Some days are diamonds somebody once said, or sang, or something. And if you had to nominate a diamond day, today would have to have been one of the front runners. A fairly mild night meant it didn’t take long for the blood to get circulating and a bit of over-cast kept the sun out of your eyes for most of the round. The dearth of rain continues and the course just gets runnier and runnier and even the worm burners don’t finish too badly. The staff have seen fit to spread some more sand/fertiliser on the greens (at least some of them) and so things should be in really good shape for our major event, the Stuart Clarke Memorial, over the next two weeks. There’s a fair chance that the fields will be bigger than the seventeen souls that made it to the tees today even though some of them were cutting it a bit fine and nicely mucked up the groupings so carefully worked out by Chrispy. The money was proving a bit problematic until SOS got out his calculator and Targe owned up that he hadn’t yet paid his comp fee.
The one person who will be able to rate today as a diamond was Damo who putted for birdies on the first four holes and got none of them. On the fifth, he by-passed the putting altogether and chipped in to get the first of his three birdies for the day. The fact that he only got three indicates that he was only bogie on two occasions to bring in a card of 67 off the stick and a pretty darn impressive 44 points (22 points out and back). He did admit to getting a bit twitchy on the last four or five holes as he could see a personal best looming and he desperately wanted to break the 70 barrier that had stopped him numerous times since reaching it way back in 2009. A three stroke break suggests it might be another while before it falls again, but who knows!
Now, Ryan was playing in the same group as Damo and they hit it out, blow for blow, even to the extent of both chipping in for birdie on the 5th. They turned neck and neck and up to the 12th there was only a nostril in it but a couple of hiccups on the next two holes opened up the margin and Ryan had to settle for second place with his forty pointer. For some reason, 22 points on the front nine was the score to have today as Chrispy managed to achieve the same total on the way out but he too managed a few average holes on the way back and also finished up with 40 points as well.
The next bloke would have to count himself lucky to be in the points. First off, he arrived at the course without his buggy battery after assuring Chrispy on pick-up that he had everything. Chrispy was kind enough to lend him his car to dash home to collect it. Then, during the round he lost the remote controller unit for said electric buggy and to top things off he also lost his laser range-finder. Interestingly, the loss of the latter did not seem to have affected his game too much as he managed to come home with a total of 38 points. SOS called in the sniffer dogs and with a bit of detective work the lost controller was eventually found half way down the 10th fairway (in the trees). Not sure how it wasn’t missed until the 13th but that’s probably another story altogether.
Jason has been out practicing a bit during the week and his handicap has been sneaking down over the last few weeks so it is perhaps not surprising that he gave himself a stroke on the second which meant that he came back to 4th place alongside DennisT with 37 points. Dennis apparently gave himself a night off at the Darklands last night as he couldn’t bring himself to sit through a Justin Bieber gig even if he was being paid for it. Eddie filled the last points spot with a score of 35 points.
There were a fair swag of birdies today with a total of seventeen which kind of works out at one birdie per person which is kind of nice. There were quite a few movements on the Eclectic table today but that was mainly down to people with only a couple of cards in this year. Bob still has a handy lead in the event but it only takes a couple of strategically placed birdies to wipe that out. There is a three way tie at the top of the Championship Table at the moment with quite a number only a few points behind so there is plenty of potential for the pecking order to change in the next few weeks with our next major, the Stuart Clarke Memorial, being played over the next two weeks. And don’t forget it is whacky shirt day for the second round.
As presaged last week, there are now two ProPins up for grabs each week (but no Double Dollars of Medal days). ProPin No 1 was on the 12th and nobody was able to get close enough to get their name on the card and so that will be a Jackpot for next week. ProPin No 2 was on the 18th and there were a couple of contenders but in the end, the prize went to CraigC who finished 2.35m from the hole to take out the dosh. The BallPin was on the 4th and Damo put his shot about pin high and maybe 3m from the hole. But, as part of the Damo/Ryan contest, Ryan sailed his out over the trees and brought it in nicely to finish about 2.5m away to collect himself a ball for his efforts.
The first round of the Matchplay got under way today and there were four matches decided. Harry and Noodles met again with Noodles still smarting over his defeat in last year’s event. Harry struggled a bit off the tee early on and gave Noodles an early jump and the momentum never really swung the other way until the match finished after the 15th, 4 and 3 to Noodles. Craig and Andrew played a close run thing after Craig got an early start that Andrew managed to counter and the score card said square for most of the rest of the round. With a shot up his sleeve on the last, Andrew had a good change to take the match but he was let down by a less than spectacular tee shot while Craig put his on for his ProPin winning effort and took out the match 1 up. With Brendon losing all his gear, if not his marbles, it might have been expected that Targe would have been able to win this match. Not to be however as Brendon romped it home 4 and 2. The other match was Ed and SOS. It’ s a bit hard to tell how it went because Ed kept the scores in his head and who knows how you’d find them there. Anyway, the upshot was, that SOS lost it on the last by missing a half meter putt resulting in a win for Ed 1 up. Still plenty of matches to play in the first round and three weeks to do it in. In all fairness, if you and your opponent are playing on the day, you should play your match. We don’t want to get caught up in the ‘AW, buts…’.
Noodles doesn’t like waiting around and after a bit of a traffic jam at the 18th, he wasn’t too happy about his tee shot and gave his club a flying lesson. On one fairway, SOS managed to hit about four trees in a row – well five actually when he eventually threw his club at one of them. Blighty lost his sand wedge but there is no evidence that it was a result of throwing it. Reports have it that he actually played better without it. Fortunately, it was returned in good order. Damo put his drive on the 13th almost in the hazard on the left and then played a blind shot over the trees that finished just off the green. The putt did a bit of hopping and bouncing which caused Damo to carry on like a pork chop until it conveniently fell into the hole for his birdie. There should be a penalty for that!
SOS’s new addition will no longer be faced with the prospect of being known as ‘hey, you’ as she now sports the rather pretty moniker of Georgie Grace. Well done, SOS et al.
Don’t forget about registering for the Annual Challenge in August. $50 deposited into the Club bank account will secure you a spot. If you are not planning to use the Golf Club accommodation in Shep, still pay the deposit and let Gordon know and he will work out what you owe depending on what you (and any significant others) do get up to. The Club bank account details are on the website under the contacts menu.
Results for Saturday, 11 March 2017
1st Damien Lee(44) 2nd Ryan Porker(40) 2nd Chris Priems(40) 3rd Brendon Mitchell(38) 4th Jason Hopkins(37) 4th Dennis Tiernan(37) 5th Ed Kloprogge(35)
Seniors Results: 1st Dennis Tiernan (37) 2nd Ed Kloprogge (35) 3rd Craig Cameron (34) 3rd Rod Grant (34) 3rd Targe Mifsud (34)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Jackpot ProPin No 2 18th Craig Cameron BallPin 4th Ryan Porker