Category Archives: Club News

21 members were in full swing for June’s monthly medal. Scores were a little down on normal and course conditions were tricky with quite a few clumps of mud finding themselves attached to the round thing, “it surely must be preferred lies” was heard more than once. After being in some less than ideal form (based on his own assessment) Michael ended up on top with a stellar performance and a nett score of 66 to take out top spot.

Michael attributed to the turn around to taking some inspiration from Gordon, and had acquired a brand new second hand 1 iron  from gumtree during the week. 1988 Ben Hogan apex redline to be exact. Although his only use during the day was less than spectacular it must have brought a little bit of luck. Not too far behind and a little bit short was Targe who ended up on a score of 69 and a very consistent round and second place.

There was a match play game played out between Damian and Rob. Damian has to give Rob a shot on 10 holes and Damian was complaining that they were all on the par 3’s so it was difficult to make amends. (last count there were only 5 par 3’s at Ivanhoe). Nonetheless Damian was able to hang onto a small lead for most of the day, however by the 18th Rob had come back only be 1 hole behind. With an extra shot on the 18th, there was every chance that the match would end in a chip off.  Damian only managed a bogie, and Rob had a chance to tie things up but missed a couple of gettable puts to come up short and hand Damo the match 1 up.

With Damo’s matchplay win he was able to secure 3rd place with nett 71 and was tied with Dennis Ward who is back after a few weeks away. 4th place was also shared by Mehmet and Craig C who were one shot further back, and 5th place was held by Blighty and Dale with a nett 73. Senior placings went to Targe, Dennis and Craig.

There was only 10 birdies throughout the day, which is a little low compared to the numbers. Maybe it was the conservative play for a stroke round, or maybe it was another reason. Both of the pro pins on the 15th and 18th holes also went begging and are jackpots for next week. Well worth attending next week as there is a bit of cash in those two holes.

The ball hole was on the 4th hole and Michael thought he had it in the bag as he slotted one close with his 9 iron. Not to be outdone however, it was reported that SOS pulled out his putter and hit it closer again to take out to win himself a shiny new pro V1. There were also two new members who played today, Jake Priems placed in his 3rd card and Michael P also put in his second card. Odds on it wont be long for these two to start taking out some points as has been the case of recent times with new members.

There are only 4 members left in the match play! Damian will play Eddie for a spot in the final, and Pepsi is to play Michael G. All four are what is classified as lower handicappers so it will be interesting how things pan out.

Results for Saturday, 03 June 2017
1st Michael Gourlay(66) 2nd Targe Mifsud(69) 3rd Damien Lee(71) 3rd Dennis Ward(71) 4th Mehmet Akdag(72) 4th Craig Cameron(72) 5th Andrew Blight(73) 5th Dale Webb(73)

Seniors Results: 1st Targe Mifsud (69) 2nd Dennis Ward (71) 3rd Craig Cameron (72)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 15th Jackpot ProPin No 2 18th Jackpot BallPin 4th Stephen O

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it was bound to be a bad day for some.  And if the videos posted to the Facebook page early this morning are any guide, then Chrispy could very well have had a bad day.  But at least he did cancel himself out last week so he obviously had a mind to have a good time at the party, if not afterwards.  As for the rest, they were fortunate that the earlier forecasts for the day did not eventuate and it really was a beautiful day for golf even if some of the golf was not so beautiful.  Nineteen of the original twenty five starters made it to the tees for the second round of the David Ford Autumn Cup and at least some started off with hopes of a big turn-around.  And there were some big turns-around but not always in a favourable direction.  But with nineteen players we did manage to turn in 18 birdies which is one of our better conversion rates in recent times.

Now, there is a theory that consistency will win out over occasional brilliance any time.  And that was no more in evidence than today with Mr Consistency (Pepsi) putting all worries behind him and coming in with yet another card on the positive side of the ledger.  Three up today combined with his 2 up from last week was more than enough to do away with the rest of the field and to take over the trophy that Stef has so jealously guarded for the last two years.  The double batch of points has moved Pepsi nearly to the top of the table with a very impressive strike rate to go with it.  Watch out if his attendance improves.

After the round, Noodles was going around announcing that he had had seven ‘swipes’ today and given his propensity to frequent certain internet sites some were wondering whether they were ‘right’ or ‘left’.  As it turned out, this was code for how many holes he had scored a ‘minus’ and, even though he only actually had six, he was still able to come in square with the card for a plus one result overall and second place.  There was some existential discussion today along the lines that, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound, as a parallel to, if a club misses a ball on a golf course and nobody is there is it a windie?  Noodles is insistent that there was no windie.

On the other hand there were two certified draughties today, on the same hole and by the same person.  Blighty was adamant that there was a ‘club’ rule that there could be only one per person per hole.  Somehow, it seems pretty certain that Pepsi will be lining up to complete the shout when next they meet at the bar.

Mehmet slipped a little on the scoring today but he did have his moments and managed to hold his placing from last week.  SOS slipped a bit more than Mehm and joined Mehm for a share of third place.  Things might have been a bit worse for SOS if it hadn’t been for the intervention of the golf gods with his second on the 3rd heading for well out of bounds before hitting a tree branch and feeding back into play and onto the green.  Slotting the putt gave him the birdie.

Fourth place was shared by Bob, Stef and Michael who were mostly pretty quiet according to all reports.  Stef was accused of ‘laying up’ when his drives on the 11th and 14th came up slightly short of the green.  The eagle chance on the 14th was only a handspan away and accounted for another of the birdies.  The Beast made the observation that Stef could easily win the Eagles Nest every week and be no worse off than waiting for it to reach the 20 ball mark before having a real go.  Michael admitted to getting cranky with himself today and almost indulging in equipment abuse but as somebody pointed out that was for missing a birdie putt.

And, finally, on the podium we have Blighty who was not quite able to follow up his stellar performance last week.  At least, this week, he seems to have remembered which holes he got two strokes on.

The first ProPin was out on the 12th and Eddie fronted up to the tee saying that he really needed to win to help pay for his recent dentistry.  Needless to say he put it close enough at 2.29m to shut out the rest of the field and make a small contribution to his dentist’s next Ferrari.  The second ProPin on the 18th went begging again although Ed did try to mark his ball, using the excuse that he thought it was the BallPin.  And, what of the BallPin.  Well, it was supposed to be on the 15th and Harry was in charge.  So, what could possibly go wrong.  As it turned out Harry managed to take 4 putts from just over a metre and was so disgusted with himself that he walked off and forgot about the marker until after the 18th.  Result, another jackpot.

Ed’s gums are coming good and he was back in form today offering this bit of consolation for a missed putt – it hit a bump just before you hit it.  The beast was in the Chef’s team today and was the designated tongs man but after about ten minutes he was spotted idly chatting with Brendon who was down coaching his youngster into the fine arts of putting.  As a penalty, Bill will be relegated to the Chef’s team regardless of the leaderboard for the rest of the year.

Allan has decided that in future he is going to go back to just three clubs as he played much better in the three club event that he has in recent times.  And, while on the topic of clubs, JohnQ was out with a brand new set of irons today.  So new, in fact, that he had not hit a ball with them before his second shot on the first hole.  According to all reports they went OK so there must be another reason for a bit of a slide in form from last week.  Allan was feeling pretty happy with his shot with his driver off the 7th tee.  That is until Stef out-drove him using his pitching wedge.

Rob had a bit of a rough day out there today.  It all started when his drive on the 2nd appeared to have gone missing in the middle of the fairway.  As it turned out, Simon had hit the wrong ball (Rob’s) but the curious thing is they didn’t realise the mistake until SOS caught up to them at the 7th or 8th with Simon’s ball to hand.  And, although things did not really improve (or even got worse) Rob was quite proud, and rightly so, of the fact that he did not once lose his cool.  Matt hit a chip very skinny and it was going like a rocket and heading for who knows where.  That is, until it hit the pin dead centre and went close to dropping into the hole.  You only have to write the score down, not post pictures to Instagram.

The Birthday Birdie has been woken from his slumbers in recent weeks and has a couple of sets of greetings to bestow.  The first goes to Gordon, which might go some way to explaining his absence from duty today.  The other goes to Targe who soon will be another year older even though he’ll only be a day older than he was the day before.  Go figure.

Two weeks to go for the third round of the Matchplay and two matches to play.  Then we will know who get the points and it only remain to determine just exactly how many each one gets.  At least one match is planned for next week while the other match has yet to set a date out of the two available.

Results for Saturday, 20 May 2017
1st Andrew Petricola(+2, +3, +5) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(+1, □, +1) 3rd Mehmet Akdag(+1, -2, -1) 3rd Stephen O’Sullivan(+2, -3, -1) 4th Bob McDonald(□, -2, -2) 4th Stefan Belevski(-3, +1, -2) 4th Michael Gourlay(-1, -1, -2) 5th Andrew Blight(+4, -7, -3)

Seniors Results: 1st Bob McDonald (-2,0,-2) 2nd Andrew Blight (-7,4,-3) 3rd Targe Mifsud (-5,0,-5)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Ed Kloprogge ProPin No 2 18th Jackpot BallPin 15th Jackpot

There’s nothing like the prospect of a couple of Par rounds with double points to go and a fine autumn Melbourne day to bring them out of their hiding holes.  There were 25 members out vying for the right to hoist the trophy (or cook the bar-be-que) and Chrispy’s boy, Jake, came along to boost the numbers and get his second card in.  There hasn’t been much rain for a few days and some were suggesting that there could be a bit of run getting back into the course but it was still wet enough for the occasional wish for preferred lies so the mud clods could be made to go away.

Usually when the player count goes up, the birdie count goes up and true to form it did so today.  We managed to put together 18 on the official count today and there was a bonus one extra thanks to Jake.  There were a couple of note today.  Simon managed to get one on the 5th after three great shots onto the green followed by the single putt.  On the next hole, Michael hit a shot that he reckons was better than sex that finished just centimetres from the hole and he slotted it for his birdie.  He now has them all but the 1st so he really has to start getting eagles to improve his Eclectic.  Still, second place isn’t too bad in the scheme of things.  One thing that teed Michael off about his ‘better than sex’ shot was that none of his playing companions were watching.  But who wants to watch Michael having sex?

Now, when the cards were handed in, it was thought that we had a three way tie for top of the Leader Board.  But, it seems that Blighty left his (mathematical) brain at home and forgot about a couple of holes that he got two strokes on.  Of course, his marker has to take a bit of the blame for that as well.  Anyway, the upshot is that Blighty is the outright leader after the first round with a buffer of two points to work with.  Now, all he has to remember is to keep positioning the ball inside the line of his left toe and not outside as he reckons he was doing.  Plus he doesn’t seem to be holding his right heel so far off the ground these days either.

That won’t make any difference to the last squad for the day and it should be a battle royal with Pepsi and SOS there to keep the pressure on as they battle it out for the top spot and the trophy.  Perhaps Pepsi could argue that he had the additional stress today of playing Chrispy in their Matchplay match and for a while there it looked as if it could be a close run thing although Pepsi did get a bit of a jump in the latter stages of the front to be 3 up after seven.  Chrispy tried hard to pull it back but by the 14th the match was in serious danger of slipping out of his control as he began to look forward to the start of next year’s competition.  Chrispy lost that one but was feeling pretty pleased with himself when he squared the 15th and he was quite surprised when Pepsi walked up to shake his hand for the match that he won 4 and 3.  The match went dormie at the 14th and Chris needed to be winning.

Mehmet reckons he is on the come-back trail and he is going to try to join us a bit more often than he has done recently.  He and Noodles played together and marked each others cards and so it might not be surprising that they came in with the same score at +1.  The terrible twins are far from out of the running and if Mehm can continue to avoid being clobbered by random flying clubs (he won’t be in the same group as JQ next week) and Noodles can keep his clubs down out of the trees then either of them could be mounting the podium next week.

Next in line, and with a bit more work to do, we have a trio of Seniors who have been there or there-abouts over recent times.  Keith just keeps plugging them down the middle without too much fuss.  Bob still reckons that, if the ball hadn’t hit that, I could have been in the hole.  Targe just keeps getting confused about why the Committee meeting was last week and not this week.  It comes about by some people not looking at the Calendar mainly.

JohnQ mustn’t have been too happy about some aspect of his game when he went close to decapitating Mehm and breaking the Beast’s leg in one fell swoop.  But, he held it together enough to be not too far off the pace with a card of -1 alongside Rob and Michael.  And as for the rest.  While stranger things have happened, the stars would really have to align something fierce for somebody to leapfrog the leaders from beyond this point.  But, as they say in the classics: Nothing is impossible.

The BallPin was on the 4th today though you could have been forgiven for imagining that it was a ProPin when the wrong box was left out.  Apparently some people got on but didn’t mark it because their ball wasn’t inside the distance limit for the ProPin and there will be a Jackpot for next week.  Eddie’s name was mentioned but he was pretty quiet today as he has just had some major dental work done and he was still feeling a bit the worse for wear.  There is no truth to the rumour that it was because the dentist had wired his jaws together.  The first ProPin was on the 15th and there is no measurement because there was no tape so we just have to take Joe’s (and his marker’s) word for it that it was within the 5m limit.  There was no question about the ProPin on the 18th though as Jason managed to put it just past the hole by 70cm.  He thought he might have been in with a chance on the inside NTP as well but a check of the card had somebody with 30cm which is pretty darned close.

Gordon is in the next group but it seems that he won’t be doing any leap-frogging as he won’t be here next week.  He was in a group with Michael today and between the four of them they managed to play the 7th hole in just eleven strokes.  Targe was playing in a group with Brent today and Brent does keep his head pretty closely shaved.  But was that really an excuse for Targe to call him Jason for most of the round until somebody kindly pointed out his mistake.  It must be said that Jason does sport a very similar hairstyle but the resemblance stops pretty much at that point.

Bob was running hot (not his golf) and was moved to strip off some excess clothing at the 16th tee.  His playing companions were wondering how far he was going to go when he got down to his singlet.  Not a pretty sight.  Ryan was pretty close to the bottom of the field today and he reckons that it might be because he had a lesson during the week and he was trying to change too many things at once.  Remember the last time he ‘changed’ something.

Don’t forget the Bar-be-que after the round next week.  Always a good nosh-up and it will be interesting to see what fare turns up with Gordo not on the job.  Still, how far can you go wrong with snags, burgers, sauce and bread?

Arrangements for Shepparton are progressing although there has been some change at management levels at the Club that has delayed getting the final details but, do not despair, Gordon will advise as soon as he knows.  As reported last week, the Annual Challenge will now be a Competition event.  The total Stableford points for each player for the two rounds will have 36 deducted and that result will be used as a single round score for handicapping purposes, as if played at Ivanhoe from your Ivanhoe handicap.  Anybody who does not have a GA handicap will play at Shepparton with their Club Handicap plus 2 scaled according to the slope of the  Shepparton course compared to the slope of Ivanhoe.  A more detailed explanation will be circulated later.

Results for Saturday, 13 May 2017
Leaderboard Round 1 1st Andrew Blight(+4) 2nd Andrew Petricola(+2) 2nd Stephen O’Sullivan(+2) 3rd Mehmet Akdag(+1) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(+1) 4th Keith Delzoppo(□) 4th Bob McDonald(□) 4th Targe Mifsud(□) 5th Michael Gourlay(-1) 5th Robert Priems(-1) 5th John Quinlan(-1)

Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Andrew Blight (+5) 2nd Bob McDonald (□) 2nd Keith Delzoppo (□) 2nd Targe Mifsud (□) 3rd Gordon Hill (-2)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 15th Joe Wagenecht ProPin No 2 18th Jason Hopkins BallPin 4th Jackpot

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