There was all sorts of doom and gloom during the week as the forecasts consistently predicted a rain event for today. Some part of the city did get some reasonable falls which caused some concern for some of our far flung members. But, good old Ivanhoe managed to keep itself in some sort of a rain shadow and there was probably only a couple of millimetres recorded on the course. The preferred lies were certainly welcome and the occasional ball did not get much run but most managed to climb out of their plug marks even if not by very much. Despite the absence of the Priems family, who are slugging it out in their annual grudge match this weekend, we managed to pull in twenty five members. Mark Minney joined us again to put in his second card giving a total field of 26. Trevor is back with us after having his cataract surgery and his vision is now so good that he can actually see the ball on the tee and act as a spotter for the rest of his playing group.
Gordon has obviously been taking the social distancing seriously over the last few months and his distinguished greying locks are beginning to look a bit on the wild and wooly side. He opted out of playing on Thursday with the excuse that he was playing nurse-maid but you would have to think that he might have been out getting in some sneaky practice. His recent form hasn’t been what you would call scintillating and he didn’t quite do a ‘Blighty’ but +4 is a fair turn around but not what you would call an unassailable lead in the event.
Because, right on his tail, with a plus three, thanks largely to a lost ball on the 18th, was Ryan, who is just dying to get the bonus points to overtake Noodles in the Championship points table. Porks reckoned he needed an incentive to keep his game going so he challenged Damo to a match over the back nine for ten bucks. Damo handed the money over after the 14th.
The next group have a bit of work to do or need a bit of a ‘butter menthol’ performance from the two leaders. MattH, Pepsi and Si all managed to square their card. Matt was going gang-busters for the first third of the round but then he lost his mojo. Pepsi matched par on the front but couldn’t snare the elusive plus on the back. And Simon was just pleased to be hitting the ball the way he reckons he should be.
Despite having lost out to Porks on the back nine, Damo was quite happy with his result although he was still smarting over his defeat in the Matchplay last week.. Particularly when the giant killer came in with no less than twelve fewer points this week. Blighty did try to blame his new Mizumo clubs for his less than stellar result today. The last on the list of hopefuls today was filled by Harry, Noodles and Craig.
The GOATee marshal was contemplating putting the ProPin on the 12th and Harry said, why not give the 4th a go and so the first BallPin went onto the 12th. Wouldn’t you know it. Harry put his shot on the 12th to 1.5m to knock off Whitey. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough even to win the ball as Noodles managed to reach about 1.2m. Noodles didn’t get the birdie but Harry did and helped us to the grand total of 16 for the day. The second BallPin on the 18th went to Whitey, uncontested. There was a need for some consultation about the ProPin on the 4th as there were no distances recorded. But, the consensus was that the ball was about 3m from the hole and certainly within the 5m limit and so the cash went to Peter despite the fact that he took four putts to complete the hole.
We had one match played today and the term ‘match’ is used in its broadest possible sense. Brendon came up against Dave and he could be forgiven for thinking that he must have walked on a chinaman’s grave. If there was a tree anywhere within cooee, it seemed to reach out and stop the ball dead in its tracks. He lost the first to Dave’s double bogey and from then on all he was able to do was to fabricate the occasional square. The match finished on the 11th, 8 and 7. The tension was obviously telling as pretty much immediately, Dave’s game fell apart and, relatively speaking, Brendon’s came good.
Mostyn caused a fair bit of excitement today. On the 11th, he was striding about ‘not’ looking for his ball and managed to toe it about three metres from where it lay. There is no truth in the rumour that Melbourne Victory are planning to sign him as a striker. On the 14th, he carefully described how he was going to hit a high draw to land softly on the green only to pull off a perfectly executed air swing. This he followed with similarly perfect pull shot, shank and pick-up. He wasn’t alone in his efforts at not making it to the red markers. Other culprits included, MattA, Targe and Ken.
Peter was walking back to his buggy on the 10th tee when it suddenly took off down the hill. It made it part of the way before capsizing and spilling its contents, including about a dozen golf balls far and wide. And he reckons he had the brake on! Porks, as well as bewailing his luck at losing a ball on the 18th, also couldn’t believe his eyes when a putt, heading straight for the hole, hit a pitch mark or something, took to the air and jumped right across the hole. Brendon’s chip on the 10th took one bounce and almost disappeared into the hole. Alas, it was just a bit too fast and didn’t stay in. Gordon apparently asked Noodles if he should change his grip. Then he asked him about his golf. Maybe that is why he managed to miss a 200mm putt. And maybe that is why Noodles was noted giving a bit of equipment abuse on or about the 10th hole.
Final round of the David Ford Autumn Cup next week. Although the groups will go out pretty much in reverse Leaderboard order, you should still register online so that we know numbers. We will not be having the barbeque afterwards but there are plans to try to arrange some sort of catering and we need to know numbers for that was well as for keeping the reserved tee times.
Results for Saturday, 20 June 2020
Leaderboard Round 1: 1st Gordon Hill(+4) 2nd Ryan Porker(+3) 3rd Matt Hunt(□) 3rd Andrew Petricola(□) 3rd Simon Powell(□) 4th Damien Lee(-1) 5th Harry Boughen(-2) 5th Stephen Butterfield(-2) 5th Craig Cameron(-2)
Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Gordon Hill (+4) 2nd Simon Powell (□) 3rd Craig Cameron (-2) 3rd Harry Boughen (-2)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin4th Peter Damou BallPin No 1 12th Stephen Butterfield BallPin No 2 18th Rodney White