Leading up to tee time, there was a lot of talk about rain-free days and the effect of windy ones on the condition of the course. The sign was still out for preferred lies, but the carts were on the move, so that augured well for significantly improved conditions out on the course. And, that augury proved to be accurate, with only patches on the 13th and 14th still a bit on the ‘mucky’ side. The need for preferred lie was still obvious, with the wet clay sticking to the ball and buggy wheels like the proverbial baby cack to a blanket. The greens were soft enough to hold a well lofted approach, but fast enough to let anything skinny skip right on through. The weather was fine, and the forecast showers were nowhere in sight by the end of the round, despite some prognostications made by a few of the eleven members playing, in the face of thickening cloud and fading light late in the piece. All in all, there should have been no real reason not to shoot the lights out.
As it turned out, the best that we could manage was to play to handicap, although you could be forgiven for thinking that that performance could have been rather better than it turned out. Brendon started out trying his best to repeat last week’s start by chipping in for a birdie on the first. The margin of the miss was really quite small. For some reason, the honey-comb track way by the 8th green managed to spook him, and a series of ‘duffs’ resulted in a triple and a no score, leaving him with only 19 points at the turn. At the 14th, after a very purposeful preparation, the drive departed like a bullet, and the ball finished on the green with a straight, up-hill putt for a potential eagle. The putt ran fast and true, but just a little too fast for the section of the cup that it caught, but it finished not too far away to be considered a good birdie chance. Four putts later, Brendon was left with the option of cutting his own throat or carrying on with the game. This he did in fine style (carrying on, that is), and finished with a total of 36 points to lead the field.
Harry struggled with his short game over the course of the front nine, and the three putts cost him dearly, and so, he was somewhat down in the dumps at the turn. However, in a similar vein to last week, he was able to turn the form around to produce the best nine hole points total for the day of 21, to bring his total to a second place holding tally of 35 points. Raj started out just a bit on the ‘average’ side, but, on the 3rd, he fairly cracked his drive well down the fairway, and followed up with a pretty speccy shot to within a couple of metres of the pin. His putt was deadly accurate, but it came to a stop with part of the ball hanging over the edge of the hole. Instead of walking up to the ball, Raj tried kangaroo hopping in the hope that the vibration would make it drop. No such luck, and the Match Committee would have upheld a protest, so he, grudgingly, had to nudge the ball into the hole for the par. Finishing off the round with a couple of pars helped him to attain the second place total of 35 as well.
The 8th hole seems to have had a bit of a jinx upon it today, with no less than four members scoring triples on it for no points. One of those was none other than Prez, aka Rob, who might have done better than his 17 points for the front nine if it were not for that. The back nine did not produce any no score holes, but it could only produce the exact same total, to make the 34 points for the round, which was enough to snag the third podium spot without having to share it. Matt was another who fell victim to the jinx on the 8th. However, his score was helped immeasurably by the three birdies that he managed to score elsewhere, and he became by far the most prolific feather duster for the day, as we only managed four between the lot of us. The fifth spot on the Leaderboard is shared by Michael and SOS with their tally of 31 points. However, with Tail-end-Charlie only three points further back, nobody is really out of the running to do a Bradbury, and to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
The options offered for the first BallPin today were the 4th or the 7th. The 7th was ‘eliminated’ as being too hard, and so the 4th it was. And, what do you know, the 4th was too hard, and there will be a jackpot for next week. As an aside, at least one member did get onto the 7th. The ProPin was a jackpot on the 15th, and Harry cracked a mighty fine drive that looked to be right in there with a chance. Brendon did his little wiggle on the tee and spoke nicely to the ball – ‘just finish inside Harry’. And, it did, stopping 2.9m out pin high. Harry needn’t have worried because his was just over the 5m limit. The second BallPin on the 18th fell to Raj with his shot to 5m, which could easily be enough to win the ProShop ProPin as well.
The last of the Matchplay Quarter-finals was played today between Matt and Michael. With only three strokes difference, on paper it looked to be a good match. A good match it turned out to be. Michael, never did manage to get his nose in front, but the margin was never more than two holes. After the 16th, the match was square, with a good chance that it could go either way. Matt won the 17th by scoring one of his birdies to Michael’s par, making the match Dormie 1, and turning the 18th hole into a pivotal contest. On the green, Matt had about a 3m putt, while Michael was faced with about 1.5m. According to all reports, Matt’s putt had well and truly ‘missed’ when it hit a pebble, deflected and ran back into the hole. Completely gob-smacked, Michael then missed his putt, and handed the hole to Matt, making the score-line 2 up to Matt.
Geoff was ‘bragging’ about the number of pars on his card, despite the final score total. It seems that on the 10th, the ball was heading for one, maybe two fairways across, when it hit a tree dead centre, and dropped onto the green from where he made the par. When playing his second on the 2nd from beside the 1st green, Geoff hooked it, with little time for a ‘fore’, and nearly took the pom-pom off Whitey’s beanie. Then again, maybe Whitey (and SOS) shouldn’t have been positioned so far forward. While on the subject of Whitey, he reckons today is the first time he has ever played a round without scoring at least one par (fact check required!). Jonathan was back with us today after a bit of a break, and, just maybe, the match fitness was a little wanting. However, it seems that he could be challenging for the ‘Priems’ title after a couple of ‘sprayed’ shots, on the 3rd and 4th holes, were eventually found comfortably in the middle of the correct fairway. And, on the 10th, the group in front, on the 11th tee, were in serious danger if it were not for the garbage bin that intervened and deposited the ball comfortable back in play on the fairway. The shot of the day was reported to belong to Matt on the 13th, where his drive on the 13th finished in the tree line along the 10th. A sneaky little 2 iron avoided the greenery and finished on the green, leaving just the putt to make yet another birdie. Speaking of Birdies, the Birthday variety missed out on sending a wish to SteveG last week. Maybe that is why he didn’t make it this week.
Results for Saturday, 15 Jul 2023
Leaderboard Round 1: 1st Brendon Mitchell (36) 2nd Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Rajesh Mahto (35) 3rd Robert Priems (34) 4th Matt Hunt (32) 5th Michael Gourlay (31) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan (31)
Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Michael Gourlay (31) 3rd Chris Priems (30)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 15th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 1 – 4th Jackpot BallPin No 2 – 18th Rajesh Mahto