Your blog writer, a non-playing spectator, arrived as Stan was walking between the 13th green and 14th tee.
“How’s it going Stan?” I asked.
“Just plodding, nothing special” said Stan with a poker face but a suspicious glint in his eye.
In fact Stan had just had 4 consecutive 3-pointers on holes 10-13 and after 18 points on the front 9, he was on fire!
The poker face of course was to not put the mozz on himself and while cooling off a fraction, Stan stayed steady, finished with a solid 3-point par on the 18th and his 40 points was a clear winner on the day.
Three lengths behind in second was Adam on 37 points, who finished strongly with 4 pars, including a miraculous par on 16 with a monster putt.
He then hit a great shot into the 18th to 2.14 metres, which was easily good enough to win the nearest-the-pin ball.
Nobody hit the 7th green, so the NTP ball there jackpots. As does the money of the 4th.
Third placed Porks first par of the day came on the third where he took his trusty Callaway driving iron off the tee. Nice solid swing saw the ball fly down the middle about 200 metres. Unfortunately, the clubhead also decided to take flight, doing a McIlroy/Gervasoni trick. It will be headed off to the pro-shop for some expensive surgery to reunite with the shaft during the week.
Kenny had two wipes and a 1-pointer on the front 9 but still managed 20 points (you do the maths on his other 6 holes). But he couldn’t sustain the pace and had to settle for 4th with 33 points.
Along the way, apart from surging to the lead in the Eclectic, Ken won the bravest shot of the day award. After hitting his drive into the hazard on the right hand side of the 13th and looking at an awkward stance and the ball in deep grass, he faced one of those moments of golf decision-making “I probably should take an unplayable, but stuff it, I’ll have a crack and see if I can hit it out”. And he did, beautifully, big swing with a wedge, huge divot, ball flew out a good 50 metres through the trees and on to the fairway from where Ken calmly collected 2 points for the hole.
Trick shot of the day went to Steve Gervasoni. Full-shot into the first he managed to clip the top of the ball in such a way that the ball went backwards. As Craig his playing partner noted, “some effort that!”
Two blokes got 5th place points with 29, but really, anybody that accepts a point with that score shouldn’t have their names mentioned, especially the bloke now leading both the Cub and Seniors Championship and the thing Harry calls the Order of Merit (and I call Ivanhoe World Golf Rankings). His round this week was 13 shots worse than last week. Funny game golf.
Rob was out of the points but went home with more new balls than the winner. He hit it into the pond on 17 and went fishing, finding 5 balls, but not his own.
Special mention to our Club Captain Brendon for setting a new club record, only bloke to come NAGA or joint-NAGA (with Targe on 27) on the occasion of his 500th game with the club. Congratulations Brendon on 500.
Congratulations also to new member Marc Phillips who completed his third card today and now has a club handicap – joining Kenny on 28. Welcome and good luck Marc, hope to see you in the points soon. PS. The way new handicaps get calculated on your first 3 cards, any score over a double bogey is adjusted down to a double bogey, so say Marc if you had an 11 on the 6th today, that gets counted as 7, the 8 on the 10th counted as a 6 etc. Calculated that way, your three rounds came in as 95, 96, 97, average of 96 = 28.
I never check birthdays, so if you had one last week or one coming up this week, Harry will bake your cake when he’s back next week.
700+ words today, sorry. I blame Kenny and Porks for the fun stories. And CJ. And Marc. And Brendon. Maybe Stan, Adam, Raj, Targe, Craig, Steve, Rob also. Not to mention Harry for having a week off!
Next week it is a Par comp with your committee having a meeting after the round. Amongst other business, we’ll review the club’s finances and formally “pass” the 2024 financial report so our ever efficient Club Secretary Craig can complete all the “Annual Statement” material required of our “incorporated association” government regulator, Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV). They are kind of like our tax department. There’s official stuff, including financial reports, that we have to do for them every year.
Big thanks as always to Craig and our Treasurers over recent years, SoS and Gordo, and everybody else on the committee for doing the necessary behind the scenes work to keep the club ticking along, including making sure all the CAV requirements get done.
Results for Saturday, 15 Feb 2025
1st Stan Blackshaw (40) 2nd Adam King (37) 3rd Ryan Porker (34) 4th Ken Watson (33) 5th Rajesh Mahto (29) 5th Chris Priems (29)
Seniors Results: 1st Stan Blackshaw (40) 2nd Ken Watson (33) 3rd Chris Priems (29)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Jackpot BallPin No 1 – 7th Jackpot BallPin No 2 – 18th Adam King