Pretty much as expected, the course was a bit on the wet and slushy side as the rain clouds persist in dropping their load right over Ivanhoe. The rough is getting rougher and the fairways are getting shaggier as the ground staff were prevented from getting out with the mowers, again. It was therefore possible to spend an amount of time searching for balls that would otherwise have been easily found. The lack of run also contributed to some searching being carried out well in front of the final resting place of the ball. There was a bit of a mist falling right at tee time, and a couple of umbrellas were unfurled by the less hardy of the fourteen members who rolled up to take their chances with the vagaries of the weather and the course.
Brent is a bit cheesed off for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was all lined up to play Michael in the Matchplay final. Unfortunately, Michael had to bale for family reasons, but Brent pressed on regardless. And, he reckons that he played well enough to beat Michael on the day, specially with Michael having to give him nine strokes. Second, he had managed to avoid coming down with COVID despite visits to the footy, pubs, clubs etc. That is, until one of the littlies went to kindie and brought the bug home, and it spread progressively through the whole household, and prevented him from playing during the last month. As a result, he did not pass the qualification to win the Monthly Medal on offer. Third, as he had the best net score of 70, he copped the ‘winners’ penalty, which reduces the strokes that Michael has to concede when they do eventually meet in their match. Plus, it seems unlikely that he would get in enough games to claw the loss back in time. Harry, on the other hand, was less than enamoured with the way that his game went, with a fair number of cases of hitting the big ball before he hit the little one. Plus, there were any number of putts that were of a perfect length, but just a couple of centimetres to the side of the hole. Others were more optimistic that a net of 72 would be a good score for the round, and so it was that Harry slotted into second place, and collected the medal as well.
ChrisJ has bought himself a new driving iron, and his use of it from the first was the cause of a fair bit of comment from the peanut gallery watching on. Chris’s general opinion was that he will have to get himself to the driving range to learn how to use the thing. Things can’t have been too bad though, as he had a pretty reasonable round apart from a bit of a shocker on the 13th. As a result, he could only manage a net score of 73 to take out third place. Gordon came in looking a bit grumpy. Or, as he put it, he was ‘spewing’. The ProShop sent out a random group of four onto the back nine between our groups, who, variously, tried to ‘steal’ balls, removed the NTP marker from the 15th and tossed it into the rough (fortunately it was found), and, to rub salt into the wounds, played slowly. He might also have been a bit grumpy about some of his scores in general. However, his net 74 scored him fourth place and a couple of points to his total. Pepsi’s marker marked his net score incorrectly, and so, after a round that included some pretty ordinary scores by his standards, he didn’t end up with fifth place by himself as was reported at the presentations. Our pal, CJ, who admitted to some of his worst drives since he got his new set of clubs was moved into a share of that exalted position with his net score of 76, so the points tally does still keep ticking over, as they say.
Now we get to the controversy. It’s been all over the news of late about the shortage of skilled labour around the country. And, it seems, that shortage has spread to our little Club as well. There was great anticipation about the Triple Jackpot for the ProPin on the 12th. Despite having discussed the matter on the tee and having rued the fact that no one had got on, not one member of the first group remembered to put out the kit for the use of following groups. As a result, the ProPin today was declared No Contest and the pool will carry over to next week as an effective Quadruple Jackpot. This could also have contributed to Gordo’s grumpiness, as he did get onto the green, reportedly within the required distance. The first BallPin was on the 15th, and BrentR had put his marker out at a measured distance (with the ProPin tape – which marker he also put out) of 3.73m. Without the BallPin marker on the green, thanks to the interlopers, SOS ‘paced’ his distance as 4.1m, and, so, the ball was awarded to Brent. On the 18th, the pin was on the top deck, but the green evaded all comers, except Pepsi, who left his ball on the bottom deck. Even after his putt, the ball was still on the bottom deck, so there was no birdie there. Or anywhere, for that matter, and we ended up with a big fat zero for the birdie count today. This would just about have to be a first!
BrentL was with us today for the first time in a while, and he reckoned that the time away from the game really showed. He could still hit the ball a country mile, though, as he demonstrated on the 14th. His first tee shot headed sharply left, and finished out of bounds towards the 15th tee. His second headed the completely opposite direction, and went close to being out of bounds beyond the 16th fairway and about 200m out. Pepsi might have done better on the scoring front if he hadn’t lost a ball up a tree on the 11th. Given the reported ‘hairy’ state of the course, you could be forgiven for suggesting that it just was hidden in the herbage. Not likely, say the searchers, as the ground around the area is pretty bare. Bob has been having trouble with his hands, and his scoring today was not great. He managed a draughtie on the 12th, but it is suggested that it was not his lack of grip strength that caused the club to go flying backwards and whizzing within inches of Geoff’s head. And, while on the topic of Geoff, he got around all day with the zip of his jeans wide open. Whether this was a strategy to put off his playing partners or just shoddy manufacture was not clear.
After a fair sort of a break, the Birthday Birdie has to get his wings back into action to deliver some best wishes to Matt and Blighty. Have a great day, guys, whatever you might get up to, to celebrate.
Results for Saturday, 03 Sep 2022
1st Brent Rowley (70) 2nd Harry Boughen (72) 3rd Chris James (73) 4th Gordon Hill (74) 5th Andrew Petricola (76) 5th Chris Priems (76)
Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (72) 2nd Gordon Hill (74) 3rd Chris Priems (76)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th No Contest BallPin No 1 – 15th Brent Rowley BallPin No 2 – 18th Andrew Petricola