No matter which way you dice it, the weather gods have been kind in recent times. A goodly bunch of showers passed over during the night and deposited a bit of moisture around and about to keep the course in its fine condition. Sort of like Goldilocks, not too wet and not too dry but juuusstt right. A few of the clouds tried their best to look threatening and Blighty got a bit jumpy when a couple of drops appeared from somewhere, if not the sky. All in all, it was little wonder that 21 members turned out to fight it out for the last medal on offer for the year and, for a few of them, to fight it out for the prize horses on offer in the Calcutta Auction after the round.
As well as the medal, there were a few other things going on today. There were some places to be decided in the Club Championship and in the Senior Championship and the competition for second and third places in each was expected to be fierce. As it turned out, Targe made it easily into second place by taking out the day by a good margin with his nett score of 67. Technically, he won it on a countback from Dave but, unfortunately, Dave did not qualify for the medal and he had to settle for a few more points and an even bigger tally on his Vardon Trophy win. The result might, or might not been different if Targe hadn’t had a draughtie on the third and if Dave hadn’t been three putting on a regular basis
Jason saved his handicap nicely for the Vin O’Meara by coming in second with a handicap equaling nett of 68. This score was helped along by a couple of birdies on a day that delivered an impressive tally, for recent times, of 17. Craig and Bob shared the honours for third place with their cards of 69 and Craig would probably like to claim that he intended to hit a branch to slow and deflect his ball for a chip-in on the 3rd.
Brendon managed to squeeze himself into third place in the Championship by gathering the two points for fourth place on the day. And that was despite consigning two balls into the penalty area on the 17th. Matt rounded out the very last point for the season with his nett of 71.
Dennis and Harry were slugging it out for the minor placings in the Senior Championship and, although the golf wasn’t great, there looked like being some sort of a contest until a quintuple at the 13th was enough for Harry to realise that nothing short of a miracle could change the placings and he would have to settle for second runner-up.
Gordon was probably wishing the the Nearest the Pin competitions had been set on the 4th and the 7th. His tee shot on the 4th finished centimetres from the hole and there was an unverified claim that he went close to hole in one on the 7th. The fact that his card showed a four for that hole suggests that if it did go close it was travelling too fast to fall or that the flat stick failed miserably. As it was, there was a BallPin on the 12th that was fiercely contested but eventually went to Porks in the last group. The second BallPin on the 18th went to a shot by Dave that barely made it onto the green. The ProPin was on the 15th (again) and Harry was able to make good use of the contours to finish 3.845m from the hole.
Peter produced a mixed bag today with some shots departing almost at right angles to the intended direction and going close to taking out Bob and Allan in the process. On the other hand, he went close to driving the green on the 11th and went within millimetres of putting his second in for an eagle. He cracked two birdies for the day, but he already had them for the Eclectic. Blighty, on the other hand, managed to get a par on the 6th to improve his and missed out by a whisker on catching up with Peter who took out the Eclectic for the year.
In other news, Blighty managed to have a ‘ground’ shot on the 11th. And when he shaped up for the next shot, he appeared to go close to repeating the trick. JQ pulled some spectacular ‘rescue’ shots out of the bag but still managed to finish a little way down the order. SOS was feeling a little the worse for wear after the previous night’s activities.
The Calcutta Auction was ably conducted by that well known auctioneer, Gordon, although he did drop his knob a number of times and actually missed the table once when a very late bid came in. This almost resulted in a protest but the matter was settled amicably. The purchasers will be in contact with the jockeys in relation to settling any sharing arrangements. Any auctioned jockey who changes their intention to race should advise their purchaser at the earliest opportunity. Settlement must be in cash to the purchaser and from him to Gordon before the start of play next week. The $25 ‘buy yourself’ option must also be settled with Gordon before start of play.
Results for Saturday, 30 November 2019
1st Targe Mifsud(67) (c/b t9) 1st David Mullenger(67) 2nd Jason Hopkins(68) 3rd Craig Cameron(69) 3rd Bob McDonald(69) 4th Brendon Mitchell(70) 5th Matt Hunt(71)
Seniors Results: 1st Targe Mifsud (67) 2nd Bob McDonald (69) 2nd Craig Cameron (69) 3rd Dennis Ward (72)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin15th Harry Boughen BallPin No 1 12th Ryan Porker BallPin No 2 18th David Mullenger