Category Archives: Club News

Now, Michael did say that he was going to run the tee marshalling a bit differently but it was a bit of a surprise to find him this morning settled at a table in the Pro Shop at a table piled high with ladies golf shoes on special.  Turned out that our usual spot was off limits due to some ne’er-do-wells deciding they were hungry during the night, smashing in a window and defongerating with an armful of Gaytimes or something similar.  Obviously, they were having a gay old time.  Maybe it was the balmy night that addled their brain.

Conditions on the course were balmy and the sprinklers must have been off the greens since Thursday (when they were saturated) because they were firm and fast which brought more than a few unstuck with their short game.  There was a bit of a northerly blowing and Chrispy’s view before the round was that a square card would be enough to win and so he played to get himself a place using that as his standard.  As it turned out, a square card would have got you 5th place and Chrispy was well down the pecking order beyond that.  So much for being a judge of the conditions.

Wind or no wind, Matt got himself onto the Championship table with a vengeance by taking out the event by a good margin and doing his handicap some harm with seven points on the plus side of the ledger.  And his card included at least three on the debit side so he could have easily smashed it and finished with a par equalling round off the stick.  Still, three over ain’t half bad and Matt should be thankful that we haven’t adopted Ed’s handicapping system.

Jason has been working permanent afternoon shift and has been taking his mornings to fit in some practice during the week with a nine holes here and a nine holes there.  He reckons there was only one nine holes last week but it seems to have stood him in good stead as he was able to put in a pretty handy +5 to take out second spot.  The handicap is sneaking down but this new lot of points has moved Jason to the top of the Championship Table but with nine people within a win of the top spot there is plenty of room for manoeuvre.

Targe was another one who had a bit of practice during the week and he reckons he was able to work something out and put it into practice.  Whether it was that or just blind chance doesn’t matter as he was able to score well, particularly on the back nine, though when he faltered on the 17th, some unkind types cried handicap protection.  In the end, +3 was enough for third place in the main game and also for top spot in the Seniors both on the day on on the Seniors Championship.  Brent started well but tired a bit on the back to finish with +1 and 4th place.  Damo and Noodles rounded out the points table for today, not quite making Chrispy’s predicted winning score and carding a -1 apiece.  Noodles would have liked to have scored more than a plus for his effort on the 17th where he managed to raid the Eagles Nest and collected a nice little seven eggs just in time for Easter.

The BallPin today was on the 15th and it was fiercely contested with no less than three names on the card.  In the end, Michael was the one to collect the ball on offer.  And this was after he had extorted one from Ed for having forgotten to put the marker out last week.  The Jackpot ProPin was on the 12th and Jason must have thought he was in with a chance but he was squeezed out by Keith who managed to finish his 2.43 m from the hole.  Harry was disappointed to find his ball stopped 200mm short of the plug where the hole had been previously.  The second ProPin on the 18th was a one-man show with Rob being the only one to get, just, close enough at 4.87 m (and barely on the green it might be added).  Rob wasn’t able to get the birdie (or even the par) and so he did not contribute to the total of 15 that we managed throughout the day.

Round 1 on the Matchplay was completed with walkovers being awarded to Rob and Chrispy.  Round 2 is well under way and there were three matches contested today.  SteveK and the Beast did battle and with the handicap difference only two strokes it was very much an off-the-stick event.  Bill got his nose in front at the 4th and never really looked back and although Steve fought something of a rearguard action in the middle of the back, the match went dormie at the 14th and a squared result at the 15th sealed the match for the Beast 4 and 3.  Eddie and JohnQ fought it out long and hard and although John didn’t quite make into positive territory he held the match to square until the 14th but Ed eventually got up 2 and 1.  The match between Damo and Stef promised much but, in the end, Damo was never much worried, even by Stef putting his drive on the 16th within a couple of metres of the green.  Stef did win that hole to make the match dormie but Damo won the next to take the match 3 and 1.

Jason went close to snatching the Eagles Nest from Noodles by just coming up short for a Hole-in-One on the 4th.  SOS swears that if the ball had bounced one more time it would have gone in.  The birdie must have been a sure thing.  But, as they say in the classics, close, but no cigar (or balls, or plaque).  Targe did the presentations today (as the Club captain should) and there was not a single call for him to stand up.  And, although he isn’t the longest pencil in the case, he still does cast a shadow and needed to be reminded to move aside on the green at one stage.

Blighty was mostly hitting his drives well today, except for the 17th where a chunked shot finished well short of the red markers.  His technique of holding his right heel well off the ground might well be unconventional but it does seem to be not disadvantageous (for him, anyway).  Chrispy was also spotted buying a round for a deviation on the 15th that did not result in a Priems recovery from amongst the trees.  Damo had his short game going today, much to the exasperation of Stefan who opined that Damo could get up and down out of elephant dung (or words to that effect).

Some advice from Targe is that, if you don’t want your Club cap (or your head?) to turn purple, you should wear a hankie inside it (your cap, that is).

Results for Saturday, 08 April 2017
1st Matt Hunt(+7) 2nd Jason Hopkins(+5) 3rd Targe Mifsud(+3) 4th Brent Rowley(+1) 5th Stephen Butterfield(-1) 5th Damien Lee(-1)

Seniors Results: 1st Targe Mifsud (+3) 2nd Keith Delzoppo (-2) 3rd Bill Eastoe (-3)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Keith Delzoppo ProPin No 2 18th Robert Priems BallPin 15th Michael Gourlay

Eagle’s nest Results: Eagle 17th Stephen Butterfield

Winter is coming! Summer is officially over, a cold and chilly day brought along with it the sad news that the golf course is closing down effective immediately. Who would have thought that the riverside setting was an ideal place for 649 apartments and luxury townhouses. Hopefully the river does not overflow! Also in the news, Dane Swan is making a comeback and ikea are hitting the skies as the newest budget airline! And with it, the last ever golf competition was won by none other than Eddie, who has lost a couple of strokes of the HC as he put in a solid round of nett 67. Now Eddie is no Fool, and he started with an 8 on the first, but put that behind him to secure April’s medal for his efforts.

SOS and Ryan player together and it seemed that the wheels were falling off SOS’s wagon after he par’d the first two holes, expectation got the better of him and he didn’t quite make the ladies tee on the 3rd.  He mentioned towards the end of the round that even he was looking forward to his ‘shout’ at the end of the round, after the rounds ups and downs,  but nonetheless he came in second place with Ryan with a nett 68. Chris V put in a solid round which is surprising given he had to play with Noodles and put up with his shit all day (talking or golf??). Chris was joined by Michael in 3rd place with a score of 69.

Keith was back again and played well enough for 4th place a few strokes back on 72 and 5th was shared by Mehmet and Targe on 73 points. Mehmet was slugging it out in the matchplay against Brent, and had an early lead which was clawed back mid round. In the end it was Mehm who won 3 and 1. There was one other matchplay match played, with a clash of the heavy weights (not literally) with Michael and Brendon. It was an even contest all day but it was Michael’s consistency which came out trumps to enter into the second round with a score of 2 and 1.

There was some very high scores put in by some of the 16 members, and this is correlated to the low birdie count of only 7 for the day. Conditions were pretty good but as it gets cooler the fairway run with drop off in the weeks to come. Now as Eddie had to leave before the final groups had finished, blame was put onto him for forgetting to place the marker out for the ball hole on the 15th. Michael was heard complaining after the round that he would have to put his lawyers onto whoever was responsible as he believes he should have been entitled to a ball.

No such excuse for the pro pin on the 4th, it goes to a jackpot next week. The 18th was a bit closer and with a front tier pin position it was Chrispy who put it close enough to take the cash. The eagles nest is up to 7 balls so is almost worth the risk to take on the 17th water hazard. The Championship leaderboard is looking very congested at the top with 17 players only being separated by 11 points so it could be anyone’s chance at this stage in the year.

Round 1 of the matchplay is over, there are a few matches which have not been played out. Please let Harry know if there is to be a forfeit or alternative arrangements made so that the round 2 matches can be finalised.

 

Results for Saturday, 01 April 2017
1st Ed Kloprogge(67) 2nd Ryan Porker(68) 2nd Stephen O’Sullivan(68) 3rd Michael Gourlay(69) 3rd Chris Vinecombe(69) 4th Keith Delzoppo(72) 5th Mehmet Akdag(73) 5th Targe Mifsud(73)

Seniors Results: 1st Ed Kloprogge (67) 2nd Keith Delzoppo (72) 3rd Targe Mifsud (73)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 4th Jackpot ProPin No 2 18th Chris Priems BallPin 15th Jackpot

The weather gods once again looked down favourably on the 23 members and two lifers that turned out to honour the memory of Stuart Clarke on the final day of his Memorial Event.  There was a fair sprinkling of hawaiian shirts and President John declared that if there was a prize then it should go to Targe even though it was one of his ‘dress’ shirts.  Brendon was resplendent in his blue Club shirt and many agreed that it could be counted as outrageous.  With the weather so favourable and the course dressed within an inch of its life, it was to be expected that there would be some good scoring to be had.  The competition tally of 16 birdies however suggested that things didn’t necessarily go according to plan.

But, there were some good scores and the one to take the day and the Stuart Clarke Memorial Trophy was for 40 points and that was combined with 37 points last week to give a total of 77 points to Allan which should be more than enough to do some damage to his handicap at Yarrambat next week.  Rodger is going to make very sure that it does.  Rodger didn’t put his card in but if reports are to be believed he could very well be looking for strokes back as a result.

Despite all the hoping that Joe’s new family addition would arrive early and distract him from the task at hand, it was not to be and the arrival will be next Thursday as planned, just in time to spend time with Dad watching the US Masters and getting the feel of his first putter.  Good luck with that one Joe.  Anyway, Joe put in a pretty fair round this week following on from his leading performance last week to take the points, if not the trophy, with a total of 74 points for the event.

Pepsi tried valiantly to make up the gap from last week and went very close to pulling it off.  If only he had been able to keep up the pace that he set on the front nine where he produced nothing under a two pointer, 2 strokes under the card and a total of 22 for the nine.  The long walk from the 9th to the 10th seems to have affected his game and the back nine did not really come up to the same standard.  The Beast was right up amongst it from last week and he had to deal with the strain of playing his match with Bob but he was able to do enough to come in in 3rd place with a total of 70.

Harry was just outside the top rankings last week and he put in some practice rounds at a number of courses along the Murray during the week.  Another round of 34 points slotted him into fourth place with a total of 68.  And finally for the points allocation, SOS, Chrispy and Brendon rolled in with a grand total of 66 points apiece.

The BallPin today was on the 4th and it ended up being a no-contest as Eddie put his name on the card playing in the first group and nobody else in the field was able to get inside him.  The first ProPin was on the 12th again and it played almost the other way around with nobody getting on until one of the last groups when Joe was able to get within 2 m to collect some cash to go towards a set of clubs for the new-comer.  The Beast made a meal of the second ProPin on the 18th which did go down to the last group and put it to 1.1 m of the hole.  He also made the birdie to break Bob’s heart and win the Matchplay which had been a close run thing for the whole round and could almost have gone to a chip-off.  This could explain why it took Bill and Bob about ten minutes to finalise their scorecards while everybody waited impatiently for the presentations.

In other matchplay results, Matt was able to despatch Ryan on the last hole when Ryan ‘choked’ and shanked his approach shot and generally made a fine mess of the hole.  Shank you very much, said Matt, as he took the match 1 up.  Gordon couldn’t putt to save himself (his words) and ended up going down to Whitey at the 16th, 3 and 2.  There are still a few first round matches to go so there will have to be some serious action next week to get them out of the way before the deadline.  Players still in for the second round can arrange their matches any time from now on.

RodG was hitting his shots from the tee pretty well all day but on the very last hole he had something of a rush of blood to the head and chunked it seriously to finish not more than half way to the red tee markers.  This was the only draughtie report for the day but there could have been more.  In one case, Noodles was seen to throw his club further than the ball had travelled but this might not have been from the tee.

Now, the Beast has been known to pull off what might be termed ‘miracle’ shots and he has been known to channel prominent professionals for guidance as to how to play a particular shot.  It is hard to say who you might want to call upon for this particular lie from his tee shot on the 8th but wire-cutters and a machete come to mind.

The Priems family are famous for their strategic use of the greenery around the course to keep their game on track.  This was shown, never more clearly today than through Rob’s effort on the 3rd.  His ball was heading for the river and Dight’s Falls almost for certain.  Until, that is, it struck a tree and came back into bounds.  Though, only just, according to Rob.  On the other side of the ‘luck’ coin, Targe ran his tee shot on the 15th within millimetres of the hole and had it stop about 300mm past.  Naturally enough, he tapped it in for the easiest of birdies.  Matt racked up a few birdies today as well and on holes that counted for the Eclectic and he has now jumped up into second place and is within a point of Bob.  It must have been a mixed round for Matt as he was complaining about how many balls he had lost.

Blighty also got himself in among the bushes today.  He made his back-swing just a bit too high and the club-head got tangled in the branches and he completed his downswing without the club in his hands.  Does that count?  Gordon claims that, as well as his putting abandoning him, he was also gutted by Whitey racking up a four pointer on the first hole and then repeating the performance a few holes later.  At least they weren’t five pointers!  Or even White Pointers!  Though he could have been sharking it!

Keith was back with us today after an extended break and he is looking forward to playing more regularly again.  Welcome back Keith.

Results for Saturday, 25 March 2017
Stuart Clarke Memorial Winner Allan Davies (37, 40, 77),1st Joe Wagenecht(39, 35, 74) 2nd Andrew Petricola(36, 37, 73) 3rd Bill Eastoe(38, 32, 70) 4th Harry Boughen(34, 34, 68) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(35, 31, 66) 5th Chris Priems(29, 37, 66) 5th Brendon Mitchell(36, 30, 66)

Seniors Results: 1st Bill Eastoe (32,38,70) 2nd Harry Boughen (34,34,68) 3rd Rod Grant (29,34,63)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Joe Wagenecht ProPin No 2 18th Bill Eastoe BallPin 4th Ed Kloprogge

As usual, the Stuart Clarke Memorial has attracted a good crowd to compete for one of the big trophies of the year.  The twenty three strong crowd of the usual suspects was bolstered by the addition of Rodger and Allan, a couple of life member stalwarts from the Club’s dim, distant past.  Laurie was also supposed to be gracing the field with his presence but for some reason he was not able to make it.  The three of them are always welcome if they can tear themselves away from the green fields of Yarrambat.  The lack of rain means that the watering efforts of the green-keepers is being concentrated on the greens and some of the tees and so there continues to be run on the fairways but it is possible to attack the greens provided, of course that you can get some elevation and maybe a bit of spin.  All in all, the conditions were good for scoring and there were quite a few good scores presented and there are plenty of contenders in with a chance with a good score next week.

The man that made the best of it today was Joe who was out in the first group and had to contend with the cool early morning conditions and the dewy greens.  He soon adjusted as the first hole was the only blemish (only a single point) on the front nine.  The par threes gave him the most trouble on the back for another two singletons and an all up score of 39 points.  Now, Joe is about to become a father and it seems that the happy event is imminent and could affect his ability to (or rather the wisdom of) playing in the second round next week.  It’s amazing the number of people willing that baby to arrive next Friday night.  Regardless of the timing, we all hope it goes well.

Joe will have to keep his head down, because he has the Beast breathing right down his neck and if anyone can put two rounds together in a row it is Billy boy.  It took Bill a few holes to really warm up but he fairly sizzled on the back nine to coast into second spot on the leaderboard with 38 points.  Bill was obviously feeling in good form as, after his drive on the first, he turned around to the gallery and asked ‘where was the applause’.  Probably, the ball was so far out of sight that they couldn’t see it.

When Allan put in his card, the score line at the top said 26 points and the card was heading for the bottom of the pile.  Now Allan is known to be meticulous when it comes to card marking and there was no reason to doubt the result except that Trev had been complaining about how many sevens and three putt greens he had been having but his card had 37 on the score line which really did not gel.  Seems that Allan had one of those ‘senior’ moments and had crossed over the points scores when he wrote them in and it was he who had the 37 points to put himself into 3rd place on the leaderboard.  Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to let our ‘lifers’ play from their GL handicaps.

Because, right in the next group on 36 is none other than Rodger who was complaining before tee time how badly he had been playing and that he didn’t know what he was doing wrong.  Then again, maybe he has a vested interest in this particular trophy.  Now Rodger hasn’t played this course for a while and he opted to take relief under Local Rule P9.  When he emerged from the facilities, he hopped into his cart and proceeded to the next tee.  When he arrived, he spotted people leaving the green and abused his playing companions (in absentia) for having headed off without him.  So, Rodger teed up, sprinted off down the fairway, chipped on and two putted for his par and then looked back and noticed people waving frantically at him from the tee.  The problem was, he had just played the 14th instead of the 10th.  Next time he played the 14th he didn’t do quite so well but his tee shot did need to hit two trees to come back into bounds.  In the meantime, the following group had ‘gone through’ and so, for the second time in recorded history a club group had been ‘gone through’ and in consecutive weeks.  Nasty trend there chaps.  Brendon, Pepsi and Simon also managed to garner a total of 36 points and are, by no means, out of the running.

Filling out the normal points getting spots on the leaderboard are Stefan and Stephen (aka Stef and SOS) and, with only a four point margin to make up, it will be anybody’s game next week.  And there are a few others that are capable of a big turnaround so the eventual winner has not necessarily been mentioned.

The ProPin Jackpot from the 12th last week was fiercely contested but it was the Beast who was able to get it close enough to hold out all comers and collect the fairly bursting bag of money.  The one on the 18th ended up being a bit of a no contest after Michael put it inside a couple of metres from the first group although Damo did give himself a bit of a chance to be not that far outside Michael’s distance.  There was no birdie for Michael on that one but the group did manage to come up with seventeen all up.  Quite a few Eclectic improvements today but nobody has managed to close up the gap that Bob has at the moment.  The BallPin ended up on the 7th though it could easily have been announced to have been on the 4th (but who’s listening).  Regardless of where it was, somebody did manage to get their ball on and the one that was close enough belonged to Brendon.

Now, after Michael’s little stir up during the week, there were lots of people at the registration desk early and Chrispy, unable to help himself, took on sorting the wheat from the chaff and the lifers from the matchplays.  And a very fine job he did until Bob wandered in, looking a lot like a latter day Sam Snead with his jaunty little hat, claiming that he had been here for a while but hadn’t been able to ‘find’ anyone.  The rearranged draw looked little like the original but we got there in the end.

There were two matches decided today.  Noodles and Craig decided to strike while the iron was hot and actually played their second round match.  That’s the sort of initiative we like to see! With them both with a handicap of 9 it was going to be an off-the-stick event.  Noodles got the best of it from the get go and had worked his way to be three up at the 13th.  He wavered a bit on the run home and the match went dormie at the 16th.  Craig won the 17th and there was significant potential for a chip-off but Noodles managed to square the 18th and take the match 1 up.  SteveK and Jason slugged it out in the other match and this too was a close run thing with nobody able to really get the upper hand until Steve ran away with it over the last two holes to finish 2 up.  Still plenty of matches to play in the first round and if your second round opponent is decided that can be played any time.  Whether it was down to being involved in the match but Jason owned up to being pretty calm today which suggests that sometimes he isn’t particularly so.

During discussions after the round and the story of Rodger’s two goes at playing the 14th, it was suggested that the first could be considered to be practice and therefore in violation of the Rules of Golf and thus grounds for disqualification.  The suggestion was that that this ‘violation’ should only be considered if he ended up winning the event.  In a similar vein,  Bob was lining up to play a tee shot and in the middle of his swing when the ball fell off the tee.  Bob still managed to hit it though it did only make it just past the red markers.  Does this count as hitting a moving ball and thus a violation of the Rules as well?

Our newly elected President is back from his sojourn overseas and he dragged himself and his jetlag along today.  He stepped up to the plate to do the announcements and he and Allan paid tribute to one of our foundation members, David Ford, who died late last week.  During the announcements there was some consternation when John read out Bob’s handicap rather than his score but it was probably a reasonable mistake as his handicap was higher than his score.  John plans to have a Club gathering at his place after golf some time in the near future (it’s only 5 or 10 minutes from the course) and everyone will be welcome.  There was also a reminder that next week, it is traditional to wear hawaiian shirts instead of Club shirts as a nod to Stuart’s penchant for this type of apparel and in his memory.

Also, don’t forget to register and pay your deposit for the Annual Challenge at Shepparton.  Bank details on the website and let SOS and Gordon know.

Results for Saturday, 18 March 2017
Leaderboard Round 1 1st Joe Wagenecht(39) 2nd Bill Eastoe(38) 3rd Allan Davies(37) 4th Rodger Clarke(36) 4th Brendon Mitchell(36) 4th Andrew Petricola(36) 4th Simon Powell(36) 5th Stefan Belevski(35) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(35)

Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Bill Eastoe (38) 2nd Simon Powell (36) 3rd Harry Boughen (34) 3rd Rod Grant (34)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Bill Eastoe ProPin No 2 18th Michael Gourlay BallPin 7th Brendon Mitchell