🏌🏻♂️ 🍷 🎼 💦
The final major of this year’s Championship started (and stopped early) this week. The Fred Kitson Spring Cup started with a bang – good players looking to win this prestigious trophy and gain big points in the keenly contested Championship. There may be some early celebrating if someone in the running to win the Championship takes out Fred’s cup. Dear ol’ Fred enjoyed a glass of red after Saturday games and the tradition may continue after round 2 next week.
In the country, the wethers know whether the weather will be predicted by the weather bureau accurately or not – this time it was a not. “early showers easing around 9am to clear for a fine afternoon.” – they said. Well it just kept raining. The greens were unplayable by the time we reached the 10th and the committee decided to call a halt to the sploshing and splashing after 9 holes played – much to the chagrin of some of those who were playing darn good golf and scoring well. Probably more importantly to the punters in the group, the Caulfield Cup track was downgraded to a ‘soft 5’ and predetermined bets had to be reviewed! (Best Solution was in fact NOT the best solution to our trifecta as it turned out!)
Here’s the reporting of the day from our guest reporter President JQ –
– 15 nutters braved the conditions to try and win the (technically) last of our major tournaments – the Freddie Kitson Spring Cup. I say technically, because we still have the Summer Cup in December, but those points fall into the next years’ Championship… which is exactly why l think we had such a reasonable turnout. There was a fair bit of pre-match chatter about the only reason they turned up was to try and collect some points, which makes sense given how close our leadership board is at the moment. At present, there is 14 of our members realistically in with a shot of winning the title – and the 16 points on offer was enough to get most out of bed.
Considering there we only played 9 holes, the Beast managed some electrifying scoring in shisen conditions to come in with a +4 (with 7 pars on the front) – excellent stuff Billy. Hot on his heels, was Jason Hopkins, Simon ‘seniors’ Powell and Daniel O’Rourke all with a +2 – a good opportunity for Daniel to follow his mate, Peter, with his first win at the club.
In third, we have the Pres and Brent Rowley with +1’s. The only thing pleasingly about a 9-hole round is that the post-match post mortem with Noods and his ‘could’ve had anything’ standard conversation was only half as long. He finished square on his own, which could have been better had he not thinned his approach to the 9th nearly into the clubhouse. And in 5th, we have both Bobby McDonald and Peter Damou both on -1. Golf is a funny game and just when you think you’ve got it pegged, it has a horrible way of bringing you back to earth… as Peter found out all too well. Fresh from his monthly medal collect, Pete on the first tee managed to hit the ball about 3 metres to the left and into the foliage – much to the delight of those yet to tee off. Don’t worry Pete, we’ve all been there. Carlton Draughts all round.
So, the groups for next week (subject to others turning up – and wanting to help Rob Priems (-5) with the sausage duties), the groups will be as follows:
Group 1 – Rob Priems (-5), Dale Webb (-3) and Damien Lee (-3)
Group 2 – Andrew Blight (-3), Gordon Hill (-3) and Brendon Mitchell (-3)
Group 3 – Chris Priems (-2), Peter Damou (-1) and Bob McDonald (-1)
Group 4 – Stephen Butterfield (□), Brent Rowley (+1) and John Quinlan (+1)
Group 5 – Jason Hopkins (+2), Daniel O’Rourke (+2), Simon Powell (+2) and Bill Eastoe (+4)
The only nearest the pin we had this weekend was on the 7th was won by Damien Lee – congratulations on the your new Hot Dot Damo. Just a reminder, there will be handicap adjustments for the 27-holes
Good luck and good weather to us all next weekend.