Last night’s thunder and lightning had everyone wondering whether the course would be wet, but the records suggested that any associated downpour had missed Ivanhoe, with only about 4mm making it into the gauge. The Magpie supporters wondered whether the 35 minute delay last night had robbed them of the chance to score fifty more points (while holding the opposition to none) to get their percentage up to an eight making level. As it turned out, there were but a few squishy spots here and there in the usual low spots and the main effects of the stormy weather were a couple of greens well littered with gum nuts, and, in a perverse turn of events, ground staff were out after we had passed by with the leaf blowers and clearing the greens. Perhaps this is the reason that the winning scores did not reach the giddy heights of last week. And maybe we should protest the fairness of the inside comp. A random guy, out ‘practising’ on the 10th and 11th, caused a modicum of consternation until he eventually did a bunk after his third telling off from the passing parade made up of the ten members who made it to the tee this morning.

Adam expressed a little disappointment that he was unable to continue the sequence of scores that the put together on the first four holes. This would have required him to ‘ace’ the 5th for five points after making birdie (one of three that the field produced on the day) for four points on the 4th that rounded out his 1, 2, and 3 points on the first three holes. Still, he made the turn at 19 points, but there is little evidence to support the suggestion that he pulled on the handbrake on the back, where a very respectable 17 more points brought him home right on his (old) handicap with 36 points. A fairly appropriate way to mark his 99th game with the club, and to take home a couple of nice new pills to use for his 100th next time.

CJ managed to tear himself away from the Frog again after having the dog blown off the chain up there yesterday. JQ was so gutted by the experience that he couldn’t make it to the ‘Hoe today. Now, CJ is on record that he will retire from the game if brother Rob ever gets to have a lower handicap than he does. Perhaps it was the prospect of this happening sooner rather than later that he forgot that he now has a stroke available on the 9th, and he picked up when he could still have scored a point. His 33 points for the round was enough to pick up second place for the day, and top spot in the Seniors. In the process, he relegated three other seniors to second place in that side of the comp. Blighty, Harry and Steve all presented with 32 points to share third place in the main comp and second place in the Seniors. Stan seems to have got his wires crossed early on in the front nine, and crossed over his own and Blighty’s scores, leading to the extensive, though largely ineffective use of an eraser to finalise the card. Steve only managed to score on half of the first six holes, but then found his mojo, and scored relatively prolifically for the rest of the round. Harry was rather frustrated after losing a ball in the slightly long grass on the right of the 5th, and then proceeded to make a hash of the 6th as well.

Brendon also lost a ball on the 5th where it went right and hit a tree hard to be deflected to who knew where, while the putting throughout the front nine left a little to be desired, and he made the turn with just 13 points on the card. The back nine was a completely different story, and he stormed home to complete the nine just two strokes over the card, and a total for the round of 31 points. The two points for fourth place was made even sweeter when he was presented with his ‘lost’ ball from the 5th, which was found on the far side of the 7th green. SOS might take a while to adjust to his new handicap from last week, but he was seen to give a little smirk when it was announced that his 30 points had scored him the last point on offer for 5th place.

The first BallPin was set for the 7th, and, despite everyone’s best efforts, not one ball was able to find its way onto the green, and, so, there will be a Jackpot there next week. The second BallPin on the 18th caused a bit of consternation when the marker box was ‘nowhere’ to be seen. There was a frantic checking of the registration table and the Tee Marshall bag by the first group, to no avail. The second group came in and assured that it had been put out, by no less than Prez himself – so ‘somebody’ must have nicked it. Third group came in and asked – who put the container on top of the post by the sand dump? None so blind as he who will not see! Anyway, it was confirmed that Steve had, indeed, been on the green, and he was awarded the ball on offer. The ProPin was on the 15th, and Harry’s shot looked very promising, and the paces confirmed that it was worth a measure. The distance was 5.005m past the hole. Hit it too hard, again! In any case, CJ was able to claim the shrapnel with his shot to 4.85m.

There was a draughtie paid out today after Prez smashed one from the 11th tee that hit a tree and came straight back to finish just short of the red markers from the blue marker perspective. The distance was only a ‘hand span’, but taking relief would have been closer to the green, so not an option to get out of jail. On the 16th, Adam put his third well through the green and into the bushes on the bank behind. Having played a provisional, he disappeared from sight into the shrubbery and managed to find the ball. Next minute, there is a crack like a gun shot as the ball hit the pin dead centre, stopped dead and fell into the hole for the unlikeliest of pars.

And, while on the subject of provisionals, there was a question about playing a provisional in relation to a penalty area. This is the rule – 18.3  Provisional Ball

a. When Provisional Ball Is Allowed

If your ball might be lost outside a penalty area or be out of bounds, to save time you may play another ball provisionally under penalty of stroke and distance.

But if you are aware that the only possible place your original ball could be lost is in a penalty area, a provisional ball is not allowed, and a ball played from where the previous stroke was made becomes your ball in play under penalty of stroke and distance.

However, the situation would appear to be slightly fluid, as indicated by this ‘clarification’: “To be clear, you can hit a provisional if it’s not known or virtually certain that the previous shot came to rest in a penalty area. In those cases, announce a provisional, swing away, and then go to the area where you think your original ball might be. You’ve got three minutes to find it. If you don’t find it, play the provisional, adding a penalty shot to your score. Now here is where it can be a bit confusing, and where Hall got into trouble. If you do find your ball in the penalty area, then your provisional ball has to be abandoned, and you have to proceed with playing the original or taking relief under the options in Rule 17. This includes the possibility of going back to the spot where you played the previous shot, which seems counter-intuitive when you’re trying not to slow down play (you’d already hit a provisional from that spot). However, according to the R&A and USGA, this is because if the ball is in the penalty area, you have multiple relief options to choose from. And if you’ve hit a provisional, you’ve been able to preview one of those options (re-hitting from the previous spot), which might shade which relief option you take.”

So, maybe there should have been a three-way tie for second, unless CJ can genuinely claim that it was not known, or not virtually certain, that his ball came to rest in the penalty area on the 13th. His ‘provisional’ certainly did, but he was able to find the first and took the appropriate penalty. The wedge over the ‘rubbish’ landed the ball on the path, and it bounced down to finish almost in the hole, and he managed to score a point. Targe was bewailing the fact that he used to be a good putter, as putt after putt refused to go in the hole. Some from as close as a couple of hundred millimetres, but occasionally finishing several hundred further away. There were no reports of major rave parties in Shepparton a couple of days ago when Dan celebrated his birthday, so the Birthday Birdie hopes it was a good one, and you are back with us soon. Raj reports that his recovery is progressing as well as can be expected, and he has ambitions to be back before the 2024 season wraps up. Gordo is also working on getting his shoulder back into operation, and suggestions are that another month should see him back on deck.

Results for Saturday, 24 Aug 2024
1st Adam King (36) 2nd Chris Priems (33) 3rd Andrew Blight (32) 3rd Harry Boughen (32) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (32) 4th Brendon Mitchell (31) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan (30)

Seniors Results: 1st Chris Priems (33) 2nd Andrew Blight (32) 2nd Harry Boughen (32) 2nd Steven Gervasoni (32) 3rd Stan Blackshaw (29)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 15th Chris Priems BallPin No 1 – 7th Jackpot BallPin No 2 – 18th Steven Gervasoni

After a better roll-up this week (12 compared to last week’s 7) the quality of the golf improved markedly.

Indeed last week’s winning score would have missed out on points this week.

Leading the field was SoS who played a blinder, 76 off the stick for 42 stableford points.

Despite a 1-point double bogey on the 1st, SoS hit the turn on 21 points and added another 21 on the back. His round included 3-pointers on holes 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17 and 18. It was reported to be one shot off his best ever round.

Harry is always pleased when he can lop more than a shot or two off a handicap and SoS’s stellar round will cost him 3 strokes.

Along the way SoS also collected the $19 on offer (including last week’s mega $7 jackpot) for nearest the pin on the 12th. There was a bit of debate within his group regarding who called what when about potentially sharing the money, but with a few calls being made while balls were in the air rather than agreed beforehand, I think SoS ended up keeping the lot for his shot to 2.77 metres. No doubt it will be invested wisely.

Old Reliable is certainly back in town in a big way. Playing off a 10 handicap, Craig hit the turn with 18 points, then had 2-pointers on the next 6 holes before finishing strongly with 3-pointers on 16, 17 and 18 for a total of 39 points and second place on the podium. Harry again was happy to get on the chop (albeit only one stroke off Craig’s handicap) and Craig returns back to a single figure handicap for next week.

Johnny Q was out early practicing his putting after a poor putting round last week and another bad day with the putter at the Frog on Friday. The practice obviously helped with John making a few bombs early in the round and having just the one three-putt. Like Craig, John finished strongly with 3-pointers on his last three holes for 20 points on the back, 38 overall and third place.

Michael played in the third group with Harry and Targe and post-round confidently slapped his 36 point card down on the table (2 better than his winning score last week) and was promptly told he might be lucky to get a point or two with that score this week. Indeed, after the usual swearing and cursing at Craig for beating him again, Michael felt lucky to bank 4th place points, shared with Steve whose 36 points included two of the field’s four birdies of the day, both 4-pointers (4th and 17th). The birdie on the 4th was a 5-pointer on his “inside” card where he gets an extra stroke with his GA handicap.

The highlight of Harry’s 5th placed 35 points was 5 x 3-pointers in the last 7 holes of his back nine of 20 points. We won’t mention the gash on the 11th, although it might have been what fired Harry up for the run home. Harry also made his fair share of putts today, more than he missed, including a beautiful left to right curler from about 20 feet to the difficult back right pin at the 9th. Michael had made one from a similar distance and then Harry stepped up and whacked his in dead centre.

Of the rest of the field, CJ’s 34 points included more than a few of his now routine favourable “Priemsy” bounces off trees. “The Priemsy” has been a feature ever since his hole-in-one off a tree (true story!) about 20 years ago, albeit in a social round, so not recorded in official club records. Peps was a witness to that hole-in-one and was again today on the 16th where CJ smacked his shot into the big tree on the right and somehow it ricocheted left and forward and onto the green. Peps was shaking his head in disbelief again while CJ was miffed it didn’t go in the hole.

Brendon and Peps both had one of those golfing days where things didn’t quite go according to plan but they played a role in a fiercely contested ball pin on the 18th (with the additional stakes of the money for the “inside” NTP on the line). With the pin front left, Craig playing in the first group, hit a great shot to about 3 metres and assumed this would be a big chance. Peps in the second group then hit his 9 iron inside Craig only for Brendon to come along and hit it closer. All 3 missed their birdie putts, Peps the stiffest after a lip out.

Stan, Prez Priems and Targe brought up the rear of the field. Stan’s back 9 score more than doubled his points scored on the front, so the positive spin there is Stan is working his way into form for future weeks.

Prez Priems might have been feeling the pressure of being so close (12.8) to bettering his brother’s handicap (11.4) before this week’s round. Both have now gone out 0.2 so that contest stands at Rob 13.0 and CJ 11.6 for 12. One more big round from Rob might do it and test CJ’s promise to retire if Rob ever does get there. No pressure boys! (Note to Adam, put them in the same group next week?)

Targe had what he thinks might be his highest ever off the stick score today. Certainly his card marker Michael was feeling mathematically challenged by the numbers as the round progressed.

However it must be said that unlike his playing partners (Michael and Harry) who did their fair share of grumbling and cursing, Targe kept a happy and positive disposition throughout, a few lessons there for a few of us.

Meanwhile Gordo, if you are reading down this far, how are you going? Harry won the ball on the 15th with a great shot in that was just inside the mark set earlier by CJ. However Michael wanted to claim the special “Gordo ball” there, being closer than Harry but an annoying “Gordo inch” off the green.

Hopefully we can muster a half-decent field again next week. I’ll be missing due to family commitments in Sydney, but, as always, will look forward to reading Harry’s take on proceedings.

Will SoS cope ok with his new handicap?

Will my prediction for Stan coming into form be correct?

Will Harry’s putts keep going in or go back to doing that Harry “just shaving the edge of the hole” thing?

And those Priems brothers? Will we be planning CJ’s retirement party?

Results for Saturday, 17 Aug 2024
1st Stephen O’Sullivan (42) 2nd Craig Cameron (39) 3rd John Quinlan (38) 4th Steven Gervasoni (36) 4th Michael Gourlay (36) 5th Harry Boughen (35)

Seniors Results: 1st Craig Cameron (39) 2nd Michael Gourlay (36) 2nd Steven Gervasoni (36) 3rd Harry Boughen (35)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 1 – 15th Harry Boughen BallPin No 2 – 18th Brendon Mitchell

The golf was very ordinary this week, embarrassingly bad scores.

So let’s start with the birthdays. Harry was missing this week and it might have something to do with a milestone birthday. Perhaps a milestone with an 8 in front of it. Happy birthday Harry!

I did commission some birthday party photos for the blog – or a video of Harry dancing – but at the time of going to publication these were yet to be received.

There’s no less than another 5 birthdays coming up this week, including Brendon with a milestone with a 5 in front of it (only 5 years until Seniors for you Brendon), plus Ken, Chris Vinecombe, Johnny Q and Kazim. A major birthday season.

Speaking birthdays, big congratulations to Porks and his partner Vicky whose second child Isabella da Gama was born back on 13 June. The Porks parenting report is that “we are all doing good”.

Meanwhile, as for the golf, Adam wasn’t kidding when he announced on Thursday there were cheap points on offer this week.

While only five and half of the field of seven squeezed into the attempted whole group selfie – Blighty, Prez, a still hung-over Johnny Q, Steve and Stan, it was Bobby (who the photographer somehow missed) who started on fire with a 4-point par on the first.

Unfortunately Bob could only muster another 21 points over the next 17 holes for a total of 25 points (reported as 22 in the after-round but was actually 25 when checked). This was good enough for both NAGA and fifth place points.

Chrispy was absent and there was no truth in the rumour he was sooking after being double robbed – Collingwood and the umpires again, plus somebody fluking an eagle on the last and beating him in the Friday comp at the Frog.

Johnny Q played with Chrispy at the Frog and said it was one of his worst rounds ever – for the first 15 holes anyway (something like 16 points after 15 holes – followed by 10 points in the last 3). Kicking on after the Friday game to produce one of his better hangovers, John debated whether he should make the Saturday morning trip to Royal Ivanhoe.

30 points later the jury was still out on that decision, but John was happy to bank the two championship points for equal fourth with Stan, even though it wasn’t quite enough to keep him in the lead in the prestigious Vardon Trophy race (best average points per round). He has now slipped to second, the proverbial bees dick 0.03 behind Michael.

As the low marker in the first group with Bobby and Steve, Stan was put in charge of making sure the group kept up a decent pace of play. Stan duly made sure they hit the ground running and stayed running all day. They went out hard and were two holes ahead of Group 2 by the time they finished the sixth.

Prez, Michael, Blighty and Johnny Q were more than a bit shocked to be finishing up on the fourth green and notice Stan, Bobby and Steve walking to the seventh tee. There’s no doubt if there was an Olympics for the opposite of slow play, Stan would win the gold hands down.

Steve managed to keep himself calm in Stan’s slipstream for most of the day and managed 31 points which was enough for third place on the podium.

Blighty played pretty well all day and made quite a few decent length putts to keep his round going, including one on the 15th that he announced “geez that was a great putt” as it curled right to left and dropped in. Another good putt rolled in on the last saw Blighty sign for 33 points and second place. He might have finished with higher honours if he could have played the 16th again. A gash there was costly.

Michael started well but then lost the plot after missing a short birdie putt on the 6th followed by a duff off the 7th tee and two more missed short putts on the 8th and 9th. He played angry all day after the 6th and was lucky to cobble together 34 points.

He was joined on the winner’s dias with 34 points by Prez Priems who hit the finishing tape at full speed with a brilliant 4-point birdie on the 17th after driving it to a few inches off the green and then a solid par for another 3 points up the 18th. Rob will need to make eagle for 4 points on the 17th next week as the winner’s penalty drops his handicap to 13 and that means no stroke on the 17th.

So yes if you are reading at home, you so could have won the day if you turned up! Perfect weather, perhaps a bit cool for the first few holes. But no wind. Very few crazy pins and lots of run on the fairways and lift and clean still in place. You couldn’t ask for easier scoring conditions and you’d have thought even the motley group of seven who turned up could do better than 34 for first and 25 for fifth!

Along the way Michael won the balls for nearest the pins on the 4th and 18th (just knocking off Steve there). The money on the 12th jackpots, with Michael’s shot just not quite close enough. So a big $7 in the jackpot pool for next week boys.

Results for Saturday, 10 Aug 2024
1st Michael Gourlay (34) 1st Robert Priems (34) 2nd Andrew Blight (33) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (31) 4th Stan Blackshaw (30) 4th John Quinlan (30) 5th Bob McDonald (25)

Seniors Results: 1st Michael Gourlay (34) 2nd Andrew Blight (33) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (31)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th Jackpot BallPin No 1 – 4th Michael Gourlay BallPin No 2 – 18th Michael Gourlay

Rain had been forecast for sometime during the day, but there had not been much during the week, so the course promised to be in pretty good condition, even if the pond penalty areas were highly likely to be full. This standing water did make a couple of the surrounding areas a bit on the soggy side, but, if you could stay away from those, the course was actually fairly benign. As it turned out, there was little sign of the promised rain, although the cloud did build up and look slightly threatening by the end of the round. The continued availability of preferred lie was very welcome from time to time when the ball encountered some of the sticky stuff. The forecast temperatures should not have been particularly off-putting, so, it is perhaps a little disappointing that we could only muster ten starters to compete for a Monthly Medal.

Craig is settling back into his old routine quite comfortably after his extended lay-off recently, with the ‘old-reliable’ half back-swing sending the ball down the centre of the fairway with disgusting regularity. He did stray a bit off course on the 14th, heading for the penalty area, although Harry had a feeling that there might have been enough carry to get past. Sure enough, the ball was out, though heavily caked in mud. Coincidentally, Harry had ‘tried’ the same shot, but suffered a vastly different fate. Craig gave the Eagle a bit of a scare on the 17th when his pitch into the green just trickled past the hole to leave the easiest of tap-ins for the birdie. The lofted club stood him in good stead again of the 18th when the chip trickled towards the hole, just caught the edge of the cup and finished mere millimetres from dropping in. The resulting net score of 65 was plenty to snag another medal to add to his collection.

And, in the process, he made Michael all bitter and twisted, as this was the second time recently that Michael was coming home with what he thought might be a winning score, only to be pipped at the post by Craig. Michael actually made par on every hole on the back nine, making a nice pattern of three groups of 4, 4, 3. The lowlight of the front nine was probably the double on the 4th, but he did make a birdie on the 9th, which was the second of the two that were carded for the day. JQ is keen to get some runs on the board while he is less than fully occupied with pursuing his career. However, the pars proved to be just that little bit elusive today, but, on the other hand, there were no major disasters. Even an OOB did not faze him, although SOS did question whether he counted it or not before he would hand out the ball from the ball run for his third place result with his 70 net.

Adam set two alarm clocks today, but, apparently, did not require either of them, to make it in time to actually do the tee marshalling. The early rise did him no harm as by the turn, he was only four strokes over the card, and that included a triple on the second. The Valvoline began to escape in a big way after the turn, and that performance was worse than the front at the rate of over one per hole, so that Adam was only able to finish net 72 to grab fourth place. Typical of his front nine game was a flop shot out of the rough behind the 5th green to a very short side pin to virtual tap in distance for his par. Harry was pretty pleased with his front nine, particularly with the putts sinking fairly reliably from the 2 to 3m range. It was quite a different scenario on the back, where putts from half a metre and less were missing by a margin. As a result, a net 77 was the best that he could muster to flop into fifth place. Steve had a few words to say about the fact that his handicap had taken a fair sort of a haircut after his performance over the previous two weeks. He chopped and changed between his driver and his 3 wood from the tee to get some cracking shots away. However, it was the follow-up shots from the fairway that produced the most angst and evinced the most self-abuse. Still, he was able to produce a net 77 and join Harry on the podium for 5th place.

Today also saw the first of the Matchplay semi-finals between Brendon and Targe, with Brendon having to give away 24 strokes. Targe did not get away to a very good start, producing double figures on the first two holes. But, potentially, that means little when it comes to matchplay. By the end of the first nine, the match was all tied up, with the score standing at square. Brendon managed to win the first two holes on the back nine, although Targe did not give them up quite so easily as he did the first two. There was a mini-tussle over the next few holes, but the surge ran out of steam, and, at the 15th the match went to dormie 3 in Brendon’s favour. With a need to win on the 16th, the best Targe could do was to square the hole, and the match went to Brendon 3 and 2.

The 4th hole often proves problematic when it hosts a nearest-the-pin competition, none more so than today when the white tees were set well back. However, it made little difference to Adam, in the ‘better’ half of his round, who got it on and collected himself a ball for the first BallPin. Even in the ‘not-so-better’ half of his round, Adam was able to put his shot onto the 18th to make a bridesmaid of Michael (again), and to collect another ball for the second BallPin. The ProPin was set for the 15th, and ‘Old Reliable’ cracked one straight at it, but expressed the opinion, from the tee, that it was well past the pin. You could say that, if you reckon that 1.4m is well past. We won’t mention the fact that the birdie putt missed by a frog’s hair.

Rob had one of those days today. The 9th gave him a bit of trouble, but he did manage to stave off disaster by pulling off a pretty speccy up-and-down. However, it wasn’t so much of an up-and-down in a strict sense on the 18th, where he had three up-and-downs. Up towards the green and back down the hill, twice finishing further from the green than where he started. Adam was spotted expressing his artistic talents after the round as he delicately applied the sachet of tomato sauce to the top of his hot pie. There is a rumour that he is in training for an attempt at the world record for the longest continuous run of sauce from a single sachet. And, then, to eat the pie without losing a single drop.

The Birthday Birdie almost forgot. Ben was in for a big day today, and he is really looking forward to joining the Seniors tour next year. Harry has a big day coming up during the week, so a big shout out to him as well. If ‘Mango Man’, Ken, is around next Saturday, be sure to give him a slap on the back and pass on best wishes for BB.

Results for Saturday, 03 Aug 2024
1st Craig Cameron (65) 2nd Michael Gourlay (69) 3rd John Quinlan (70) 4th Adam King (72) 5th Harry Boughen (77) 5th Steven Gervasoni (77)

Seniors Results: 1st Craig Cameron (65) 2nd Michael Gourlay (69) 3rd Harry Boughen (77) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (77)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 15th Craig Cameron BallPin No 1 – 4th Adam King BallPin No 2 – 18th Adam King