Category Archives: Club News

The ducks were quacking all over the course today and the thought was that it was because of the recent rain and the fact that the breeding season will soon be upon us.  If the behaviour of a couple of them in the pond by the 4th is any indication, it already is upon us.  The fact that there had been rain forecast and a few spots late in the round caused a few worries for some but the real bucketting didn’t arrive until much later and the continued application of preferred lies pleased quite a number of the contenders.

Whether it was the preferred lies or a favourable alignment of the stars, David managed to put a comfortable margin between himself and most other contenders with a nett 65.  Fast Eddie was the only one who came close but having played Matchplay rules he was not eligible to contend.

AndrewB and Bobbie very cunningly played exactly to their handicap to fill second place as well as collect the top points for the Seniors.  Andrew could have been right up there except for a couple of lapses in the home stretch.  Zimmer, Snags and Tony were only a stroke behind with the odd double bogie costing them points if not thousands in prizemoney.

Mehmet, Oliver and Pepsi came in a stroke further back while SOS copped the last of the Championship points.

The Nearest the Pin for a ball on the 12th was not bettered after the first group went through, leaving it to Gordon to collect the little white pill.  Snags left his mark on the ProPin by using a permanent marker but a close contest between Zimmer and another in his group squeezed the big fella out and Zimmer collected the funds.  Targe also collected the loot from last week and reckons it will come in handy to pay his comp fees.  Things must be slow in the shop.  Another good swag of birdies (and no they weren’t ducks) with 15 in the bag.

Eddie and Oliver slugged it out in the matchplay with Eddie clinching it on the 15th, 4 and 3.  Eddie, according to him, messed up his second shot on the 5th and sailed it over the intervening trees to have it finish pin high.  He then sank the putt for the birdie and the hole and almost broke Oliver’s heart in the process.

Snags was feeling a bit out of it with everybody else in his group having posted birdies until the 17th when he finally snagged one.  The joy was tempered somewhat by the fact that pretty much everyone else in the group got one as well.  Also on the 17th, Noodles was on for two and had an eminently gettable putt for the birdie but didn’t quite make it and left himself a still pretty easy par.  However, not sure whether he was in any way distracted by his tweet-heart, but he forgot that it was a stroke event, chased the ball around the hole and ended up carding an eight.

Stefan was heard to be complaining about not liking short chips to the green after leaving himself just short from the tee on the 10th and 13th.  Not sure whether Chrispy’s losing his hair but he certainly had his head well wrapped up in a woolen concoction that had him looking like something between a bear hunter and a rapper

The third round matchplay should have finished this week.  Still two matches to be played.  A week’s grace has been given so get organised for this week.  If the matches aren’t played, the person who turns up wins by a forfeit.  If you don’t know who you are, check the results page.

There will be a Club Meeting on 17th August to ratify the decisions taken by the Committee.  Minutes of the Committee Meeting will be posted on the web site shortly.  Most of the Club Rules have been updated and the current Local Rules are also on the website.  The report on the Handicapping system and the changes to be introduced are there for the reading and if you have any questions or comments, please make them beforehand.

One other suggestion that was not formally discussed by the Committee was the question of whether the Club should also have a Playing Championship to be run over three rounds of Stroke Play in conjunction with the December Monthly Medal and the two rounds of the Vin O’Meara.  Please give some thought to what you think of this.

Results for Saturday, 03 August 2013
1st David Howard(65) 2nd Andrew Blight(68) 2nd Bob McDonald(68) 3rd Kazim Akdag(69) 3rd Tony Mifsud(69) 3rd Craig Sharp(69) 4th Mehmet Akdag(70) 4th Oliver Gross(70) 4th Andrew Petricola(70) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(71)

What a day to wind up the Winter Cup for this year.  A bit on the wintry side to start with just a hint of a breeze developing as the day progressed.  The course was wet under foot after the drenching it got last week and the preferred lie rule was in place.  And, no, it doesn’t refer to your best tall story about your golfing adventures.  There were a few muddy balls that needed cleaning and one player who forgot to air his bag after lasts week’s soaking was borrowing ball cloths because his was freakin’ reekin’.

And who was it that was able to slay the three headed dragon?  Not St George, but our own St Efan whose tightly clad steed trampled all over the course to score 41 points and front the judges with 76 overall.  The terrible twin, Zimmer put in a steady 37 points to tie with Oliver, who could easily have taken the big prize, on 74 points.

There was a glimmer of daylight then to Gordon and Craig four points further back followed closely by Damo.  So, in the scheme of things, the three heads of the dragon managed to stay pretty much in contention.  The biggest mover of the day was Noodles who dragged himself into fifth spot alongside Chrisper (and I don’t mean the thing in the bottom of your fridge) though if you believed the reports coming from around the track he should have won the thing easily.  It is suspected that there might have been a little exaggeration going on from some of his playing partners.

There weren’t a huge number of Seniors in the main ranks and the only points went to Oliver, Gordon and Harry who didn’t seem to be able to sink a putt to save himself.

The outcome of all this is that Oliver is extending his margin on both of the points tables but, don’t despair, there are still plenty of points on offer and maybe the handicap will start to bite even though he has been able, cunningly, to minimise the damage on that score.

The Nearest the Pin was on the 7th and Noodles managed to win the ball after blocking anybody else out, unless they scored the ace that he barely missed by the margin of a couple of centimetres.  Two nearly HIOs in two weeks.  That’s downright careless chaps.  The ProPin on the 12th was not nearly such a close run thing and Targe will collect the cash when he gets back from Nurmurkah.  Not sure whether he had a bad round or was in such a rush to get away that he forgot but there was no card in the pile for him.  Ditto for Ben.

Despite there being at least a couple of balls on the green from the tee on the 17th, there were no eagles and the pool is now off the ground floor.  The birdie tally was 14.

Nobody switched off SOS’s fancy buggy but he did lose control coming up the hill to the 9th and it hit one of the pipework ruts and capsized spilling balls, tees and other odds and sods far and wide.  Unfortunately, there were no cameras handy to record the carnage.

Ben and Whitey did a great job of cooking the snags on the barbie and they were wolfed down in short order.  So much so that Whitey had to make a trip to the shops for another pack.  Zimmer got over-excited after his mate Stefan was presented with the winners cup and tripped over Davids buggy and got mud all up his trouser leg.  His main concern was what would his mum say!

The third round of the matchplay is coming up to its advertised completion date and there don’t seem to have been too many matches completed so far, so better get your skates on chaps and organise your competition for the fray.  We wouldn’t want to see it going more than a week over the limit.

Results for Saturday, 27 July 2013
1st Stefan Belevski(35, 41, 76) 2nd Kazim Akdag(37, 37, 74) 2nd Oliver Gross(36, 38, 74) 3rd Gordon Hill(34, 36, 70) 3rd Craig Sharp(37, 33, 70) 4th Damien Lee(37, 32, 69) 5th Stephen Butterfield(29, 38, 67) 5th Chris Priems(34, 33, 67)

You didn’t have to be mad to be out playing golf today but it might have helped.  The course started out a bit wet under foot after the recent spate of wet weather.  There were a couple of showers early on but it looked as if it might hold off long enough for the round to finish but then the heavens opened up and the serious wet weather gear had to come out.  Before long the casual water on the greens went close to making them unplayable.  Some thought they were and some resorted to chipping rather than putting to try to avoid the sudden stop that greeted many a putt.

Despite the conditions, there were some fairly respectable scores posted with a triple headed monster leading the field.

Craig Sharp 78 37, Damien Lee 75 37 , Kazim Akdag 75 37, Oliver Gross 76 36, Harry Boughen 88 35, Stefan Belevski 77 35, Stephen O’Sullivan 81 34, Chris Priems 80 34, Gordon Hill 82 34, Targe Mifsud 89 32, Mo Sabih 90 29 , Mike Mann 93 29, Stephen Butterfield 85 29, Mehmet Akdag 86 29, Ben Akdag 94 28, Tony Mifsud 92 27, Rod White 95 23.

From this position, nobody has the event sewn up and there are eight or so with a good chance and still the opportunity for a dark horse to come from the back of the field and pip everybody at the post.  That’s what we like to see.

As usual there were the nearest the pin competitions and Sharpie managed to snag the ball on the 4th.  At the money hole on the 12th, Gordon was bemoaning the fact that his ball finished 5.025. out from the hole and so he didn’t get to put his name on the marker.  As it turned out Pepsi beat him by almost exactly 5 metres and if it hadn’t been for the head wind and the water on the green it could easily have been the elusive HIO.  Still not worth getting with only one ball in the Eagles Nest.  Birdies were thin on the ground today with as few as six plodded.

Ben reckons he set another club record today for the number of trees that he managed to hit.  However, it seems that most of them redirected the ball back to the fairway so he isn’t too unhappy about it.  Tony is working on the bohemian look by sporting what looks like the start of side-burns and a goatee.  Next it will be cloth cap and flares.

Brendon has been spreading his wings and branching out into other sports, in particular mixed net-ball.  Unfortunately it looks like putting the mockers on his golfing career for a while with a seriously torn Achilles.  Looks like surgery will be in the offing – hope it all goes well and you are back on the track sooner rather than later, Brendon.

Even though it is not his area, SOS is threatening to patrol the course to try to catch the hoons that persist in doing wheelies around the course.  Small consolation but at least they stayed off the greens this time.

The wet conditions did little for the stickiness of the grips and after one shot from the edge of a hazard, Stefan was not so much concerned about where his ball went, but where his club went.  Reportedly it took ten minutes to find it.  Wonder what the rules say about that, after all you are only allowed five to look for a ball.  In another rules question, do worms crawling on the green count under the definition of loose impediments?

Not sure what the weather was like in Melbourne but it was a pea-souper up here in Queensland until almost ten o’clock.  Whatever the weather, it doesn’t seem to have affected the scoring and if you didn’t match your handicap or better, you weren’t in the points.

Well done RodW for a mighty impressive +5.  That will set you back a bit on the handicap front, just in time for the Winter Cup that kicks off next week.  Gilbert and Mostyn haven’t wasted any time settling in to their recently acquired player status and settled for equal second with +3.  Gilbert could easily have been further back in the field if it hadn’t been for an eagle on the 17th. That would have collected him four balls leaving the big bird absolutely devastated with the loss of her little family.

Stefan, Damo and RodG must have thought themselves a chance with a very respectable +2 but eased out the other points scorers Targe and Brendon.

Brendon also managed to gather himself a ball by picking up the Nearest the Pin on the 12th with Stefan collecting the ProPin on the 18th.

Ken and AndrewB played their third round Matchplay and Ken ended up victorious though at this stage the margin is not known.

For the Seniors, RodG, Targe and Mo collected the points but the table has barely changed and the competition is still wide open.

Dick mustn’t have been doing so well so he tried to take out a couple of the leaders with a well directed ricochet from a tree and nearly collected RodW and Mostyn.  SOS also had his moments playing a quite brilliant recovery after a bit of a duff to be within a metre only to take a triple putt to get it into the hole.  It was on the 14th though.

Chrispy started off in the pink (well his ball was anyway) but he ended up playing with a white B51 (where’d he find that one? – in a hazard somewhere?).

It also seems that Stefan tried a new form of sledging with Zimmer but he got some of his own back and it didn’t come off – well not until his daks went into the wash.

The handicaps for those that broke have been adjusted but not the rest of the field which will be done on Wednesday.  The Championship tables have also been updated manually but will be reposted when the official handicap run is done.

Results for Saturday, 13 July 2013
1st Rod White (+5) 2nd Gilbert Demiri(+3) 2nd Mostyn Gregg(+3) 3rd Stefan Belevski(+2)3rd Damien Lee(+2) 3rd Rod Grant(+2)4th Targe Mifsud(+1) 5th Brendon Mitchell(square)