Yearly Archives: 2016

Another cold and wet end to the week, rain clouds threatening but managed to hold off thankfully for the 16 Ivanhoe stalwarts. Par was the competition for on order for the day and scoring was not easy for the most part.

There are exceptions to the norm however and there was an eventual tie for first place, Noodles and Ryan coming in with +2 on the cards. It could have been better with Noodles +3 and Ryan +5 early on, however not getting a shot on a lot of the back 9 holes brought them down to earth.

The ever reliable Michael came in with a square card but by his account left a fair bit out there. Brenden matched his score to find himself in second place too. There were a couple of minor result changes to those mentioned after the round, SOS ended the round on -1, Eddie seems to have almost recovered from his injuries and entered a score card of -2 to come in 4th place.

Finally Scubba Steve and Brent rounded out the placings with -3 for the day. There was some interest on the day in the seniors results (mostly from Simon) and Eddie took 1st place, Blighty and Bob in second on -4 and Simon took home 3rd place. I won’t say how far back Targe was from there but it was not one of his best days.

The pro pin was on the 12th and went to Jack Potts, the ball hold was on the 15th a none other than Joe hit one close to take home the prize.

Priemsy had a day to forget on the scorecard however played a memorable shot on the 10th. Stuck behind a tree, normally the Priems luck would guarantee the ball would ricochet in the direction of the green in a favourable position. Not this time however, the ball flushed the tree, flew backwards over hit head and almost hit his own bag.

There was some debate over the drafty rule and what constitutes fair prize/penalty for not making the ladies tee. Noodles had requested a pie from Blighting rather than a middy. Even though his main argument was that a pie was cheaper, the general consensus was that only a drink, beer (or coffee) would be considered acceptable. Nonetheless blight was too nice and presented noodles with a pie for all his hard work.

Results for Saturday, 10 September 2016
1st Stephen Butterfield(+2) 1st Ryan Porker(+2) 2nd Michael Gourlay(□) 2nd Brendon Mitchell(□) 3rd Stephen O’Sullivan(-1) 4th Ed Kloprogge(-2) 5th Stephen Kelly(-3) 5th Brent Rowley(-3)

Seniors Results: 1st Ed Kloprogge (-2) 2nd Andrew Blight (-4) 2nd Bob McDonald (-4) 3rd Simon Powell (-6)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 12th Jackpot BallPin 15th Joe Wagenecht

Spring has begun and someone forgot to tell the powers that be as there was another freezing and overcast start to the day. Although after some threatening rain clouds looked ominous the sun came out in patches and 15 members, 1 new member and a local tried their best to tame old Ivanhoe.

Only a single member beat their handicap which proves conditions were not ideal with some blustery wind and some damp areas underfoot and only 8 birdies for the day; it was Joe who set the scorecard alight with a nett 64 and 1st place overall. Unfortunately for Joe, he was ineligible for the Monthly Medal as this was his first game in a while.   Well done Joe and hope this is the start of a solid run of points on the home straight this year.

So by default the Medal was awarded to Michael, who played to his handicap and a nett 68. Things didn’t start off too well for Michael as he hooked his drive off the tee far towards the dam and didn’t fetch much better on the second with a similar shot. However he soon caught some momentum and stormed home to claim the medal.

Third place was tied between Chrispy  and SIL Brent who ended up with a respectable 70. Chrispy is now within striking distance of the Beast on the championship leaderboard and along with Brendon it is going to be a tight finish to the year. Now this  is the first points for Brent who also brought along one of his mates in Jason who has put in his first card.  Welcome and good luck!

Matt H admitted to having some trouble out there but managed to sneak into 4th place with a nett 73. The pro-pin was yet again on the 18th hole and guess who took home the chocolates, the Numurkah bandit Matt. Rumor has it that he after cleaning up the money holes on the trip away, Matty has asked that members just give him their 1 dollar in the morning next week to save the hassle of the inevitable.

There was quite some confusing with the 4th (5th) place getters during the announcement as Priemsy was reeling out all sorts of numbers for both the final placings and seniors placings. After a considerate review of the score cards, Craig Cameron, Bob and Dennis Ward all tied on nett 74. These three also tied for first place in the seniors, followed by Targe in 2nd and Trevor 3rd after claiming that he shouldn’t deserve to get any points after playing his worst round ever.

The ball hole was on the 4th and none other than Stefan claimed the prize, however it seems that he was a bit rusty and didn’t set the score cards alright for the rest of the round. Noodles was seen moping around the 14th after claiming to have worked late and slept in his car, there were decent odds on his playing unavailability due to ‘general soreness’ after the incident with his 9 iron a few weeks back on the trip away.

The round was also joined by the club pro Andrew Kostarakis who is venturing on a new venture in life and has finalised his position at Ivanhoe golf course. Good luck Andrew in future endeavors and hope to see you around.

Happy birthday to Matt, John, Dennis, Andrew B and Ed who all celebrate milestones this week.

Results for Saturday, 03 September 2016
1st Joe Wagenecht(64) 2nd Michael Gourlay(68) 3rd Chris Priems(70) 3rd Brent Rowley(70) 4th Matt Hunt(73) 5th Craig Cameron(74) 5th Bob McDonald(74) 5th Dennis Ward(74)

Seniors Results: 1st Bob McDonald (74) 1st Craig Cameron (74) 1st Dennis Ward (74) 2nd Targe Mifsud (78) 3rd Trevor Jackson (83)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 18th Matt Hunt BallPin 4th Stefan Belevski

Half way through the round Chrispy was looking for a lift back to Numurkah because he reckons he lost his form somewhere along the way.  And judging by some of the scores recorded today he wasn’t on his lonesome in that department.  As it was, there were only a dozen who made it to the earlier starting time and there were a number of those who left it to the death knock to stroll up the the marshall’s desk.  However the weather was nice and the course wasn’t particularly wet, especially compared to the conditions at Numurkah last week.  So, was it really a hangover from last week and if so, how come those that didn’t go on the Annual Challenge were infected with that particular virus?  Perhaps we’ll just have to put it down to fluctuations.  And the same to you Aussies too!

Now, Brendon has been doing a sterling job of baby-sitting the last couple of weeks and he even had to work from home one day when the carer called in sick.  But today, he threw caution to the wind, gave the kids their toys and a bottle, locked the door and  came along to play golf.  Well, maybe not exactly that, but he was here.  And he played well enough to come home in the number one position and in the process leap-frogged over Chrispy in the Championship Table.  Unfortunately, he was joined at the top of the day by the Beast and so the points gap between the pair did not change and Bill maintains his top spot.  But, Bill will be away in the Orient for the next few weeks so who knows who will be on top by the time that he gets back though at this stage it very much looks to be a three horse race with daylight fourth.

Trevor hit a bit of a purple patch today and he managed to chip in for a birdie on the 4th and also sank a couple of monster putts for par and another from off the green for a bogie.  He obviously got himself so excited by this that he forgot one of the holes that gave two strokes and he came in with an extra point over the call of the card at the presentations.  This moved him up from equal second to outright second and, unfortunately relegated a couple of players from fifth into the also-rans.  Michael started with a burst but then fell into a bit of a hole for about five holes before finding his mojo and equalling the card for the last 11 holes.  A good run of play in anybody’s books.

Harry also managed a birdie on the 4th with a putt from the edge of the green but a PBSU that lasted for about six holes put paid to any chance of a spectacular score.  There was one devastating gash on the 11th after being on the green in regulation.  You can work that out for yourselves.  SOS had his chances with a fair sprinkling of three pointers on the card but they were offset by a fair sprinkling of zeroes so he had to be content, in the end, with 5th place.  He was joined by Targe who also had his ups and downs with an up and down on the 17th for a birdie.  And, while on the subject of birdies, there were twelve reported today which probably isn’t too bad given the size of the field.  There weren’t too many actual moves on the Eclectic scores today with Trevor and Dennis being the only ones to change their totals and any other moves on the table were down to handicap changes and Brendon’s lead has been whittled down just a little after today’s win.

Bill was the winner in the Seniors today and he is building a bit of a lead that might be hard to catch though his absence might allow some of the contenders to make up some ground.  Harry is also out of circulation during September and Targe is taking a break in October so it could be a big chance for Bob to steal a march.  Gordon and Simon would appear to have their work cut out at this stage as they are missing some as well.

The ProPin was on the 12th hole and the pin was placed well to the right with a cross wind blowing so there should have been every chance of somebody getting it in close.  But the closest that could be got was 3.6m and that was done by Pepsi who collected a (small) handful of cash for his trouble though he did ask if the unclaimed funds from the Annual Challenge could be a Jackpot for today.  The BallPin was on the 18th and to compensate for not winning the cash three weeks in a row, Michael was able to get it on close enough to win himself a ball instead.

SOS came into the Clubhouse declaring how thirsty he was, which seemed a bit strange given that it was a fairly cool day.  It transpired that the reason for his thirst was that Ryan was going to buy as the result of an incident on the 15th.  The tee was well back and the flag was to the back of the green and so Ryan took plenty of club and wound up fit to put the ball to the vicinity of Burke Road.  Unfortunately, the shot did not quite come off and the ball ended up somewhere in the developing forest to the left of the tee.  The upshot was that SOS was more than happy to search short of the red markers in something of a contrast to his attitude at Numurkah when his ball was involved.

Eddie lined up today after his shoulder operations for a test run over nine holes.  It looks as if the shoulders might be in fairly good order and we will probably hear Ed back on the course in the not too distant future.  Course improvements are on-going and a little birdie says that the course will be switching to a single rating and the course has been measured and re-rated to take into account the extended tee on the 2nd.  More details will be circulated when they become available but the new indices and ratings should be in use within the next couple of weeks.  In another improvement, a layer of planks has been removed from the sand bin by the first tee.  Rumour has it that this was done at the request of Targe.

Bill lost a ball from his drive on the 5th and if it hadn’t been for Trev he would have faced a long walk back.  You all know what a big hitter the Beast is.  There is no truth in the rumour that Ed stood on the ball and buried it in the mud.  Chrispy was up to his old tricks and trying to use the trees to his advantage though, in at least one case that was seen, the ball went left instead of right.  Dennis brought along his horse-breeding friend, Russell, for a social round.  Now Russell has been out of the game for a while and has apparently played to a handicap of 9 and there was not a lot in his game today to deny that fact.  However, he did have a couple of ‘saves’ by doing a Chrispy and using the trees to advantage.

Noodles and Pepsi were giving Brendon a bit of a chiacking about how his game was going after they had both racked up birdies before him.  Brendon obviously had the last laugh on the scoring front even though he only managed a single birdie himself.  Noodles reckons that he still hasn’t managed to deodourise his car after carrying Chrispy and his shoes back from Numurkah last week.  Chrispy reckons he must have stepped in something on the way back to his cabin on Friday night.  Whatever it was must have been pretty deadly as apparently the shoes went into the bin and had to be double wrapped in plastic even to go in there.

Results for Saturday, 27 August 2016
1st Bill Eastoe(35) 1st Brendon Mitchell(35) 2nd Trevor Jackson(33) 3rd Michael Gourlay(32) 4th Harry Boughen(31) 5th Targe Mifsud(30) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(30)

Seniors Results: 1st Bill Eastoe (35) 2nd Trevor Jackson (33) 3rd Harry Boughen (31)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 12th Andrew Petricola BallPin 18th Michael Gourlay

Whinging and moping and whining and crying, Sledging and swearing each day on the course, That won’t get you into its arms…..

It turned out to be anything but a ‘Dusty’ weekend away in Numurkah.  The drive up from Melbourne, for most at least, was through continuous rain and the course manager reported that they had 15mm so, although the whole course was open, things were a little damp (make that wet) underfoot.  Some, unkindly, likened it to playing in a swamp.  Now, Numurkah is known as a course that favours those that can hit it straight and that was never truer this weekend as the rough was long and wet and watery and many who strayed off the fairway paid a pretty heavy penalty both in strokes and frustration.  Saturday was cold and there was a bit of wind but the weather stayed fine, at least until most of the field were home and hosed (or at least hot showered).  Sunday was much warmer and mostly sunny though a few clouds did come along and threaten with a few drops of water but barely more than was noticeable or could have been shaken from the trees as remnants of the previous day’s falls.

One person, though, was obviously unfazed by the tricky conditions and, if he did stray from the fairway, he was good enough to recover without undue problems.  A very commendable 36 points on Saturday really set up the weekend for Matthew and left it for the rest of the field to improve and catch him on Sunday.  A slight hesitation on the second day with only 31 points promised for a bit of a contest but, in the event, nobody could catch him and so it was that Rob, ever so reluctantly, handed over the mustard jacket to Matthew.  Now, the venerable old jacket showed quite a close fit on Rob at the Saturday night dinner causing some to overly (and overtly) admire certain parts of his anatomy in the upper body area.  However, let the record show that the jacket looks as if it could have been tailor-made for Matthew and he will surely be striving to maintain his grip on it at next year’s Challenge.

Noodles also had not too bad a day of it on Saturday and he managed to put together 34 points on his first outing.  So, he went out on the second day with great expectation that he would be able to wear Matthew down despite the need to outscore him by at least four points.  After nine holes the points tally for Sunday was all equal and it was going to require a dash to the post to settle the contest and Noodles reached for the whip.  By the 15th, Noodles had a five point advantage on the day and a one point lead in the total.  All he needed to do was to match Matthew on the last three.  Maybe he whipped out the whip too early and, like a lot of race-horses the previous afternoon, he faded in the straight and threw away all of the hard gotten gains to finish exactly where he started, two points behind.

After three holes on Saturday (really probably after one, but who’s counting) Bob was declaring that he wasn’t going to enjoy this and maybe he should just go home.  But, he did stick to it, even if only to mark SOS’s card, and, as the day wore on, his game improved and at the end of the day he had managed to put together a slightly better than middle of the field result of 28 points.  On Sunday, Bob turned around and served up the best card of the day with 34 points and in the process, leap-frogged himself into third place.  Just goes to show, you should never give up the ghost, especially early in the round.

Ryan started off like a house on fire and managed to get his name on the first two of the markers on the par 3 ProPins.  Maybe it was the excitement of having done that, but, whatever the cause, he went through a bit of a slump for about five holes before finding his mojo again to romp home with a total of 33 points for the day.  Sunday was a day of ups and downs with four three pointers being more than offset by five blanks but his total of 59 for the weekend was just enough to garner 4th place in the field.  Although Rob had high hopes of seeing his name embroidered once more on the ‘Auld Jacket’, it was not to be but he should probably be reasonably happy with his 5th spot.  Damo shared the podium with Rob which isn’t too bad a result considering his lack of training in recent times due to the son’s footy committments.  Of course, the cricket season is coming up so we might still miss Damo’s smiling face around the Club in the future.

There were a swag of Nearest the Pin competitions over the weekend.  The Big Kohuna ($5/head/day) was on the 18th but the largesse was not shared around a great deal as ‘Dead-eye’ Hunt managed to get his name on the marker both days.  He didn’t have it all to himself as he had to squeeze out Team SOS on Sunday.  Well done Matthew and you should be able to afford to come again next year to defend your title.  The regular ProPins went to Ryan (2), Damo (2) and Matthew (2).  There were a couple that did not go off and the funds will be added to Club funds.  The ProPin in two on a par 4 didn’t go off on Saturday and jackpotted to Sunday.  And, on Sunday, it did go off.  Gordon hit a great drive and left himself in a great spot with a shot to the green from about 100m.  He took out his trusty 8-iron and proceeded to skinny the shot that never got more than 300mm off the ground and just kept running and running (despite the wet and soggy conditions), dribbled onto the green and rolled down the slope to finish a mere 75mm short of the hole.  So, a shot that started as a contender for the worst shot of the weekend finished up being one of the ‘great’ shots of the weekend.  Needless to say, he got the birdie and added his name to the rather short list of birdie getters for the weekend.  There was a total of five amongst four players which is probably indicative of the difficulty of the conditions and the trickiness of managing the greens at Numurkah.

There were a fair swag of draughties over the course of the weekend and this is probably not a complete list but some who did make it were Gordon (multiple and two on one hole), Chrispy, Ryan, Blighty and Harry.  Now, you might very well ask, how come so many.  There were probably a couple of factors.  One was that, on a few holes, the red markers were quite a distance in front of the white markers.  Not that the distance was necessarily so great as to be out of range even for the shorter hitters.  It’s just that they happened to fall on holes that were well populated with trees and with a narrow entrance to the fairway and any shot that tangled with the trees was a fair chance to come up short of the red markers.

There used to be a trophy for the Annual Challenge weekend, known as the Cocks Plate, reserved for the member who pulled off the ‘worst’ shot of the weekend.  The plate itself has been ‘missing in action’ although there are rumours that we know where it is but just have to get around to collecting it.  Long story short(ish).  Gordon acquired a new trophy for the Cocks and the award this year went to SOS.  It wasn’t that the shot was particularly worse in execution that many other potential contenders but for the fact that SOS ‘searched’ for his ball behind the red markers and when it couldn’t be found there he declared that it must have gone past and therefore didn’t qualify as a draughtie.

A weekend such as this wouldn’t be complete without the award of a trophy for the NARGA.  Now, while some might cavil at making such an award it really is not meant to be denigrating, just a bit of fun.  Whilst there was only one trophy to be awarded, there were two contenders and so it was that JohnQ received that accolade by a count-back from Gordon.

Now we all know that SOS is a gentle hearted soul who’d let a Pokemon playing driver off because he wouldn’t want to spoil their enjoyment.  He must have also been taking in the principles of Buddhism and he showed this in spades when a bee settled near his ball on one of the greens.  After several attempts at shoo-ing it away, he marked and lifted his ball and eventually herded the  hapless creature away to what he deemed a safe distance.  He replaced his ball and turned to take his stance for the putt and promptly stepped on the poor creature.  Perhaps Karma explains why SOS didn’t do so well on Sunday.

Chrispy was rather taken by some balls, in the clubhouse, decorated to look like soccer balls (as you do).  I’ll have one of those says Chris and hands over his hard earned $7.50.  Walks out to the tee and whacks the ball to who knows where never to be seen again.  Should have stayed with the coloured ones Chris.

Now, you heard about Gordon and his shot to take the nearest in two.  He left it 75 mm from the hole.  Mehm was 130m out in the rough and he put it to 10mm of the hole.  Anything Gordo can do, Mehm can do better! Not sure whether that shot was with his 8-iron but Mehm so much likes that club that he played the last three holes with only that club. Apparently it was some sort of bet with one of his playing companions.  He didn’t do too badly, at least on a couple of those holes and he managed to par the 18th though he did look a treat, putting with the club gripped down almost to the shank.

And, while speaking of shanks, Damo was guilty of one such shot and in the process hit the golf-cart that was parked only metres away.  Harry also managed to hit a cart on one of his three attempts to chip onto a green (told you they were difficult to manage).  Blighty managed to play two (or three?) holes with a ball that belonged to Targe.  The exact sequence of events is a bit vague and whether Targe was guilty of the complementary sin is not clear.  Still, it was preferred lie throughout the course so there was no real excuse for not being able to check properly.

So, another great weekend away.  A good time was had by all even if some of the golf wasn’t all that great in standard.  There was some discussion during the weekend about whether to retain Numurkah as the venue or whether to try another course.  Lots of suggestions were put forward and the Social Secretary would appreciate your input to discussion over the coming months so that a recommendation can be made to the Committee in good time to arrange next year’s event.

Results for Weekend, 20-21 August 2016
1st Matthew Hunt (36,31,67) 2nd Stephen Butterfield (34,31,65) 3rd Bob McDonald (28,34,62) 4th Ryan Porker (33,26,59) 5th Damien Lee (31,27,58) 5th Robert Priems (27,31,58)

Nearest the Pin Results:  BIG KOHUNA ProPin 18th Matthew Hunt(2) Ordinary ProPin Ryan Porker (2), Matthew Hunt (2),  Damien Lee (2),  Gordon Hill (1 fluke)