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

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There was a sense of anticipation about this morning as the smallish field of twelve gathered around to not go gallivanting around the countryside to celebrate somebody’s birthday. There were a couple of matches to progress, and there was wonderment at the number of strokes that Brendon was going to have to concede to Bob. Harry had done due diligence to confirm that his result checking software would be able to stand the strain. The early birds had hit off into the dark again to stay in front of the pack, and the hint of a mist that hung in the air held off, and all was good to go. Charlie knew that he had avoided his bush, but little else, and Prez called it right, towards the tree line. In actual fact, it was down the left and past the distance marker. Was this to be a sign of things to come? Would Charlie continue to hit them like a demon, and would Prez continue to see balls fly where they didn’t?

The answer to both questions was probably, no! For sure and for certain, in Rob’s case, he could barely put a foot wrong as he barrelled his way around the front nine to take the turn just four strokes over the card, thanks to a couple of birdies, and 23 points to the good. He did admit to a bit of ‘luck’ on the 7th when his drive hit an ‘imaginary’ object on the fairway, flew high in the air and finished some 10-12m from the pin. Whereupon, he took out his trusty putter and promptly rattled it in for the bird. His back nine was barely different as he finished five over the card, but without the help of birdies, for another 20 points. The total of 43 points pretty much streeted the rest of the field and seriously enhanced the downward trend of his handicap over recent times. His off the stick tally of 77 was just short of a personal best 76, that you have to go all the way back to 1999 to find. However, it was his best since the corresponding weekend in 2017 when he clocked a 78 on June 10th. Happy Anniversary, you might say!

After coming home in the second group, Michael and Ryan were sitting at the table, hoping against hope that their equal tally of 36 points would be enough to snare them top spot. As is often the case, early clubhouse leaders have their hopes dashed, but not often by such a great margin. As usual, Michael was bemoaning a fluffed chip on the 15th as the mental terror of the day that potentially robbed him of a better placing (tell him he’s dreamin’). However, he was also bragging about the number of holes that he had parred by playing driver and one iron. And that included the 14th! And everybody knows that not even God can hit a one iron. Ryan found himself behind a tree140m out on the 16th, and opted to hook it around the tree as all direct shots were cut off. He didn’t account for a low-hanging branch on the far side which the ball ‘found’, and he had little idea of where the ball headed. Except that it headed straight for the green, and finished close enough for him to sink the putt for a par. He obviously used up all of his luck, and he would be bemoaning the gash on the 17th that might have robbed him of a better place (ditto as above).

Brendon had quite a few things on his mind today, not least of which was the 23 strokes that he had to concede to Bob in their match. Despite that heavy load (and that of being Captain), he managed to make the turn not too far off his handicap with 39 off the stick and seventeen points on the card. In the match, he had taken an early lead, but Bob had started on the come-back trail and the lead was back to two holes at the turn. On the 11th, it looked as if Bob was in with a chance to claw another one back with Brendon, under the trees (having hit two – trees, that is) playing his third shot. This shot was described by Brendon as a ‘running wedge’, although it did run a bit more than he intended (so he says), and he was left with a 15m putt. Needless to say, he sank it for his par to square the hole. Overall, his back nine was slightly better than the front, and he ended with 18 points for a total of 35 and third place. Along the way, he prevailed over Bob to finish the match at the 15th, 4 and 3.

Although he was beaten, he certainly was not bowed, and Bob put in a very creditable performance to finish the day with 33 points to fill the fourth podium stage and to collect another couple of points. The card was only spoiled by a couple of blow out holes. Despite his rather speccy start, Charlie only had a few moments on the front nine. One of these was a very nice birdie on the 3rd, which helped his Eclectic campaign no end. With only a few more rounds before he decamps to London, he is going to be a hard man to toss in that event. The standard picked up quite a bit on the back nine, and even Charlie began to have dreams of grandeur. Then the 17th drive finished in the kikuyu necessitating a couple of hacks to get out, and the dreams started to turn to dust. Well, almost. He did finish with 31 points and collected the last point for the day.

The second match of the day was between Adam and Raj. But, despite it being described as a ‘battle of the duds’, it was very much a close-run thing. Raj did get out to an early lead, as Adam took about half a dozen holes to get himself warmed up. Raj started leaking oil on the 6th when a played a shot for the green, which hit a tree so hard that it flew back beyond where Raj stood and went close to taking out a group standing on the 2nd tee. Adam continued to score while Raj’s shoulders drooped more and more. By the 11th, where Raj was spotted trudging across from the far side of the 13th fairway, the card was back to square. The next few holes were a Mexican stand-off, until Adam resumed his spurt to win 14 and 15, only to promptly lose the next two to make it all square once more. When they squared the 18th, it was off to the practice green for a chip-off. Nerves obviously got to Adam, and he barely made it onto the green, while Raj was better placed, but still no gimme. Both putts missed by a similar amount, and the tension was now palpable. Adam ran his by, while Raj calmly slotted his, and it was all over, red rover giving the match to Raj on the first ship-off.

There was a Jackpot ProPin on the 7th today, and after he popped a shot to 1.73m, Porks was quietly confident that he would be taking home the cash as he enquired from the Treasurer what the pool added up to. He needn’t have worried, although he did do a double take when he misheard Stan made a comment about somebody going close to beating him. The BallPin on the 12th was hotly contested, but it was Bobby-dazzler who marched in victorious. There was a similar contest on the 18th, although Michael was calling for a tape measurement when he found he had been dudded by Prez on the top deck.

Gordo was probably a bit jet-lagged, having barely arrived back from China after 22 hours on the road (figuratively speaking), but he soldiered on through the highlights (a birdie on the 11th, one of 9 for the day), and the lowlights (his drive on the 9th, that barely made it off the mound, let alone to the red markers). Steve pulled off a never-before-seen feat when he ‘drove’ the green on the 1st. Only problem was, it was the 9th green after the ball hit the elm tree off to the right so hard that it finished not far off the aforesaid 9th green. Despite the inauspicious start, Steve finished just outside the points. Harry got himself into a couple of tricky spots today, and, with any hope of a podium out of reach, a shot from this spot seemed to be a ‘no-brainer’. That’s what he said about himself as he eventually took the penalty that he should have in the first place.

Results for Saturday, 08 Jun 2024
1st Robert Priems (43) 2nd Michael Gourlay (36) 2nd Ryan Porker (36) 3rd Brendon Mitchell (35) 4th Bob McDonald (33) 5th Charles Gibbs (31)

Seniors Results: 1st Michael Gourlay (36) 2nd Bob McDonald (33) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (28)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 7th Ryan Porker BallPin No 1 – 12th Bob McDonald BallPin No 2 – 18th Robert Priems

Monthly Medal day, stroke, tees up the back, there was a bit of fear about the possibility of ballooning scores when 17 players stepped up on the tee for the first day of 2024 winter golf at Royal Ivanhoe.

And looking through the cards, forget today’s birdie count (9) the big number today was 7 (or worse).

Overall there were 34 scores of 7 or worse, that’s an average of two per player!

In fact only two players in the field had a card without a 7 or worse. Porks was one and the other bloke you can probably guess. Hint: Old Reliable.

If there was a contest for the most interesting 7, Matty’s effort on the 8th would be a contender. Less than a metre off the green in two, he somehow managed to shank the chip and finish up closer to the fence than the green. Apparently the after shot vibe was more embarrassed chuckles and wry smiles than swearing and cursing. The next chip from near the fence lobbed up nicely to 4-5 feet, from where Matt managed to take 3 putts, including one “tap back” miss from what was reported to be 2 inches.

Harry’s 8 on the 17th might even beat Matt’s effort thanks to quick thinking SoS jumping on the photo opportunity. Drive left, hack out, third left of the green in the long grass.

For his fourth Harry managed an airy, hitting plenty of grass (some of which ended up on his hat) but not hitting the ball. Another chip and 3 putts later for the 8.

SoS was marking Harry’s card and also managed an 8 there and standing on the 18th tee both Harry and SoS had a chance for the magical cricket score off the stick.

Both managed a 4 up the last to finish just shy of the magic number. Harry matched Ashton Agar’s debut innings (1st Ashes test of 2013) and SoS went one better to match Shane Warne’s best test score, which was against New Zealand in Perth in the third test of the 2001 series.

Honourable mentions to Targe for his 12 on the 6th and Charlie for his 8 on the 14th, which involved making a par with his third ball after his first two were lost in “Charlie’s second bush” in snake country in front of the tee.

Raj only had one lost ball on his way to a 7 on the 15th. Earlier, on the 11th, Raj had this week’s “nearly eagle.” After a well struck drive somehow managed to float through all the trees down the left hand side, Raj’s pitch from about 40 metres out was perfectly struck with his sand-iron and was running towards the hole before it stopped on the lip. One more roll and it was in.

Stan had his fair share of 7’s today and was in no danger of shooting his age (a feat both him and Harry have achieved in recent years). The new target for Stan is now 84, having celebrated a birthday during the week. Targe, as mentioned in last week’s blog, also had a big recent birthday (75) and we might have missed Gordo’s the previous week. His number still has a 6 in front of it, but only just.

In and amongst all these big numbers, Craig is officially back to his Old Reliable self. His net 66 today had him all smiles at the presentation as a 2-stroke winner of the Monthly Medal. He also won the “Inside” medal.

Asked for his highlights for the blog, Craig said “nothing really, just consistent golf.” His playing partners nodded and said “Yep that pretty much sums up Craig’s day.”

So everybody watch out, Old Reliable is back in town!

Adam took on Porks in the Matchplay today, with Porks having to give 8 shots on handicap difference.

All square after 5, Adam utilised one his strokes to edge ahead on the 6th and kept his nose in front all day. Porks could sense he was a chance to get back in the match on the 14th when Adam duffed two chips a row but then he chipped the next one in for an unlikely par.

Adam then made the most of his last stroke of the day to win the 16th and the match 3 and 2. Two nice pars down 17 and 18 saw Adam sign for a net 68, good enough for equal second with Michael whose 70 off the stick included a 7 on the 9th. Unlike Matty and Harry, Michael was not reported to be doing any wry smiling at the time.

Bobby did a bit of his own Old Reliable impression today with solid golf throughout to finish on net 71 and solo third.

Brendon shrugged off a poor started including a 7 at the second to regroup with a back nine 36 off the stick and a net 72 for fourth place.

Sharing 5th was Chrispy and Porks with a net 73, with Steve, Prez Priems and Dan, despite all having their struggles, only just missing the points.

Today’s money hole was the 7th and with the tee at the back it was no surprise to see Jack Pot triumph again. On the 15th, Adam won the nearest the pin ball while on the 18th, Brendon was confident of the win before Old Reliable knocked him off to claim the 18th ball for the second week running.

Today’s most spectacular birdie came from Chrispy on the 14th. Once again, the course had lots of funky pin placements, with the 14th much closer to the front than usual and on (even by the 14th’s usual standards) a very severe slope.

Anybody putting their second shot beyond the pin could expect that three putts were more likely than two. No such problems for CJ though. From the very back of the green about 50 feet away, he hit the perfect putt and it did the big right to left curl and gently rolled in for a birdie.

The scream of delight was heard around most of the course and is obviously up there with Gene Sarazen’s 4 wood into the 15th on Sunday at the 1935 Masters that is known as “the shot that was heard around the world.”

As it happens, Prez Priems was the other scorer of a birdie on the treacherous 14th today. In his case, it involved a drive down the actual 14th fairway (not the usual excursion via the 16th fairway) a wedge to 3 feet (an actual proper golf club not the chipper) and a putt straight in the middle.

Results for Saturday, 01 Jun 2024
1st Craig Cameron (66) 2nd Michael Gourlay (68) 2nd Adam King (68) 3rd Bob McDonald (71) 4th Brendon Mitchell (72) 5th Ryan Porker (73) 5th Chris Priems (73)

Seniors Results: 1st Craig Cameron (66) 2nd Michael Gourlay (68) 3rd Bob McDonald (71)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 7th Jackpot BallPin No 1 – 15th Adam King BallPin No 2 – 18th Craig Cameron

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