What’s that you say! Surely the heavy rain from yesterday was all gone. Yes, the course did collect about 50 or more from the tropical low that fed moisture in yesterday but, you would hardly have known it and the course was in tip-top condition. The coconuts were down to Mango Man, Ken, who didn’t have quite enough to go round the sixteen members who made it to the tee today. Noodles was conspicuous by his absence for the round, and his excuse afterwards was that he was just too tired to get himself out of bed when the alarm went off. The conditions were certainly very favourable for playing golf if the scores that were handed in by the leaders were any indication. The scores at the tail end of the field would tend to put the lie to that little theory though. But, we won’t go there!
What can we say about Jason? It seems that he could do nothing wrong today. Thirteen pars and two birdies on the way to a gross score of 70 strokes and a fairly mind-blowing total of plus eight. And not a single grandpar in the lot. Even when did fluff a tee shot, on the 12th, he just upped and chipped it in for the birdie. Even on his new handicap, he’d have still gone close to winning the day.
Now, the next two must have given themselves a bit of a chance to collect the top points when the were able to sign off on cards showing plus five on the bottom line. Ryan didn’t have to make use of any grandpars to get his score but ChrisV was able to sneak the double score onto his card twice in his effort to tie for second place. Chris reckons he hasn’t been practising, he just plays better after a break, and he did admit to starting to think about things a bit too much after his front nine and a monster putt on the 10th for one of his double points.
Keith was another one who managed to snare himself a double pointer with a very nice par on the 8th. He was on the verge of abandoning his ball on the 14th after it had disappeared among the trees on the left and was heard to bounce on the path. Just in the nick of time the ball was spotted hiding in plain sight to allow a squared hole to be the result.
Usually, a Priems does not have to pray for a tree to intervene. But, today, it seems that Rob was doing just that as his ball from the 13th tee headed for the penalty area. With no obvious intervention, the search was started in said penalty area until somebody spotted a ball in the middle of the fairway. Rob’s prayers had been answered. SOS wasn’t able to hang around afterwards, but his card shows nothing spectacular and nothing terrible on his way to matching it with Rob with a square card into fourth place.
Old Reliable was, it seems, a little less reliable with his second shot to the green on the 13th, and it finished in the gutter on the path behind the green. The only place to drop was on the steep slope behind. The awkward chip popped over the path, ran down the slope, across the green and lipped out to finish just centimetres away. A tap in scored the ‘easiest’ of pars. Brendon was just a little too consistent in managing to produce regular negative scores which were just enough to outweigh the positive ones and his final score of minus one matched it with Craig for the last podium place.
The ProPin today was on the 12th and, although Noodles did buy a new tape, the fact that he did not make it to the starter meant that we only have an estimate of the distance from the pin. We also only have to believe the report that Craig (at about 2m) was closer to the pin than JQ (est. 2.2m). The first BallPin was on the 4th and Brendon was the one to put his smiley face on the card. It was a bit of a close-run thing though as there had to be a pace-off to separate two contenders from the group. The 18th BallPin was knocked down to the Beast. None of the NTP wins ended up producing a birdie, and, so, the tally of 10 for the day has to be down to scores on other holes or by other people.
Rob has a garage full of bits and pieces to build himself a wood-fire pizza oven. Although the instructions suggest anybody can do it, Rob reckons that you just about need an engineering degree to work it all out. He reckons he might put on a pizza night when it is finished, but you have to make your own as he doesn’t cook pizza??? Matt is adamant that the reason that he won’t be here for the next few weeks is not to protect his handicap for the Punters Club weekend. He is just as adamant that the club slipped out of his hands today. Bobbie seems to have gotten his wheels back into gear as he was noticed sauntering along behind his cart rather than wrestling with it as he was last week.
Results for Saturday, 30 January 2021
1st Jason Hopkins(+8) 2nd Ryan Porker(+5) 2nd Chris Vinecombe(+5) 3rd Keith Delzoppo(+2) 4th Robert Priems(□) 4th Stephen O’Sullivan(□) 5th Craig Cameron(-1) 5th Brendon Mitchell(-1)
Seniors Results: 1st Keith Delzoppo (+2) 2nd Craig Cameron (-1) 3rd Ken Watson (-2)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 12th Craig Cameron BallPin No 1 4th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 2 18th Bill Eastoe