I dunny-roll what went wrong on 07 March 2020.

It seems that we have had the wettest start to a year in a dog’s age and the frogs are absolutely loving it. There is water in the billabong and some of the ponds on the course and the frogs were in full voice for the joy of it. Of course, if we get a bit of warm weather, the Joe Blakes will be out in force, making a meal of it. In the meantime, 21 members and Mostyn headed out under still overcast skies to try their hand for the March Monthly Medal. A big welcome back to Mostyn who has rejoined our merry band although he will only be able to play about once a month or so. The course has softened up a bit and the white tees (and a lot of the blues) were set well back but it is hard to imagine that this was enough to put the clamps on the ability to score well.

Trevor is having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the fact that, for him, a double bogey is effectively a par and he was giving himself a hard time throughout the round. But, being in the first group, he turned in as the early Club-house leader. The cards continued to trickle in and none were able to better his score although there were some matches. But the general thought was that, surely, somebody would better it. In the end, Craig, Noodles and Damo joined Trev in first place with a net score of 72. The countback for the medal was something of a marathon. Craig and Damo were eliminated on the last 9 hole scores but Noodles and Trev were still tied up. So, it went to the last six holes and, lo and behold, the scores were still all of an equal. It was only when it got down the the last three holes that it was possible to separate them and Noodles was the victor. Better luck next time, Trev, everyone was barracking for you.

As Gordon trudged past on his way to pack his gear away, you could have been forgiven for thinking that he had made a pretty lousy score. And, maybe, he thought he had. What he obviously hadn’t allowed for was the fact that everybody else had gone similarly poorly. A couple of triples on the back certainly did not help the cause. Rob would probably prefer to forget the 13th where he managed to reach double figures. Enzo made a bit of a mess of the 16th and Harry was just that little bit out of touch for most of the round. As a result, this merry trio could only manage to share third place with their score of 74.

Peter put his hand up for one of the draughties for the day but still managed to par the 15th. Brendon scored another (draughtie that is) on the 3rd where he skied it off the tee into the pond to the right. Rod, on the other hand, couldn’t add up and so joined the other two for a share of fourth place. Which left SOS on his Pat Malone to collect the last point for the day with his 76.

The ProPin today was on the 4th but, with the tee well back on the blocks, nobody managed to get within the required distance and so there will be a Jackpot of the Pool to next week. The first BallPin was on the 15th and Harry managed to get is pin high and only a couple of metres from the pin but, unfortunately, the ball was about 200mm off the cut and so it was left to Adam to collect the ball. The BallPin on the 18th went to Simon and it must have been something of a shot if the comments afterwards are any guide but more detail is lacking.

The Matchplay got underway today. Adam and Peter battled it out in their match and really confused things by crossing over the records on the card. Peter got off to a good start while Adam was not able to get a run together to make up the deficit. The match went dormie at the 14th and Adam could have been forgiven for having raised hopes on the 15th except that Peter’s draughtie/par squared the hole to give him the match 4 and 3. SOS took on Ken and the opinion expressed was that it was the world’s worst ever match. Ken is reported to have scored a minimum of three draughties (and possibly more) but he still managed to hold SOS to a close run thing. Although SOS finished one up, he conceded the match to Ken on the basis that he is having a knee replacement later this month. We wish him well and a speedy recovery but it will be several months before we see him swinging a club again.

Brendon played MattA and the Big B got off to a shaky start and Matt was able to build a bit of a lead early on. However, Brendon seems to have settled down and his greater experience started to tell and the lead was whittled away to be square at the turn. But Matt didn’t lie down and the match could have gone either way until it finished at the 16th with Brendon coming home 3 and 2. Harry took on Rob and felt a bit hard done by having to give three strokes to the ‘good-looking’ Priems. The match looked like being fairly even as it panned out all square at the 7th. A horror run of five losses in a row put Rob in the box seat until his disaster on the 13th gave just a glimmer of hope to the hapless Harry. But, the match finished on the 14th, going to Rob, 5 and 4. And, wouldn’t you know it, Harry won pretty much every hole from then on. Michael has had to concede to Dave because of a return of his knee injury.

Enzo chipped in twice today. One of them for a birdie on the 4th and that was just one of the, rather paltry, total of five that we made for the day. Brendon was rather resplendent today, decked out in a silver vest. It also seems that he has taken up drinking Tomato Sauce, either that or he can’t afford a proper water bottle. Simon was bragging about his two perfect shots on the 16th that, apparently, put him onto the green but he didn’t have too much to say about the three putts that it then took him to get into the hole. Bob looked as if he was struggling a bit after the round and maybe the reason was that his electric buggy had been ‘playing up’ and there might have been some pushing involved.

For those of you that don’t read emails (including MattH who drove up from Mornington today) the AGM was postponed to next week because of the long weekend. It seems that we will probably have as many people absent next weekend but the AGM will be held after the round, regardless.