It can’t have been the Pendlebury match. There were one-eyed Magpies lining up to play. There must have been other reasons for numbers being down to a mere eleven, on what turned out to be a pretty pleasant day for golf. The management saw fit to declare preferred lies, but, by and large, the relief wasn’t needed. Unless, of course, you were hard up against a tree or something. The first group got away on time, and the third was probably gone before the ladies started assembling, which caused one of them to ask, where was everybody? The pace of play was pretty good with just a tad over four hours (plus a smidge more for the last group). The front group made first tracks (to borrow a skiing term), and worried that they might be giving away too much about putting lines for the groups behind, as the green had not been tended and brushed off. It might pay to brush up on your bunker play, as the bunkers appear to have been freshened up with some nice new, deeper, white sand. Fortunately, nobody got to try them out, and some didn’t even notice the change.
Raj set off like the morning after a Madras curry, and by the turn he had amassed a pretty impressive twenty-two points, just four over off the stick. The Handicapper was sharpening his little axe! JQ, on the other hand, started off slowly and took a couple of holes to warm up. Once he warmed up, there was no cooling down. At the turn, the handicap was nicely matched, and, from there he never once looked over his shoulder. Just three over off the stick for the back nine netted him another nineteen points, and a fairly easy win for the day. Raj, on the other hand, fell into a bit of a hole from the 11th to the 13th, and never really reached the heights of form shown on the front nine, and an extra thirteen points was all he could muster. Harry was trying out a new ‘scoring strategy’ today, which he thinks helped him to his eighteen points on the front. He only managed another seventeen on the back, thanks in part to hitting the same tree twice on consecutive shots on the 11th.
CJ also took a couple of holes to warm up, but then he scored pretty solidly through the front nine, to finish with a pretty respectable nineteen points. He leaked a bit of oil on the 10th and 11th, but recovered and ‘two-ed’ the rest of the course. He was pretty happy to snag 3rd place with his total of thirty-three points. Craig seems to have been a little jinxed by the first three holes on both nines where he could only manage singletons. This made it a bit difficult for him to score much more than the thirty-one that hooked him a share of 4th place. He was joined on the podium by Rob, who had faltered a bit on the front, but pulled his socks up on the back to reach his final score. Nalin can hit the ball a country mile from one of the shortest back-swings in the Club. The g’s that the club-head is subject to must be phenomenal. Today, however, he had to rely on the surrounding trees to keep his ball in play, so, perhaps, he has been taking lessons from the Priems clan. This was particularly the case on the 9th, where Birrarung beckoned, until the ball was cast back into play, albeit not all that far in front of the red markers.
The ProPin today was on the 4th, and few got onto the green, let alone close enough to put their name on the card. Smallish pool to start the Jackpot next week. The first BallPin was on the 7th, and, fortunately, the tee was set pretty well forward, so the short hitters had a chance. As it happened, Raj and SOS vied for the honour, and SOS was victorious through getting closer than Raj, who was a fair way off. On the 18th, the pin was on the top deck, and Matt was the only one to get his name on the card.
A couple of matches were fought out today. Gordo and Craig locked horns, with Craig giving four strokes to Gordon. It was a close fought thing overall, although Craig had his nose in front more often than not. After the 14th, Craig was two up, and had a ‘gimme’ putt on the 15th to go to three up and make it a tough ask for his opponent. It wasn’t a ‘gimme’ and the score stayed at 2 up to Craig. Gordon must have been inspired, and played some of his best golf to bring the match to dormie 1 at the 17th, and won the 18th to force a chip off to decide the match. His first chip was too far left and long, while Craig managed a better length with a potential 2m putt. Gordon’s putt was just a fraction off-line and long. Craig putted up to a tap-in, leaving Gordon with a pressure putt to go to a second chip-off. No such luck, and the match went to Craig. The other match was between CJ and JQ with two strokes going from CJ. Despite them both taking a couple of holes to warm up, CJ made the better of it, and got himself to 2 up in short order. That situation prevailed until the turn after nine. Four consecutive losses put the shoe on the other foot, and CJ now had his work cut out. He put his head down, and held the fort until, after sixteen, the match went dormie 2. The pressure was on, and he had to win everything to force a chip-off. JQ’s second shot was obstructed by a tree, CJ was in the Presidents office. JQ popped it out into the rough on the left of the green. CJ put it onto the green. JQ chipped it out of the rough, and into the hole for a birdie (one of only two for the day), putting an end to the match. The only question now, what would the final score be. CJ’s birdie went begging making the loss 3 and 1, rather than the 2 and 1 that might have been.
The Birthday Birdie was a bit remiss last week in not mentioning that Gordon was going to have one during the week. This week, Targe and Stan will have another stroke to play with in their efforts to shoot their age. In other news, Gavin was spotted teeing off with the afternoon group. Not because he is sick of us already, but because he was not a pretty picture early this morning after a late night celebrating the Tigers’ win last night. Harry is going to investigate whether there is a Guinness Book of Records entry for ‘tee driving distance’. Not the ball, but the actual tee. If so, he plans to nominate Nalin as a possible contender. Ken must have been harking back to his cricketing days today, as he was reported to be playing ‘cover drives’ on a regular basis today.
The story of the day, however, was best kept to last. Matt and SOS were strolling down the 10th fairway, sharing reminiscences about their recent trip to Cambodia. As is their wont, they let their remote control buggies carry on ahead of them, giving them a little adjustment now and then with the remote. Everything seemed hunky-dory until one of the playing group noticed that there was a buggy heading off across the 1st towards the 2nd tee. It was Matt’s. Seems he had decided that the buggy in front of him was his, and was, perhaps, wondering why it was not responding to his ‘adjustments’. In actual fact, it was SOS’s buggy, and Matt’s was doing exactly as it was being told as it headed off on its little adventure. Day-dreaming can be dangerous, particularly when the day-dreams are about ‘golf’ in Cambodia!
Results for Saturday, 23 May 2026
1st John Quinlan (37) 2nd Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Rajesh Mahto (35) 3rd Chris Priems (33) 4th Craig Cameron (31) 4th Robert Priems (31) 5th Nalin Samaranayake (30)
Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (35) 2nd Chris Priems (33) 3rd Craig Cameron (31) 3rd Robert Priems (31)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Jackpot BallPin No 1 – 7th Stephen O’Sullivan BallPin No 2 – 18th Matt Hunt