Category Archives: Club News

While the cat’s away the mice will play – well, one mouse anyway!  Out of a field of 17 (16 members and one guest)  there were only two who went anywhere near taking the course apart and one of them was Mr Perseverance himself,  Trevor.  Trevor has been bragging about the good that his new equipment has done him and it certainly seems to have kept him on the straight and narrow this week, particularly with the flat stick.  No less than 7 (yes seven) one putt greens but other than that he only played average (according to Trev at any rate).  As they say in the classics – you drive for show but you putt for dough and Trevor did his standing in the Championship tables no harm with today’s performance.

Mehmet probably thought he had a chance with his +4 but he was destined to be the bridesmaid once more but with a few Championship points to go along with his new handicap.  At least he can console himself that he can be back to his old handicap a lot sooner than Trev can.

Another sliver of daylight then to a bit of a cluster with Chrispy, who seems to be putting together a bit of a run of form, Targe and Bill.  Of the nine birdies today, Bill totted up three of them and in the process took a giant leap up the eclectic table.  Following close behind with square cards (and hardly a square amongst them) were Snags, Brendon, Gordo and SOS.  Last in the points gatherers, but by no means least were Noodles and Oliver who is hanging in there ever so quietly gathering points.

Will Ghidetti was our guest again after a bit of a break and he has now submitted his third card and will be eligible for competition.  In the process, he managed to score the Nearest the Pin on the Ball Hole.  Well done Will and welcome to our happy little clan.  Everybody must be flush after the silly season and didn’t try hard enough on the ProPin hole and that will Jackpot to next week.  What’s the bet that there are some hungry sharks about next time?  Although there were a sprinkling of Birdies scored on the day, the poor old Eagle is absolutely devastated and it now seems almost certain that Damo will not be giving back that loaner that he has been using the last few weeks.  A drive from the 14th tee finished about 2m off the green and from there he calmly chipped it in to score enough balls to keep him out of the Pro-shop for quite a while.  Ah well, back to square one for the big bird.

There should have been a lot of ‘fours’ (or should that be ‘fores’) on the cards as it seems that there were a number of close calls.  Try to keep your abilities and course etiquette in mind when you are out there, we would hate to have something nasty happen and we want everybody to have a good time not hospital time.

Results for Saturday, 11 January 2014
1st Trevor Jackson(+6) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(+4) 3rd Bill Eastoe(+1) 3rd Targe Mifsud(+1) 3rd Chris Priems(+1) 4th Gordon Hill(□) 4th Brendon Mitchell(□) 4th Craig Sharp(□) 4th Stephen O’Sullivan(□) 5th Stephen Butterfield(-1) 5th Oliver Gross(-1)

Where were you? Not everybody could have been off swanning it around the map of Tasmania.  However, we are coming out of the silly season and there were no slap up lunches on offer.  Fifteen members and one visitor made up the complement for today’s outing on the verdant green of Ivanhoe – or is that too many big words?

Santa was obviously very kind to Mehm as he was out and about sporting a brand new cart and who knows what else.  One of those remote control jobs like SOS has.  Mehm was seen acting the hoon and doing doughnuts at the second tee.  Maybe we could fit SOS  out with blues and twos (or whatever we call lights and sirens in Oz) and they could play chasies.  Maybe Santa also included a new swing (not the backyard kiddie type) because Mehm put together a memorable round to almost street the field with a nett 65 which, interestingly, did not include a single birdie and had a double bogie on the last.  Was he lying down?  Well done Mehm the Monthly Medallist.

Oliver’s playing partners were apparently making a good effort at putting him off his game by chatting while he made his strokes, double checking his score and regaling him with some new blasphemy but they didn’t succeed.  Oliver seems to be keeping up his good form as last years Club Champion and came in on his own in second place with a nett 67.

Then came the clusters.  Harry, Noodles and Eddie were the next cabs off the rank having very cunningly played exactly to their handicap so no problems remembering what handicap to play off next time around.

The next cluster was another mixed blend of seniors and juniors with RodG, Dennis and Damo sharing the honours.  They were followed by Targe and Chrispy.  And this after Chris was heard to say during the round that, as Club Captain, he was going to ban the playing of stroke rounds ever again.  Maybe the new position is going to his head.

That left only four (and a half) players not in a podium position.  No names, no packdrill but if you want to know who they are you can work it out for yourselves.

David is in the process of staining his deck and was wondering why there was no gadget available to do between the planks easily.  When it was suggested that perhaps he could invent one himself, it obviously got him thinking because he rushed off home after nine to have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.

Damo reckons he had at least eleven birdie putts today and didn’t make one of them though the majority missed by the narrowest of margins.  If he had made them all, Mehm wouldn’t have stood a chance.  Harry did manage a birdie on the 11th after his approach shot missed the hole by a hairs breadth and finished about 50mm past.  There were a total of 9 birdies today and three of those were down to Noodles so there has probably been a few changes in the Eclectic standings.  Speaking of which, check your scores in the table and if you think anything has been missed, let the Handicapper know.

The ProPin on the 12th went to Harry who finished about 1.8m short of the hole but he didn’t make the birdie (two in a row would have been nice).  Although the nearest the Pin for a ball on the 18th was announced and the marker was prominently placed near the edge of the green adjacent to the hole a couple of people were on the green but didn’t know/see and so the ball went begging.

Our visitor was Atila, from Adelaide, and he has played the course before – about fourteen years ago.  He was using a borrowed set of clubs and managed 79 off the stick.  Maybe it is a good thing that he is a bit far away to be a regular member.

SOS didn’t have a very good day at the office.  He managed to rack up a 12 on one hole (the 8th).  The three balls out of bounds did not help.   Craig, besides teaching Oliver some of the subtleties of Aussie English, showed a fine turn of phrase when he reckoned he has struck a rich vein of form.  Good thing he doesn’t work in the mining industry!

Results for Saturday, 04 January 2014
1st Mehmet Akdag(65) 2nd Oliver Gross(67) 3rd Harry Boughen(68) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(68) 3rd Ed Kloprogge(68) 4th Rod Grant(69) 4th Damien Lee(69) 4th Dennis Tiernan(69) 5th Targe Mifsud(71) 5th Chris Priems(71)

There were eight in the bed and the middle one said…….Well, if we had  had a bed then we could have played that game instead of the one that at least some of us did.  No excuse though, it was a beautiful day and we were finished before the heat really kicked in.  The course was is good condition and the greens, particularly the damaged ones are improving in leaps and bounds.  A slight heavy handedness with the watering by the ground staff meant that a couple were a little saturated early in the round but I guess they can’t be blamed with a hot dry wind in the offing.

With no points in the offing and the handicapper hog-tied a few of the lads decided to pull out the stoppers and have a red hot go.  Though he is determined not to let his new role as Club Captain go to his head again, Chrispy was the one to catch and he rattled off a 75 off the stick to tally up 41 points from his Club handicap.  Nothing less than a two pointer the whole round.

Damo was so impressed by the announcement of the biggest turn-around Claytons Trophy that he decided to get himself in the running (except that social rounds don’t count for that either).  He didn’t keep a club score but tallied up 40 points inside so could easily have been up there with Chris.  He was test driving a demo driver and was absolutely creaming it, going close to reaching the green on the 16th.  So impressed, he wants the demo and not the new club.

Dennis Tiernan was back on deck for the first time for a while after putting in the hard yards at the Darklands and showed that he has not lost a lot of touch as a result and put together a very creditable 39 points.  He was a bit cheesed that Chris had pipped him in the inside grade as well but he should pick up a ball.

Targe was another one who did reasonably well although he also did not keep a club card but he reported that he choked on the last two holes so we will have to take his word for it.

There was a ProPin (no distance requirement) run on the 12th and when the first group went through, they wondered whether it should have been closest with the second shot.  The second group fared little better and although Chris and Damo were closer to the pin they weren’t on the green and so SOS took the money from Targe by a fairly narrow margin.  It obviously wasn’t all that close to the hole as SOS ended up with a four.

Harry might have made a score were it not for four consecutive scratches in the middle of the round including one four putt green though it is debatable whether it counts or not as he was out of strokes after the first two.  To add insult to injury, on the next hole his ball finished at the butt of a tree with the green out of shot to the left of picture.

MalF is well known for being a consistent two putt man but a few times today he did it in one including a monster on the 17th for a birdie.  Never looked like missing from the moment it left the club.  Dennis would have helped his eclectic no end on a competition day when he racked up three birdies.  And it looks like there might have only been four for the day.

MalA must have terrific reflexes because on one tee shot, his club struck the ground at least 300mm behind the ball but still managed to make contact and end up with an acceptable result.  At least that’s what we would like to think and it wasn’t the other thing  that beats class.

Dennis has developed into a bit of a rock concert groupie, particularly one last week when the majority of the audience were 14 to 18 year old females – and some of the mums weren’t bad either he reckons.

Well that’s all the fun for the time being.  Next week it’s back to Club Events with the first medal for the year up for grabs along with lots of Championship points.  Be there or miss out.

What a turn-out.  Could it have been the Champion of Champions event?  Could it have been the Trophy presentations?  Could it have been the AGM?  Or, last but not least, could it have been the prospect of a free Christmas lunch?  No, actually it was the prospect of a great day’s golf with a whole bunch of great mates on one of the nicest little courses for miles around – wasn’t it?

And how did our bevy of budding champions perform?  Without putting too fine a point on it, from the sublime to the ridiculous would sum it up but I’m not going to indicate which end of the scoring one or the other description applies to.

It seems that Eddie couldn’t miss from on and around the green and despite all the complaints about being hard done by the handicapper after his last outing he managed to beat his new handicap by a good margin.  The handicappers only regret is that he wasn’t able to give him another whacking this week.  Despite all that a great round by Ed with 72 off the stick for a nett 61 and a worthy addition to the Stuart Clarke Champion of Champions Trophy.

The only others to have had any chance of challenging were Stefan with nett 63 and AndrewB with nett 65.  Then there was a fair stretch of daylight to the rest of the field.

The rest of the field competed for little other than that Clayton’s Trophy that has become known as Chump of Chumps.  It is still unclear as to whether this should be judged from the front of the field or from the tail but as the President announced from the front perhaps that is the way it should be.

So, the Best of the Rest was a tie between Mostyn and Bill and for the sake of having a declared Chump, Mostyn won that honour in a count back of their 64 nett result.  Don’t worry Bill, there is almost a whole year’s worth of silver-ware out there untouched.  Second Best of the Rest on his Pat Malone was that erstwhile cricketer (who seems to be taking lessons from Warnie if his attention to texting is any guide) Noodles.  Five would-be-if-they-could-bes played to their handicap and wouldn’t have moved even if the event was handicapped and included Chrispy, SOS, Mehm, Trevor and Harry.

There were nearest the pin events but your feckless correspondent didn’t write them down and now can’t remember for the life of him who they were.  If somebody lets me know, the situation can be corrected.  Regardless, there must have been a few birdies as there were complaints about the fact that this round will not count in the eclectic.  There was even a complaint because somebody had a par on the 13th.

Whether it was the Christmas spirit or not, there were a heap of stories around the tees and some of them were real beauties.

Speaking of Christmas spirit, one would have to wonder whether SOS had been imbibing/smoking something to get into this predicament.  It seems he was somehow distracted and pressed the wrong button on his fancy buggy control and swerved it off the track and capsized – obviously didn’t steer into the skid.

Speaking of distractions, there was obviously some sort of emergency at FES as Gordon was seen taking several calls and even trying to putt while continuing a conversation with Targe holding (and dropping) the phone for him.  Needless to say, he missed the putt.

Someone who didn’t miss was MalF on the 18th who, after over-cooking his third from above the green and ending on the lower level, slammed it back up the hill to rattle it in for a fairly respectable four.  Always gets his second putts our Mal!

Our other Mal (A), decided it would be a good day to try out some new runners instead of golf shoes.  One result was that, with the effects of over-night watering still on the grass at the second tee, Mal went close to emulating SOS’s cart and going A over T.  The new shoes seem to have helped his distance control around the green immeasurably as chip and putt finished agonisingly close to the hole but the RDF didn’t kick in till the 18th when he sank a monster to finish the day on a high note.  At the other end of the putting scale, Tony owned up to the dreaded four with the flat stick.

Zimmer was reported to have expressed his disapproval about something or other on or about the 13th.  Whether it was because of that (and this report is unverified), a Happy Gilmour shot on the 14th reputedly carried well past the green.  One shot that did carry past the green on the 14th happened while Harry was taking his putt (which he sank by the way) but could the long hitters please be a bit more circumspect when there is a chance that they can reach the group in front.  Shouting ‘Fore’ is all very well, but it is not always obvious who is the potential recipient of unwelcome attention.

Whilst on the subject of long drives, Oliver was being very pleased with his Titleist ProV and hitting it a country mile.  Then it seems that some jokester got to it and adorned it with a less than delicate logo that snapped his concentration entirely for some little time.  Another one whose concentration was lacking, possibly because of an exceptionally long drive was David, who managed to walk half the distance to his ball before realising that he was carrying only his driver and his bag and buggy were still back at the tee.

Craig might also have been thinking of other things when his first on the 14th went OOB and the replacement ball finished on the 16th green.  Rather uncharacteristically, his club went flying.  Tsk, tsk.  Maybe it had something to do with the Sweet Baby gift bag that was under his table at lunch time.

In the odd shot department, Chrispy was unsure what score to take but ended up only taking the two for a double hit but it seems that the ball bounced several times along the shaft of the club.  If it hadn’t been Chris telling it, I would never have believed it.

It was good to see Bob on deck for the lunch after his recent replumbing job.  It will still be some time before we see him back on the course but he was looking in fine fettle so soon after the event.  It is yet to be seen whether the golf-swing transplant that they did at the same time will be rejected or not but the surgeon is apparently quietly confident that improvement will be in store.

Ken Grist reckons that he has to come back and play at Ivanhoe from time to time to stay sane.  Which reminds me of another statement heard recently – If it wasn’t for the gutter, my mind would be homeless.

If you want to know who all the trophy winners for last year were go to the Hall of Fame and check the list out.  There are a few other Trophies that deserve a mention – entirely unofficial but interesting none-the-less.

Clubman – for most rounds played – Oliver(44)

Trooper – for grinning and bearing it – Trevor

Biggest Mover – most strokes lost (6.8) (and per round) – Eddie

Biggest Loser – most strokes gained per round – Mehm

Biggest Turnaround – consecutive rounds worse – Dennis

Biggest Turnaround – consecutive rounds better – MalF

Well, that’s it, that’s your lot for this week.

Have a Happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year.  See you bright eyed and bushy tailed on January 4th (if not before).