You could be forgiven for imagining that we had been transported back in time to the middle of winter. The temperature was barely into double figures and the wind-chill made it feel a lot less than that. Plus, there was the prospect of rain from the occasional angry looking cloud. But, the clouds deigned not to rain and the sun broke through from time to time. It turned out to be a pretty nice day for golf for the twelve members who ignored the forecasts and made it to the course to try their luck as the 2019 playing year winds down to its inevitable conclusion.
The championship leader can be caught but a few things have to fall into place. Porks has given a chance with a couple of absences in the remaining weeks and, if the chancers can get high enough placings, it is possible that it could be a tight run thing in the end. The other big question is, can he make the tonne?
Gordo started off pretty well and looked to be doing it easy when he turned in positive territory after the first nine. Now, whether he just got the yips or he started to think about his handicap for the Vin O’Meara, there were a few scoring chances that went begging on the back and the round finished just one on the wrong side of centre. Just about right to get a bit of a stroke back, thought Captain P. Little did he realise that -1 was going to be the winning score and he became the only person to lose strokes in the whole field. What really rubbed salt into the wounds was the ‘unnecessary’ birdie on the 4th but it did contribute to the eight that we scored as a group.
There was a veritable squadron of players fronting the judges for second place and SOS was torn in trying to decide whether he could afford to extend the ball-run beyond the two that went to Gordon for his win. Chrispy was calling for a countback to determine who should get the third ball. He still would have missed out as he would have been beaten by none other than his little boy, Jake. And Noodles had no chance (in the countback, that is).
Harry had suffered quite a number of ‘just missed’ putts including a careless short range miss on the 11th. So, when he lagged one just shy of the hole on the 12th, the consensus was that he should rest and take his time. So careful was he about ‘taking his time’ that he was walking away from the green with his ball marker still firmly in place marking where the ball had been. And he hadn’t taken the putt either. A bit of a burst of form as the round closed brought him home in third place.
Dennis was apparently playing hooky today and that doesn’t mean that he had skipped school. It seems that his usual arrow straightness has taken a nasty turn to the left. A bit like his politics, perhaps. Blighty played his normal boring game – just ask him any time and Adam had to dash off and nobody was game to dob him in for anything. But they all managed to share 4th place. That left Targe and Stef to take out the last points on offer for the day.
The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that, so far, there have been eleven players mentioned in despatches. Shall we just say that Peter took some beautiful divots today, especially when hitting from the tee. He has a big game on tomorrow so he was planning to head straight to the driving range to try to sort something out. And, while on the subject of sorting things out, Chrispy reckons that, after 30 years of playing golf, he has worked out what he has been doing wrong and the Seniors Championship next year is as good as his.
The BallPins today were on the 12th and the 18th and it was left to Gordon to put his name on both. With this and his comp win (plus a ball-run from last week) Gordon was pretty much up to his balls at the end of the day. The ProPin was on the 15th and Gordon had another go but finished about half a metre out of range. This left it up to SOS, who made it to 4.1m, to take out the money.
Gordo could have been forgiven for thinking that he was wearing some sort of a target today. Dennis had a go at taking his head off while he was standing on the 1st green waiting for Dennis to make his third shot on the second. Then, as he waited on the 7th tee, Jake managed to slice one from the 6th fairway, between Harry’s legs, and hit Gordon on the foot.
Targe covered a fair bit of territory today by traversing from one side of the fairway to the other. His tee shot on the 11th was heading a fair bit to the right and Peter opined that it would hit something and finish OK. Which it promptly did. Nice call, Pete. Stef was up to his usual tricks today and went close to driving the green on the 9th and 11th to name just a couple.
Results for Saturday, 09 November 2019
1st Gordon Hill(-1) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(-2) 2nd Chris Priems(-2) 2nd Jake Priems(-2) 2nd Stephen O’Sullivan(-2) 3rd Harry Boughen(-3) 4th Andrew Blight(-4) 4th Adam King(-4) 4th Dennis Ward(-4) 5th Stefan Belevski(-5) 5th Targe Mifsud(-5)
Seniors Results: 1st Gordon Hill (-1) 2nd Harry Boughen (-3) 3rd Andrew Blight (-4) 3rd Dennis Ward (-4)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin15th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 1 12th Gordon Hill BallPin No 2 18th Gordon Hill