a favourable direction. But with nineteen players we did manage to turn in 18 birdies which is one of our better conversion rates in recent times.
Now, there is a theory that consistency will win out over occasional brilliance any time. And that was no more in evidence than today with Mr Consistency (Pepsi) putting all worries behind him and coming in with yet another card on the positive side of the ledger. Three up today combined with his 2 up from last week was more than enough to do away with the rest of the field and to take over the trophy that Stef has so jealously guarded for the last two years. The double batch of points has moved Pepsi nearly to the top of the table with a very impressive strike rate to go with it. Watch out if his attendance improves.
After the round, Noodles was going around announcing that he had had seven ‘swipes’ today and given his propensity to frequent certain internet sites some were wondering whether they were ‘right’ or ‘left’. As it turned out, this was code for how many holes he had scored a ‘minus’ and, even though he only actually had six, he was still able to come in square with the card for a plus one result overall and second place. There was some existential discussion today along the lines that, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound, as a parallel to, if a club misses a ball on a golf course and nobody is there is it a windie? Noodles is insistent that there was no windie.
On the other hand there were two certified draughties today, on the same hole and by the same person. Blighty was adamant that there was a ‘club’ rule that there could be only one per person per hole. Somehow, it seems pretty certain that Pepsi will be lining up to complete the shout when next they meet at the bar.
Mehmet slipped a little on the scoring today but he did have his moments and managed to hold his placing from last week. SOS slipped a bit more than Mehm and joined Mehm for a share of third place. Things might have been a bit worse for SOS if it hadn’t been for the intervention of the golf gods with his second on the 3rd heading for well out of bounds before hitting a tree branch and feeding back into play and onto the green. Slotting the putt gave him the birdie.
Fourth place was shared by Bob, Stef and Michael who were mostly pretty quiet according to all reports. Stef was accused of ‘laying up’ when his drives on the 11th and 14th came up slightly short of the green. The eagle chance on the 14th was only a handspan away and accounted for another of the birdies. The Beast made the observation that Stef could easily win the Eagles Nest every week and be no worse off than waiting for it to reach the 20 ball mark before having a real go. Michael admitted to getting cranky with himself today and almost indulging in equipment abuse but as somebody pointed out that was for missing a birdie putt.
And, finally, on the podium we have Blighty who was not quite able to follow up his stellar performance last week. At least, this week, he seems to have remembered which holes he got two strokes on.
The first ProPin was out on the 12th and Eddie fronted up to the tee saying that he really needed to win to help pay for his recent dentistry. Needless to say he put it close enough at 2.29m to shut out the rest of the field and make a small contribution to his dentist’s next Ferrari. The second ProPin on the 18th went begging again although Ed did try to mark his ball, using the excuse that he thought it was the BallPin. And, what of the BallPin. Well, it was supposed to be on the 15th and Harry was in charge. So, what could possibly go wrong. As it turned out Harry managed to take 4 putts from just over a metre and was so disgusted with himself that he walked off and forgot about the marker until after the 18th. Result, another jackpot.
Ed’s gums are coming good and he was back in form today offering this bit of consolation for a missed putt – it hit a bump just before you hit it. The beast was in the Chef’s team today and was the designated tongs man but after about ten minutes he was spotted idly chatting with Brendon who was down coaching his youngster into the fine arts of putting. As a penalty, Bill will be relegated to the Chef’s team regardless of the leaderboard for the rest of the year.
Allan has decided that in future he is going to go back to just three clubs as he played much better in the three club event that he has in recent times. And, while on the topic of clubs, JohnQ was out with a brand new set of irons today. So new, in fact, that he had not hit a ball with them before his second shot on the first hole. According to all reports they went OK so there must be another reason for a bit of a slide in form from last week. Allan was feeling pretty happy with his shot with his driver off the 7th tee. That is until Stef out-drove him using his pitching wedge.
Rob had a bit of a rough day out there today. It all started when his drive on the 2nd appeared to have gone missing in the middle of the fairway. As it turned out, Simon had hit the wrong ball (Rob’s) but the curious thing is they didn’t realise the mistake until SOS caught up to them at the 7th or 8th with Simon’s ball to hand. And, although things did not really improve (or even got worse) Rob was quite proud, and rightly so, of the fact that he did not once lose his cool. Matt hit a chip very skinny and it was going like a rocket and heading for who knows where. That is, until it hit the pin dead centre and went close to dropping into the hole. You only have to write the score down, not post pictures to Instagram.
The Birthday Birdie has been woken from his slumbers in recent weeks and has a couple of sets of greetings to bestow. The first goes to Gordon, which might go some way to explaining his absence from duty today. The other goes to Targe who soon will be another year older even though he’ll only be a day older than he was the day before. Go figure.
Two weeks to go for the third round of the Matchplay and two matches to play. Then we will know who get the points and it only remain to determine just exactly how many each one gets. At least one match is planned for next week while the other match has yet to set a date out of the two available.
Results for Saturday, 20 May 2017
1st Andrew Petricola(+2, +3, +5) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(+1, □, +1) 3rd Mehmet Akdag(+1, -2, -1) 3rd Stephen O’Sullivan(+2, -3, -1) 4th Bob McDonald(□, -2, -2) 4th Stefan Belevski(-3, +1, -2) 4th Michael Gourlay(-1, -1, -2) 5th Andrew Blight(+4, -7, -3)
Seniors Results: 1st Bob McDonald (-2,0,-2) 2nd Andrew Blight (-7,4,-3) 3rd Targe Mifsud (-5,0,-5)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Ed Kloprogge ProPin No 2 18th Jackpot BallPin 15th Jackpot