The pundits were tipping it would be a day for easy points. Despite the rounds of emails, no extras were forthcoming to bolster the rather paltry field of six, so we only needed one tie for the whole field to share in the goodies on offer. For some reason, the management had some ground staff on the job, and the greens had been cleared and swept of dew. The rains during the week had had a chance to soak in, but there were still preferred lies on offer for the taking. Raj nominated himself to go back to the ProShop to check when the question was raised on the first, only to return with the news that there was a nice big sign prominently placed at the entrance which nobody had noticed in the general milling around before tee time arrived. The tee time arrived, and passed, as the first group vacillated while trying to decide whether to hit off and take their chances or not.
Eventually, Craig bit the bullet and stepped up to the tee, and, as would be expected, whacked one straight down the middle – as far as could be seen. Prez and Gordo soon followed suit, and then it was up to the second group to decide whether the ghostly shadows in the mist were people or not before trying to follow suit. Conservative play was the order of the day, and group one finished the first with a round of bogies, with which they were pretty pleased. Group two was not quite so lucky. Harry went close to scoring a birdie after his shot from about 70m finished pin high, not much more than a hand-span from the hole. Raj managed a bogie, while Stan found all sorts of strife, though with the same ball, and finished out of the points.
However, the day really belonged to Gordo, who seemed to revel in the foggy conditions. If it hadn’t been for a pair of one pointers on the front nine, he would have left the rest of the field front nine scores in the dust, if there was any on the damp fairways. As the fog began to lift, however, Gordo seems to have become a little disoriented and his rate of scoring fell right away. On one hole, he apparently used driver, 1 iron, 1 iron, wedge to finish near enough to the hole to tap it in for a bogie. This seems to indicate the not even Gordo can hit a 1 iron! However, when the sun finally broke through on the 15th, he bolted for home to finish with 32 points for the round, and the winner’s podium, to make a fitting curtain call before he goes under the knife to get his ‘golfing’ shoulder fixed up. He’s apparently put in a request for a slight draw bias! Here’s hoping the job goes well, and that there are a few more podium spots to be held before the end of the season after you get back into the swing in a few months time. Gordo has promised to drop in for a visit from time to time in the meantime.
Craig mostly carried on, as he had started off, with ‘conservative’ play straight down the middle, which resulted in a pretty steady accumulation of points. A scattering of double bogies with strokes and bogies without put just a bit of rain on the parade, and in the end he could only scrape together thirty-one points for the round. Rob, on the other hand, was much more up and down, and managed to accumulate a total of eight pickets on his way to sharing second place with Craig with thirty-one points as well. In the process, he chipped in for birdie on the 14th, which was the only one that the field managed for the day. He went close to repeating the effort on the 15th, but then, he started to worry that he might win and blow another stroke from his handicap, and, rather suspiciously, gathered two of his pickets on the next two holes.
Raj wandered from the straight and narrow a few times today, but he has a happy knack of extricating himself, and puts his ridiculously lofted chips to good use to finish near to the hole. His drive on the 17th looked to be flirting with the possibility of wet feet. On the tee, Stan had opined that he should aim to put it out into the shadow of the tree on the corner. While Raj headed for the water hole, Stan gave him a hoi that his ball was out in the shadow on the fairway, as he had directed. Thank goodness for trees, said Raj as he pitched it in close to the pin. Curse the putter, said Raj, is it rimmed the cup and popped out. Easy par though. Harry’s round was pretty much two halves. Half good results and half the other! Four misses and five pickets definitely made it hard to score more than the twenty-seven that slotted him into fourth place. And, Stan is more than happy to take a point for his card of 20 points after a day that proved remarkably difficult to get a decent shot away from the tee, and a few other places as well.
The ProPin was set on the ‘easy’ 12th hole, except that it almost wasn’t ‘easy’. It remained untouched until the last shot of the day, when Raj knocked his drive to a finish pin high and a metre from the hole. He was a bit cheesed that he missed the birdie putt. And he won’t be taking his wife out to dinner on the proceeds. The first BallPin was on the 15th, and this was a no contest when Prez was able to both get on and to be closer than anybody else. Not only that, but he repeated the performance on the 18th to take out the second BallPin as well.
Results for Saturday, 15 Jun 2024
1st Gordon Hill (32) 2nd Craig Cameron (31) 2nd Robert Priems (31) 3rd Rajesh Mahto (30) 4th Harry Boughen (27) 5th Stan Blackshaw (20)
Seniors Results: 1st Gordon Hill (32) 2nd Craig Cameron (31) 3rd Harry Boughen (27)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th Rajesh Mahto BallPin No 1 – 15th Robert Priems BallPin No 2 – 18th Robert Priems