Yearly Archives: 2020

You could be forgiven for thinking that the autumn break was upon us after the sudden change in the weather yesterday. There were a few spots of rain over night and the breeze out of the south made a few of the less hardy souls among us bring out the jumpers and other warm apparel. But, there were also some hardier types that soldiered out in their shorts and sleeves. There was lots of talk about viruses and toilet paper and cigarettes (or lack of them – good onya Damo) and it seemed that all twenty one players were on deck with the full intent of meaning business. That is until Ben stepped onto the first tee. Well, everybody thought that he meant business with his first swing in the vicinity of the ball. The point in question relates to whether it was a practice swing or not. But, enough of that little episode. There are bigger fish to fry.

Last week, the scoring was all of a cluster and we had a four way countback for the medal that eventually had to go to the last three holes to separate the final pair. If it had been a Medal or a Major this week, there would have been no need for such computational gymnastics because Peter played well outside himself and came home with a +6. The new GA system applies a one stroke penalty if you break by seven so maybe our winners penalty is not so severe after all.

Chrispy seems to be settling into his new found role in the Seniors and that was helped no end by playing with a couple of other seniors in Dennis and Si who gave him a few lessons in the fine art of ‘senior’ sledging. As usual, he made good use of his skills as a tree marshal to keep his ball in play and to help himself to a bottom line of +4. He did say that the ankle was a bit antsy after the round but he is confident that he will be back for the next two weeks to collect the trophy for the Stuart Clarke memorial.

Blighty was working on being a CAD during the week and that might explain his sure and steady progress through the round with the barest smattering of holes on the ‘wrong’ side of the ledger. He teamed up in second place with Enzo who was anxious to get away early and it seems that the anxiety got to Enzo as the game deteriorated as the round progressed with a slump from +4 on the front to a -2 on the back for an overall result of +2.

Jake took a while to warm up, possibly because he was in unfamiliar territory with a group of Seniors. Some of his drives sailed a long way straight down the centre of the fairway so he obviously hasn’t been taking lesson from his Dad. The apprentice tree marshal seems to have managed to stay out of them, mostly, today and Dennis joined Jake on the fourth podium with a score of +1. There was something of a gap to fifth place where Brendon, ChrisV and Whitey crowded together (despite the risk of virus) to collect the single point for a score of -2.

The ProPin today was a Jackpot on the 4th and the tree on the left played the usual amount of havoc with shots to the green. Harry’s ball just clipped some low hanging leaves to take just a smidgen of pace off the ball and have it run close by the hole to finish 4.11m past. At the end of the day, that was enough to collect the loot. The first BallPin was on the 12th and it was a fiercely contested event. First, Brendon eased out Enzo. Damo shot his past the pin and it spun back to finish a metre or so closer. Then Blighty repeated the dose and spun his back from above the pin to come out the winner. On the 18th, the BallPin was effectively a no contest when Chrispy put his to a metre or so to shut the rest of the field out. Disappointingly, he didn’t make the birdie and so our total for the day was another, fairly paltry, tally of five.

There were two matches contested today which means that the first round is now half complete. Three more weeks to get it done so those remaining had better get organising. Anyway, ChrisV and Damo were first cabs off the rank and both had a shaky start, finding the trees on the right of the first. The fortunes fluctuated a bit and they both seemed intent on not getting too far ahead at any stage. Despite the to-ing and fro-ing Chris managed to get to three up with five holes to go. Out of bounds on the 14th and 15th gave Damo a sniff of a chance which he took and won the next two holes as well to be one up on the 18th. ” I’m going to sink this (long) putt”, said Chris. “As if”, said Damo. And he did. To win the hole. Leading to a chip-off to decide the match. It took three, pretty scrappy, chipping rounds before Damo could be declared the winner.

Blighty and Whitey were the other valiant duo to do battle. And, quite a battle it was with four holes passing before there was a break either way. Blighty snagged a couple on the trot and the match up was so close that it took some time for the score to be clawed back to square. But, Blighty kept his nerve and never got behind to make the match dormie after the 16th. He then delivered the coup de grace with a birdie on the 17th to take the match 3 and 1. Despite the closeness of the match, there was nary a cross word between the two of them the whole round and they were even heard to be complimenting one another on the execution of their shots

Dale, it seems, was somewhat tempted by the prospect of winning a ball or the inside NTP on the 18th but the shot did no go quite to plan. The most accurate estimate seems to be that the ball moved a total of 22cm. This surely qualifies as a draughtie even if we discount Ben’s swishing on the first. Simon came up short on the 12th and his usually exemplary chipping skills also failed him as the first was still short of the green. The second was going a million miles an hour when it hit the pin dead centre, stopped dead and dropped into the hole for an unlikely par. Porks and Noodles have a bit of a thing going and Noods reckons Porks can’t beat him despite a shot on the 8th that was heading out of bounds until it also hit the flag-stick dead centre and stopped on the green. Damo had a bad case of the ‘wimps’ today trying to ‘baby’ the ball into the hole and being completely bamboozled by the break.

After the formalities, the AGM of the Club was held. Outgoing President, John, thanked everybody for the support given to him and for the enjoyment that he had leading the Club these last few years. The Treasurer reported that the Club is in a sound financial position with a profit of $581 last financial year and a current bank balance of $2782. There was a vote of thanks to SOS for his efforts and good wishes for his upcoming surgery that will see him out of circulation for some time. The new Committee was elected with the changes being Rob Priems (President), Damien Lee (Vice president), Stephen Butterfield (Treasurer) and Matt Hunt (Club Captain). A full Committee list will be posted on the web-site.

Our first Major for this calendar year is coming up over the next two weeks for the Stuart Clarke Memorial. A great chance to boost your Championship chances with a double dose of points on offer. As usual there will be a bar-be-que after the second round so, if nothing else, you will be in line for a good feed.

It seems that we have had the wettest start to a year in a dog’s age and the frogs are absolutely loving it. There is water in the billabong and some of the ponds on the course and the frogs were in full voice for the joy of it. Of course, if we get a bit of warm weather, the Joe Blakes will be out in force, making a meal of it. In the meantime, 21 members and Mostyn headed out under still overcast skies to try their hand for the March Monthly Medal. A big welcome back to Mostyn who has rejoined our merry band although he will only be able to play about once a month or so. The course has softened up a bit and the white tees (and a lot of the blues) were set well back but it is hard to imagine that this was enough to put the clamps on the ability to score well.

Trevor is having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the fact that, for him, a double bogey is effectively a par and he was giving himself a hard time throughout the round. But, being in the first group, he turned in as the early Club-house leader. The cards continued to trickle in and none were able to better his score although there were some matches. But the general thought was that, surely, somebody would better it. In the end, Craig, Noodles and Damo joined Trev in first place with a net score of 72. The countback for the medal was something of a marathon. Craig and Damo were eliminated on the last 9 hole scores but Noodles and Trev were still tied up. So, it went to the last six holes and, lo and behold, the scores were still all of an equal. It was only when it got down the the last three holes that it was possible to separate them and Noodles was the victor. Better luck next time, Trev, everyone was barracking for you.

As Gordon trudged past on his way to pack his gear away, you could have been forgiven for thinking that he had made a pretty lousy score. And, maybe, he thought he had. What he obviously hadn’t allowed for was the fact that everybody else had gone similarly poorly. A couple of triples on the back certainly did not help the cause. Rob would probably prefer to forget the 13th where he managed to reach double figures. Enzo made a bit of a mess of the 16th and Harry was just that little bit out of touch for most of the round. As a result, this merry trio could only manage to share third place with their score of 74.

Peter put his hand up for one of the draughties for the day but still managed to par the 15th. Brendon scored another (draughtie that is) on the 3rd where he skied it off the tee into the pond to the right. Rod, on the other hand, couldn’t add up and so joined the other two for a share of fourth place. Which left SOS on his Pat Malone to collect the last point for the day with his 76.

The ProPin today was on the 4th but, with the tee well back on the blocks, nobody managed to get within the required distance and so there will be a Jackpot of the Pool to next week. The first BallPin was on the 15th and Harry managed to get is pin high and only a couple of metres from the pin but, unfortunately, the ball was about 200mm off the cut and so it was left to Adam to collect the ball. The BallPin on the 18th went to Simon and it must have been something of a shot if the comments afterwards are any guide but more detail is lacking.

The Matchplay got underway today. Adam and Peter battled it out in their match and really confused things by crossing over the records on the card. Peter got off to a good start while Adam was not able to get a run together to make up the deficit. The match went dormie at the 14th and Adam could have been forgiven for having raised hopes on the 15th except that Peter’s draughtie/par squared the hole to give him the match 4 and 3. SOS took on Ken and the opinion expressed was that it was the world’s worst ever match. Ken is reported to have scored a minimum of three draughties (and possibly more) but he still managed to hold SOS to a close run thing. Although SOS finished one up, he conceded the match to Ken on the basis that he is having a knee replacement later this month. We wish him well and a speedy recovery but it will be several months before we see him swinging a club again.

Brendon played MattA and the Big B got off to a shaky start and Matt was able to build a bit of a lead early on. However, Brendon seems to have settled down and his greater experience started to tell and the lead was whittled away to be square at the turn. But Matt didn’t lie down and the match could have gone either way until it finished at the 16th with Brendon coming home 3 and 2. Harry took on Rob and felt a bit hard done by having to give three strokes to the ‘good-looking’ Priems. The match looked like being fairly even as it panned out all square at the 7th. A horror run of five losses in a row put Rob in the box seat until his disaster on the 13th gave just a glimmer of hope to the hapless Harry. But, the match finished on the 14th, going to Rob, 5 and 4. And, wouldn’t you know it, Harry won pretty much every hole from then on. Michael has had to concede to Dave because of a return of his knee injury.

Enzo chipped in twice today. One of them for a birdie on the 4th and that was just one of the, rather paltry, total of five that we made for the day. Brendon was rather resplendent today, decked out in a silver vest. It also seems that he has taken up drinking Tomato Sauce, either that or he can’t afford a proper water bottle. Simon was bragging about his two perfect shots on the 16th that, apparently, put him onto the green but he didn’t have too much to say about the three putts that it then took him to get into the hole. Bob looked as if he was struggling a bit after the round and maybe the reason was that his electric buggy had been ‘playing up’ and there might have been some pushing involved.

For those of you that don’t read emails (including MattH who drove up from Mornington today) the AGM was postponed to next week because of the long weekend. It seems that we will probably have as many people absent next weekend but the AGM will be held after the round, regardless.

According to the best information available, the next time that the Club has the pleasure of playing on 29 February will be in the year 2048. Some of our members will have done it before as the last time it came around was in 1992. Whether it was a rare occurrence or not it really was a beautiful day for golf with the turf coming back nicely from the prolonged dry spell with some excellent growing conditions. The greens are also in excellent condition and the only thing that ‘anybody’ had to complain about was the placement of the tee on the second hole. Some thought they would never hear the end of it – including the course staff. The tee did collect at least one victim, out of 19 members, when Rob tried to make sure that he got one away and, as a result, barely made it to the end of the bank and then was ‘lucky’ that the ball stopped short of the greenery. Brother, Chris, reckons that the beer always tastes better when somebody else buys.

SOS got away from the second tee and went very close to a hole-in-one, on the first green. Then, a few average shots were enough for him to draw a blank on the card for that hole. However, it was virtually the only blemish on the card as he continued to rack up the twos and threes for pretty much the rest of the round including one hole where he claimed a two instead of a three. Thus, his seventy nine off the stick actually scored him 41 points to take out the top spot for the day.

Chrispy reckoned that anybody who claimed to par the second today was stretching the truth, to put it politely. Chris might like to take that topic up with Noodles but, Chris himself was not too far away and was very happy with his five. The trees continued to work in his favour on the front nine and by the turn, there was a pretty speccy 23 points on the card. The greenery was not quite so favourably inclined across the back and Chris could only watch SOS’s heels as he came in with 39 points.

Third place was a case of share and share alike with a number of players sharing the honours although there was one demotion from the list. SOS might still be on the ball reclaiming path after Enzo fell foul once again. Peter had a pretty good front but faded a little on the back. Rod, on the other hand did just about the reverse and took nine holes to warm up before blitzing the back. And, in a curious quirk of fate, JQ had the same out and in scores as Peter. Perhaps a sign of the good conditions that you needed to break your handicap for a share of third place.

Matthew lined up today for his first round of competition and showed that his handicap was none too generous by playing right to the mark with 36 points. Just a sprinkling of singletons and a solitary miss suggests that that handicap could be heading south in the near future. Noodles had a similar distribution of off-touch holes and he might hope to do better in the not too distant future. Maybe Enzo is struggling with the difference between his Club and Official handicap but you would think that his Club Captain marker would be on the ball. And, what can you say about Porks? Just happens to pick the week after the well loaded Eagle’s Nest was raided to get an Eagle on the 17th which boosted his back nine score nicely even if he collected only one ball for his trouble. But, he did have to chip the ball in to do it.

The last group on the podium all struggled with the second and did not worry the scorer on that hole and Brendon also dipped out on the 18th which did not help his chances of a higher placing. Simon created great confusion for the handicapper by scoring Blighty’s card on the wrong side while Rob managed to chip in twice for birdie and helped the club to a total of 13 of the little feathery friends for the day. Not to be left out, Chrispy also chipped in for birdie on the 14th. Blighty also birdied the 14th after sending his tee shot well out into the middle of the 16th fairway. The experts do say that that is a good way to play that particular hole.

The first BallPin was on the 15th and there was a bit of a contest for the honour. Simon managed to finish closest to the pin. The 18th had the pin on the top deck and, as is often the case, you only had to get on the green to have a chance. Which sort of explains why Noodles was hanging around like a blowie at a barbie to see if anybody would knock him off for the ball. The ProPin was set on the 12th hole and Enzo could have been forgiven for thinking he had a chance when he made it to 1.9m. Then, along came Simon who finished past the pin by a mere 210mm. Just about as close as you could get without actually going in. And he couldn’t see it from the tee.

Dennis didn’t have the best of days and probably thought he had rejoined Forestry, particularly on the front nine where he had many close encounters with the wood work. Damo was also less than happy with his performance and threatened to make Targe shorter than he already is if he announced what his total was. On a happier note for Damo he, and a syndicate of golfers, is now the proud owner of part of a horse (or two or three). But, one, apparently, has some ‘potential’, according to the experts. JQ is also a member of the syndicate and might have a Tinder app for horses. Swipe left, swipe right. Damo reckons she is a sprinter so holding up the Melbourne Cup in November is not on the agenda.

The draw for seeding in the Matchplay was done today and the first round starts next week. The draw table is on the web-site under Competitions. The person on the top row of each match is responsible for ensuring that there is a result provided by the end of the round. If you and your opponent are present you play, no exceptions. The extensive set of Rules are available on the web-site.

Because the coming weekend is a long weekend and a number of members will be away, it has been decided that the AGM will be postponed for one week to 14 March. The Committee will draft a motion to change the date of the AGM away from the long weekend. So, there is still time to submit nominations for Committee positions using forms that can be printed from the web-site.