Well, it seems that either people’s memories are short or they can’t count. And it’s not the scores that are in question but the number of weeks in a row that the competition has been Par. Estimates seemed to range from five to as high as seven (or maybe more). But, hey, it’s not unusual to have multiples of the same competition in association with Majors and nobody seems to complain if it is three Stableford in a row. However some people seem to revel in Par Competition, just look at Stefan over the previous two weeks, particularly the first round of the David Ford. If he can do it anyone can, well almost anyone! Still, he managed to line up and collect another point today though everybody was expecting him to be out of contention for a while as had been reported last week. The big day has been put off and in the meantime he wants to accumulate as many points as possible. He can be caught though!
However, today’s stars of the course lined up like triplets with big smiles all round and big points onto the tally in the Championship Table. Brendon’s attendance has been a bit erratic of late but he has still managed to rack up a reasonable total and CraigC has also been quietly putting them together and scored his second win for the season. The good looking Priems boy, Robert, however got his points off to a flying start gathering the big eight for his first bite of the cherry. No use messing around with small change, hey Robert? All in all, +2 was pretty good scoring on a day that didn’t have much to offer on a course that was a bit wet in places after the recent rains and might even have been wet enough to warrant preferred lie on at least some of the fairways if not through the green.
A man who has been there or there-abouts in recent times is none other than Mal, who, after performing well in the David Ford, backed up again today to collect another lot of points in second place, all on his Pat Malone, with a very steady +1. Mal has yet to get a top spot this year but if he can keep up his steady performance it won’t be too long before he lands the big one.
Noodles and ChrisV managed to play to their handicap for square cards in 3rd place. Chris is freshly back from his honeymoon and has a certain spring in his step and a look in his eye but whether that is because of his keenness to get back into golf or for some other reason is a bit uncertain. Noodles always has a keen look in his eye but sometimes it wanders from the task in hand or maybe that should be to the phone in hand.
JohnQ continues on his comeback to the club and managed to be the only one to report in with a score of -1 for the 4th place spot. Fifth was very popular though and Mehmet, Stefan, Allan and SOS had to squeeze together onto the podium step to acknowledge the accolades. At least nobody fell off, unlike at the soccer the other night.
The Nearest the Pin for a ball was on the 15th and for a while the green seemed intent on avoiding having a ball finish on it. However, Ryan eventually managed to put one pretty close and collected a ball for his trouble as well as a birdie for the card. This was one of only nine reported for the day which perhaps gives some idea of how the course was playing from a total of 21 starters. There were only 20 finishers as Eddie withdrew after nine holes with a bad case of ‘pigeon fanciers back’ after a heavy night of erecting cages. In the process, he also seems to have walked off with the tape measure for the ProPin which was on the 12th hole. Allan, who was in the first group, fairly optimistically put his name on it at 8m but once again Ryan was the man to beat and he collected the money as well. So, a couple of highlights for the Assistant Handicapper in a day that he might otherwise prefer to forget.
The field in the Ivanhoe Golf League is starting to spread out a bit with Brendon and CraigC (+4) scoring for the Tigers over Noodles and SOS (-2) for the Saints. ChrisV and Robert (+2) led the Blues to victory over Ryan and Mal (-6) for the Magpies. Then, there was a first for the season, with a draw between the Bulldogs (Mehm and Allan -4) and the Hawks (Gordon and JohnQ -4).
Targe has a birthday coming up this week and the Birthday Birdie wishes him a happy day, which might be a bit of a contrast to today, though Targe did opine that he was out as much for the exercise as he was for the golf. He also advised that he is about to retire – from work, not golf – and that things would be a bit different for him from then on though he didn’t elaborate on how this would be so.
Mehm was spotted with his ball placed nicely behind a tree by the 10th green and he asked for a report on the crap golf that he was playing. The result of the shot that he played was probably as good as you could ask for given the lie and location and the golf can’t have been too crap given that he ended in the points. Mal was also complaining about not having done too well and wishing for one last decent shot on the 18th at which he proceeded to chip the ball into the hole out of the rough to square the hole which was certainly a bonus as far as the points went.
Allan didn’t start the day too well having had a fairly spectacular draughtie on the first hole. It didn’t seem to faze him though as he cheerfully shouted the remainder of the group a coffee after the round and recovered enough aplomb to also get into the points tally. He also reckons that his optimistically claimed shot on the 12th was his best shot of the day.
ChrisP was well down the field, though not quite last, as he reckoned he would be when he handed in his card. He was playing under some difficulty though as he suffered a significant eye injury at work during the week and some resultant time off. He described the feeling for some time afterwards as if somebody was gouging his eye with a shard of broken glass. Not sure how he knows what that feels like unless it is a relic of bar-room brawls past.
Gordon started off like the champion that he is but it seems that he needed a packet of Strepsils or Butter Menthols on the back nine to try to relieve that choking feeling. Brendon obviously wasn’t hampered by having to tow his buggy as his fancy machine is off the course. Not due to any misadventure with errant golf balls but merely due to a simple mechanical failure that seems to be a common feature of these infernal machines.
Rest assured that there are no Par competitions at least for a couple of weeks but the next one will be a Yellow Ball Teams and SOS has a goodly supply of said yellow balls in anticipation. Questions were asked about the Three Club Challenge and a quick check of the Calendar shows that that does not come around until August so plenty of time to decide on which three clubs you will choose to be challenged with.
Results for Saturday, 23 May 2015
1st Craig Cameron(+2) 1st Brendon Mitchell(+2) 1st Robert Priems(+2) 2nd Malcolm Fleming(+1) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(□) 3rd Chris Vinecombe(□) 4th John Quinlan(-1) 5th Mehmet Akdag(-2) 5th Stefan Belevski(-2) 5th Allan Davies(-2) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(-2)