As befits one of our prestigious major events for the year, there was an excellent turn out of twenty-four members on a bright but fairly chilly morning. A number of members were noted standing at high points with their backs to the sun and arms akimbo to maximise the surface area to intercept the warming rays from old Sol. In some ways, it was reminiscent of a cormorant on a log in the swamp drying his wings for the next dive. And, if the score cards are any guide, quite a few needed to warm up before hitting their straps and shooting the lights out on the back nine. On the other hand, some of the more hot blooded members started out like a house on fire but, like a fire stoked with small kindling, they soon burned out and struggled to turn a score on the back.
One man, who seemed to be struggling for the first nine holes and appeared to be a contender for the Chef’s Hat, really started the back nine off with a bang and a four pointer on the 10th. From there, he never looked back and Keith came home with 26 points for the back nine and a total of 39 for the whole round. The flat stick was apparently the club of the day and Keith was sinking them from where-ever he was on the green, no matter what the distance. His driving can’t have been too bad either as he was able to put his drive on the 18th to 3.62m from the pin to take out the ProPin having successfully shut everybody else out of the event.
Now, Blighty was in a group with JohnQ today and it seems that there was a bit of argy-bargy going on between them and they had a bit of a contest to see who could hit the longest drives. It turned out that Blighty won the contest with a tally of 9 holes to 8. Presumably, the one remaining hole was too close to call or they just forgot to count it. Anyway, Blighty managed to rack up at least three birdies and in so doing he contributed to the total of 18 that we managed for the day. The good thing for Andrew was that some of them were on new holes and his lead in the Eclectic is at least three, although he will lose a little when the handicapping is done next week and his 38 points are taken into account.
No such handicap adjustment on this weeks round for Dale who sits in third place with his score of 36 points. Dale was one of the hot-blooded ones who started off well but faded as the day progressed. Harry and Brendon both carded 35 points and will be well placed in the leaders group to make a big move to collect the trophy. Harry hopes he can repeat his wedge shot on the 17th that was a complete miss-hit that caught one of the small trees on the edge of the pond that took just enough off to have the ball finish on the green instead of on the 18th tee. Brendon is expecting that another week off the sherbet, thanks to his entry in the DryJuly fund-raiser (support from all and sundry is very welcome donate here) will stand him in good stead for a stellar round. Perhaps it was withdrawal that caused him to take three putts from less than half a metre today.
Damo has had his fair share of run-ins with the golf ball and today was no exception when he was hit on the foot by a ball from the following group. No damage to the foot or to his game as he fills the next leaderboard position beside JohnQ. Six points is not an impossible catch-up target for either of these two players. Damo was on the green from the tee on the 17th but he was unable to make the fairly simple putt for the Eagle. Which is maybe just as well. If he had made it, then Stef would have had to share the Belevski Benefit Eagles Nest pool after he did make the putt on the 14th following a drive that was deemed to be worth waiting for due to a bit of a bottle-neck behind the group in front. The first ProPin today was a Jackpot on the 4th and the greenkeepers had the tee blocks set well back again and so the hole was pretty much as difficult as it was last week. Not for JohnQ, though, as he put his ball to 1.38m to pretty much seal the deal. He didn’t make the birdie though and he was very concerned to find out whether he had succeeded in holding his spot as he passed by the last group as they waited on the 7th tee.
The rest of the field scores appear on the Leaderboard page and the groups next week will be in reverse Leaderboard order (with allowance for those not playing next week). Any new players next week will be sent out early in the field after/with the Chef’s Hat Brigade.
The BallPin was on the 15th and Michael managed to get it on with what he claimed was a ‘shank’. But, it didn’t last and eventually Stef added to his now bulging ball bag with another one for nearest the pin.
After last week’s victory, Allan was in an experimental mood and was using his sand-wedge for all chip shots. Not wanting to make a cheap shot about it, but it wasn’t going too well at all. Eventually he relented and went back to his 8 iron and, in his view at least, things improved. And that’s half the battle after all. With your mind, that is.
Rob and Chrispy played in the same group and it seems that Rob really fell in a hole after scoring strongly on the front nine and only managed 10 points on the back. Rob blames the form slump on Chris and Chris happily accepts responsibility for putting the mockers on him. Who needs enemies when you’ve got a brother! Chris on the other hand claims he would have scored much better if it hadn’t been for the low-flying air-ambulance chopper. He reckons the down-draft put him off his putting. And, while on the subject of draft, there was only one draughtie today and that was down to Allan who apparently decided to change his grip in mid-backswing on the 12th and left the ball sufficiently short of the red markers to have potential for a repeat performance. Fortunately, he got the second one away.
Results for Saturday, 15 July 2017
Leaderboard Round 1 1st Keith Delzoppo(39) 2nd Andrew Blight(38) 3rd Dale Webb(36) 4th Harry Boughen(35) 4th Brendon Mitchell(35) 5th Damien Lee(34) 5th John Quinlan(34)
Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Keith Delzoppo (39) 2nd Andrew Blight (38) 3rd Harry Boughen (35)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 4th John Quinlan ProPin No 2 18th Keith Delzoppo BallPin 15th Stefan Belevski
Eagle’s nest Results: Eagle 14th Stefan Belevski