It was a chilly-willy sort of day but the usual suspects still fronted in their shorts showing off their finely toned calves, knobbly knees and surgery scars depending on who you looked at. The rest of the 25 players were conventionally dressed for the conditions.
Early taws there was little wind but later in the round it sprang up a little and some of the less well padded types reached for their jumpers again. The course continues to show stress from the lack of rain but the greens are well watered and give fairly readily under impact. If only every player repaired two pitch marks (without slowing down play, of course)!
Chrispy made his long awaited return from injury and put on a great act looking for sympathy and a handicap review before tee time. Well, he got his handicap review after turning in a card with 40 points with a suspicious looking two scored over the last three holes. Chris reckons the change in his weight transfer because of the injured ankle and the change in his weight due to inactivity contributed to improved accuracy from straighter ball flight. Have we seen the last of the ‘power fade’?
Harry put together a pretty good front nine which came in for some comment at the 10th. This was quickly followed by only three points over the next four holes. Waiting for the green to clear on the 14th, SOS delivered a homily about the role of the mind on performance, taken from a recent management course. This seemed to have hit a chord and 14 points more brought the total to 37 and a share of second place. Enzo might not have needed the same pep talk, or even had anyone to deliver it, but he made an identical pair of nines to get his first points in both the Championship and the Seniors.
As Blighty so perspicaciously pointed out, nobody played exactly to their handicap as third place was filled by Brendon and Dave with a score of 35 points. Dave reckons he should have scored a lot better if not for missing a swag of birdie putts because of the dew on the greens (any excuse!). Perhaps this is why we only managed to gather 13 of the little blighters today. Meantime, Brendon was given a pretty good impression of all four of the wiggles (including the girl) with his multi-coloured and not necessarily colour co-ordinated outfit.
Blighty, the perspicacious one, managed to score 34 points with five horizontals and two verticals in the mix. Matt had one horizontal and five verticals, precisely the same number as Damo, on their way to join Andrew in 4th place. All could have been so much better. Dennis was more than happy to take a point for his 33.
The Nearest the Pin competition had one closely fought hole today. Blighty put his onto the BallPin 4th and probably thought he had a very good chance with his ball five golf shoe and 10mm from the hole. Harry’s shot to 5 golf shoe just pipped him out until along came Brendon, who apparently got closer than five golf shoe, to collect the ball. Not to be outdone, Blighty got his name on the chit at the 18th and took out the ball there instead. The Jackpot ProPin on the 12th went to Enzo who managed to make it to about 2m from the hole.
There were a swag of matches played today. In the second round, Rob and Jason squared up and, literally, squared up and had to go to a chip off. Rob held the lead pretty much all day but Jason pegged him back to square on three occasions. Jason was 2 down at the 16th and had yet to putt when he went to shake Robs hand as if the match was over. When it was pointed out that he could square the hole and make the match dormie two he carried on, got the square and then won the next two. Was he really confused or was he playing mind games? If he was, it was all for naught, as the chip off went to Rob.
Matt took on Mehm and, after a square on the first he was never headed and he took the match 3 and 2. Matt played a very nice shot into the 8th green while Mehm’s skulled approach was lucky to be in bounds when it was saved by the long grass at the front of the green. Matt sank his putt for the birdie but Mehm chipped in from the grass to win the hole. You don’t have to post pictures on Instagram, hey Mehm!
JQ played Bob and had to concede a fair number of strokes. Unfortunately for Bob, he had a pretty ordinary front nine and John was six up at the turn. Bob either woke up or settled down on the back nine and managed to bring the score-line back to 4 and 3. Noodles took on Stef and reckoned the match had all the attractiveness of a Blighty chip-off. However it was a close run thing until some erratic play by Stef on the 14th and 16th gave the match to Noodles 3 and 2.
In a little bit of gun jumping, Dave and Peter played their round three match. Dave was never really headed but the match went dormie two at the 16th and an easy win at the 17th sealed the match for Dave, 3 and 1. Perhaps Peter was lucky that those putts weren’t sinking for Dave.
Damo tried some sort of ‘special’ shot on the 6th and ended up well over on the 7th with another need for a ‘special’ shot to negotiate the trees in the way to the green. Rob might not have been trying anything special when he failed to reach the red markers on the 9th and scored the only draughtie for the day. Dennis was 95% sure that his drive on the 17th was in the penalty area and he took great delight in pitching across the pond and sinking the putt for a par.
Porks was conspicuous by his absence today so he was obviously off somewhere, up to no good, celebrating his birthday. Whitey will be breaking out the candles later in the week. The Birthday Birdie says have a good one guys.
Results for Saturday, 27 April 2019
1st Chris Priems(40) 2nd Harry Boughen(37) 2nd Enzo Cirone(37) 3rd Brendon Mitchell(35) 3rd David Mullenger(35) 4th Andrew Blight(34) 4th Matt Hunt(34) 4th Damien Lee(34) 5th Dennis Ward(33)
Seniors Results: 1st Enzo Cirone (37) 1st Harry Boughen (37) 2nd Andrew Blight (34) 3rd Dennis Ward (33)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin12th Enzo Cirone BallPin No 1 4th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 2 18th Andrew Blight