Since the forecast clear skies overnight did not eventuate, the air temperature was not particularly low as seventeen hardy souls gathered to do battle once more at Ivanhoe, if not at Agincourt. Some other (fool)hardy souls were noted lining up on the first with a torch to illuminate the tee area and their mobile lights trying to follow the ball flight out into the darkness. Fortunately, we were able to wait a bit longer, and needed no artificial aids to start the round. There were some who thought that there should have been preferred lies, and the occasional ball did carry a spot of mud, but generally the course was firm underfoot, although the air was considered by some to be so ‘heavy’ that you had to take an extra club. One player reported a slightly plugged ball, and there was a fairly general feeling that the scoring potential could only be classified as ‘average’.
Just goes to show how wrong you can be! After laying waste to the course last week in a mad dash to try to take the David Ford trophy last week, Brendon made the handicappers job an easy one by scoring four on ten consecutive holes to take the turn with twenty-two points on the card from just one stroke over the card. The back nine looked to continue in the same swash-buckling style until a couple of bogies knocked a bit of the pace off. Despite this very minor aberration, he added another nineteen points on the back to break his (adjusted) handicap by five strokes again. To mangle the old adage, ‘no gain, no pain’, and he will have to try just a little harder next week to try to reproduce that margin. If he had saved one of those bogies, he would have produced an equal PB (70).
Now, when you go out in one of the front groups, you complete the front nine just two strokes over par, then you follow that up by matching par on the back nine to produce a card with forty points as the total, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had the day pretty well sewn up. As the rest of the field trickled in, there seemed to be little afoot to disabuse him of that thought. But, unfortunately, it was not to be and Porks was left wondering and ruing that bogie on the last to tie for top, or even that double on the 9th, that could have won him the day. Or maybe, it was that he got so conservative on the run home that he used an iron from the tee on the 17th. One fewer strokes would have been an equal PB (69) as well.
Raj was quite content sitting as Clubhouse second, as he knew he would be exempt from any winner’s penalty, but he would have liked to get the extra points in his pursuit of Michael up the Championship Leaderboard. What he did do today, though, was to absolutely decimate his personal best round with the Club, dropping it by three strokes from 80 to 77 on his way to a very handy thirty-nine points and third place on the podium. One feature of his round was sinking about an 8m putt on the first to score a birdie, and he then went on to make a mockery of the suggestion that birdie on the first was a bad omen.
Whitey’s horse seems to have a propensity to ‘choke’, but the same can’t be said for Rod. There’s no need for tongue-ties when you can put together a pair of 18 pointers to gather thirty-six for the round to get fourth place, and leave your new handicap untouched. And, he only used his ‘driving’ putter once to get from behind a tree on the 5th. CJ, the best putter in the Club, wasn’t too happy about his performance with the flat stick early in the round, although he was also a bit mystified as to how straight he was hitting his driver off the tee. He made the turn at sixteen, and made a fist of getting pars on holes that gave him a stroke on the back. A couple of bogies on holes not giving him strokes caused some mutterings, but a creditable nineteen points on the back made thirty-five for fifth place.
We had a flurry of matches played today. JQ took on Brent with four strokes to play with. Brent took the first hole, and they traded holes, more or less turn about over the course of the front nine, and started the back with Brent still being one hole to the good. A win for JQ on the 10th squared things up, and he took the lead ever so briefly on the 12th. Neither could get the jump until the 16th when JQ’s nerve seemed to fail him and Brent finished the match on the next hole 2 and 1. Matt took on Gordo while having to give away five of the best. Gordon didn’t need any to take the early lead, but he was unable to build on it, and Matt was winning the head-to-head holes. The match went dormie 3 at the 15th, so Gordon was faced with the prospect of having to win his way home to have a chance. Seeming to be up to the task, he chipped in for birdie on the 16th, which brought the match back to dormie 2. The 17th was just a bridge too far, and a square handed the match to Matt 2 and 1.
Whitey was taking on Raj in another five stroke match, with Whitey being the recipient. What Rod hadn’t counted on was coming up against somebody on a mission to play their PB round. Fortunately, Rod’s game was not too far off song, and he managed to keep Raj under control, and pulled the match back to square at the 11th. After the 12th, Raj pulled away again, and at the 16th the match was dormie 2. Rod won the 17th, and they went to the 18th just one hole in it and there was every prospect of a chip-off being required. Unfortunately, Rod could only square the hole, and the match went to Raj, one up. The final ‘match’ was between the ‘Don and Goulash. Michael trudged in, claiming to have played his worst round ever, while, as we know, Brendon had gone close to playing his best round ever. The result was, shall we say, carnage, and Michael was only able to win one hole and square a few, to finish the match seven down and six holes to play.
The ProPin today was a Jackpot on the 4th, and it looked as if it might hold out to go Double next week. But, JQ was able to get one on the green, and within the required distance at 3.48m to get a handy little pay-out, even if not quite enough for a slab as CJ so succinctly put it. The BallPin on the 12th was hotly contested, with a range of ‘icons’ adorning the card alongside names of contenders. In the end, it was Brendon’s smiley face that won the ball. Brendon was feeling pretty pleased that he had put one to 2.55m on the 18th to be in contention for the ball and the inside ProPin, so he was rather disappointed to be told that he had been knocked off for both by Craig, who did not reveal his measurement, although there is a fair chance that it could appear on the ProShop results sheet.
Targe managed to stay out of ‘tail-end-charlie’ spot today, although not by much. He also suffered the ignominy of having an ‘air swing’ with his putter after it hit the ground behind the ball, and, as a result, passed clean over the top of the ball on the 14th. As compensation, here is a big birthday wish for today from the Birthday Birdie and all the Club. Stan will have to wait a couple of days before he, too, gets a chance to blow out the ever-increasing number of candles. Happy Birthday, matey!
For somebody who was, until recently, Club Captain and Chair of the Rules Committee, Matt was reported to have taken significant liberties with the interpretation of OOB on the basis of lack of stakes to define the area. Whether this ‘liberty’ affected the result of the match he was involved in is thus open to question and could result in litigation later in the tournament. Just as CJ was mystified by the straight drives he produced today, Harry was similarly confounded by a number of shots with a draw bias. However, more of a problem was the number of shortish putts that missed by a whisker, although he did manage to avoid putting altogether on the 6th by producing a chip that ‘never looked like missing’ according to CJ. That was just one of the ten birdies that the assembled members could produce for the day. Craig also reported problems with getting putts to sink, which can be difficult when you leave them short of the hole. Brent deemed himself lucky that he was left-handed as he played a ball balanced precariously on the very lip of the bunker on the 6th.
Results for Saturday, 25 May 2024
1st Brendon Mitchell (41) 2nd Ryan Porker (40) 3rd Rajesh Mahto (39) 4th Rodney White (36) 5th Chris Priems (35)
Seniors Results: 1st Rodney White (36) 2nd Chris Priems (35) 3rd Matt Hunt (33)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th John Quinlan BallPin No 1 – 12th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 2 – 18th Craig Cameron