A quatercentenary on 02 May 2026.
The Indian Summer has persisted into May, but the portents are not so hot from hereon in. In fact, they promise to be rather fresh and damp for the first round of the David Ford Autumn Cup, which has something of a reputation for being just so. The course is, understandably, a bit dry, and there was some run to be had unless you ventured into the less closely mown parts of the course. In a few cases, balls were remarkably difficult to spot, even at close range. We had sixteen members on deck, and we were joined once again by Gavin, and he chipped in for the NTP which meant there was an extra dollar to the lucky ducky who takes out the ProPin pool on offer. The greens copped the usual flak for being too fast, too slow, too pock-marked, etc, etc. However, that did not prevent some exceptional scores being offered to the judges for consideration.
Andrew, (he doesn’t really like being called Blighty, though he does tolerate it), might have given up the ghost early on when he tabled a quadruple bogey on the 4th hole. Despite this, he did manage to finish the front nine using just a smidgen over half of his handicap, that he very graciously described as overly generous. He then took his foot off the brake and skittled the back to finish with a net score of sixty-four, the best for the day, and definite medal material. JQ was a little disappointed that there was no banner to run through to mark his four hundredth game with the Club. He freely admits that it should be quite a lot more if it hadn’t been for skiving off to London for about ten years. In handicap terms, he was ahead of Blighty at the turn, and was making a blitz of the home straight with consecutive birdies on the 16th and 17th. A double on the 18th could easily have cost him a chance at the medal in a countback. His pair of birdies helped us to make seven for the day.
Steve reckons his driver was working today, but his fairway clubs were not. They can’t have been too far off the mark, as he went very close to playing to the handicap that he complained so bitterly about last week. Speaking of handicap complaints, Craig was overheard having a word about his recent adjustment. He still managed to score fourth place, just two outside the mark, after a three point cut. Dan is keeping up with the field in recent times, despite having to dash off for duties unspecified. Kody lined up for his first official event today, and there were some suggestions that people should watch him take the prize. It didn’t work out that way, but he did get a point to open his account. Marc also fronted the judges for a point as well.
The big interest of the day was the Triple Jackpot starting the pool for the ProPin on the 15th. Would it go off, or would we get to Quadruple Jackpot. Wazza has announced that he is decamping to Ocean Grove, and will only grace the fairways of Ivanhoe one more time after this. His penultimate game was not going all that well as he used a fair swatch of his handicap on the front nine, and the back nine was following in a similar vein. That is until he cracked one straight at the pin on the 15th, and finished something like 2.635m from the pin to collect a substantial wad of cash, which should help pay off the new digs down the coast. On the 4th, where there was a BallPin, and Dan, very helpfully announced to Steve that he had put his name on the card. When Steve got to the green, he found that he was not actually on the green, and so had to scratch his own name off. Which left the field wide open for Porks to add his. Brendon managed to sneak onto the front of the green on the 18th, and he was a bit concerned that the ProShop card and tape had not been put out. He needn’t have worried either way, because Porks did it again to add to his ever-growing collection of pills.
Speaking of Brendon, he made a bit of a ‘power’ draw shot from the second tee, it caught one of the trees and was judged to have dropped to the ground. As the search was about to be abandoned, a call came from over by the 11th tee that his ball was over there. It is a complete mystery how the ball could possibly have cleared the intervening row of trees. There were a couple of draughties today. Bob had one that he reckoned was very much line-ball, and Nalin succeeded in having to shout from the 17th tee. Apparently he managed several shanks today, including one from the 4th that was judged to be finishing on a fairway across the river, if it had not been for an intervening tree. There are a group of kookaburras that seem to find the 16th fairway particularly attractive, and they spend a fair bit of time foraging there. One was spotted pursuing Kody’s ball along the ground until it was judged not to be edible, and the chase was abandoned. Porks managed to ‘duff’ his drive from the first, to finish just at the bottom of the hill. In response to some lip from CJ, Ryan said, I can par this from here. Which he did even though it needed a 6m putt to do so.
Big event starting next week. Two rounds of everybody’s favourite competition, Par, to compete for the David Ford Autumn Cup.
Results for Saturday, 02 May 2026
1st Andrew Blight (64) 2nd John Quinlan (66) 3rd Steven Gervasoni (67) 4th Craig Cameron (70) 4th Dan Marie (70) 5th Marc Phillips (74) 5th Kody Warrington (74)
Seniors Results: 1st Andrew Blight (64) 2nd Steven Gervasoni (67) 3rd Craig Cameron (70)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 15th Warren Capes BallPin No 1 – 4th Ryan Porker BallPin No 2 – 18th Ryan Porker