Another beautiful day in paradise.  The ground-staff are doing their darnedest to compensate for the rainfall that isn’t coming even to the extent of leaving the greens saturated right up until play starts.  The casual water does add some interest on greens that might otherwise be uninteresting.  There were some concerns that the long week-end would lure some members away.  And it did.  But, there were still twenty-six who made it to the course and with the addition of one visitor, Papa, there was a field of 27 set out.  Only 25 completed the round, Ed aggravated a hamstring and Joe had a zoo to go to (after he finished his matchplay match).

The cricket season is over and that saw a couple of the aficionados of that particular ball sport fronting back up for the ‘tween seasons break.  Only one of the cricketers was successful though and that was Damo who started off with a front nine that did not look all that promising.  Perhaps he was just lulling Keith into a false sense of security in their match as, after the turn, it turned into a demonstration with a one under scoreline returning 22 points to give the winning total of 37.  In the process, he left Keith in the dust to take the match 4 and 2.

Usually, the stableford points calculations are pretty well done, but occasionally people forget that their handicap has changed and they claim a point where they shouldn’t or they don’t claim one when they should.  This seems to have happened in two cases today and as a result there was a bit of a turn-around in the results from the after game run-down.  Now, in second place, with 36 points is none other than Chrispy.  Perhaps it was the thought of the draughties presented by Jake and Papa and the prospect of needing to call Uber to get home that caused him to miss a point (or to forget about the shanks).

On the other hand Mal took one where he shouldn’t and so he dropped back to share third place with Harry, MattH, and David on 35.  Harry started out well enough in his effort to get on top of Ed in their match but after a certain amount of chest beating and eye gouging, Ed retired himself after seven holes with his aggravated hamstring.  Harry was two ahead at the time.  Matt took a couple of holes to get going and then strung quite a few together but he got the shakes a bit on the back, possibly a result of SOS going close to taking Jason out with one of his shanks, which he seems to have caught from Chris the other week.  David showed that he is a definite contender in a driving contest with Stef.  He decided to ‘lay up’ on the 14th and managed to finish pin-high as a result.

John was heavily embroiled in his match with Rob who wanted it made clear that he played with fifteen stitches in his back but he didn’t pull out.  There wasn’t much in the match by and large although John did retain the upper hand for most of the round.  He might have thought of reaching for the Butter Menthols as Rob brought it back to square at the 17th but a win on the 18th gave the match to John 1 up.  Allan gave a very good impression of an early morning milk delivery van as he jiggled around the course on his trusty gopher.  There was certainly potential on the card for a bit of improvement and Allan could very soon present further up the podium than he did today.  Jason also left a few out there with one gash and a sprinkling of singletons offering promise of better things to come and maybe an even lower handicap yet.

The BallPin today was on the 4th and Joe was the only one to worry the pin at all.  Even though it was reasonably close to the mark, he did not make the birdie   On the 15ht, Harry put his to 3.8m, just about spot on Dave’s estimate from the tee of 12ft, to take out a ProPin for the second week in a row.  He also did not make the birdie.  The fixed ProPin on the 18th was a bit more of a contest but it was eventually taken out by Damo with a distance of 1.78m.  Damo didn’t make the birdie but the other contender, Dale did get his birdie from 4.6m and in so doing he contributed to the total of 16 for the day.  Porks, the Nest Raider of the Lost Ark, played the 6th like a violin and after a driver and fairway wood to a metre or so, slotted the putt to collect the eggs on offer.

However, the eagle on the 6th did nothing much for Ryan in his match against the Beast in which the Beast was never really headed and the match finished 4 and 3.  The result could have been entirely different when Bill went OOB on the 14th.  But, rather than lay up and play it safe, Ryan went for it and he too went OOB handing another win to Bill.  Targe and Brendon also matched up today and the long and short of it is that Targe fought back valiantly from being 4 in arrears to finish the round all square and so they, and an appreciative audience, lined up for a chip-off to determine the result.  The first pair of chips were ordinary to say the least and the putting ended up still square.  Second time around, Brendon got close enough to make it hard for Targe and he ended up winning the match.  Noodles said to Joe that if Joe finished the round with clubs in his bag he would win the match.  This proved to be prophetic as Joe did finish with clubs in his bag and he did win the match 5 and 3.

Simon cracked it today.  No, he didn’t do his ‘nana.  He dropped his puffer and it no longer ‘puffs’ and his good mates were disappointed to find him dragging on darts after the round.  Dennis was having a bit of a bad day and he expressed his disappointment at not being able to lose the ball he was playing with even when he hit it out of bounds.  After being urged to keep the game moving along to catch the group in front, Allan did nothing for the cause by arriving on the 7th tee with his putter firmly in hand.  Gordon spilled a lot of oil from the sump on the back nine after racking up 26 points in 11 holes.  He went on to make 31 for the whole round.  Jason was having a fine time with his wedge and chipped in twice from some distance out.  All that mid-week practice must be paying off.

The AGM was held after the round and a good number of members stayed around to take part.  The minutes of the meeting will be circulated in due course.  Suffice it to say that there are not a lot of changes to the committee line-up.  MattN will take the role of Tee Marshal and will be assisted as required by John and Simon.  The Priems boys will assist Gordon in the role of Social Secretary.  Ten Year Awards are due to Ed Kloprogge, Rod Grant, John Quinlan and Mehmet Akdag and these will be presented on a suitable occasion.

The Annual Challenge is coming up in October and it is still possible to register if you speak nicely to Gordon.  Gordon will be circulating more details shortly.

Next week is the first round of the Stuart Clarke Memorial event.  Two rounds of Stableford.  Come along and remember Stuart.  There’ll be a bar-be-que after the second round.

Results for Saturday, 10 March 2018
1st Damien Lee(37) 2nd Chris Priems(36) 3rd Harry Boughen(35) 3rd Malcolm Fleming(35) 3rd Matt Hunt(35) 3rd David Mullenger(35) 4th Allan Davies(34) 4th John Quinlan(34) 5th Jason Hopkins(33)

Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (35) 1st Malcolm Fleming (35) 2nd Allan Davies (34) 3rd Keith Delzoppo (32)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 15th Harry Boughen ProPin No 2 18th Damien Lee BallPin 4th Joe Wagenecht

Eagle’s nest Results: Eagle 5th Ryan Porker

Oh! What a turn-up!  It was and it was.

Firstly, there was a turn-up of 26 members on a day that promised so much.  The weather was lovely though it did start cool enough for there to be a bit of dew on the greens which gave an excuse, for some, at least, for leaving putts short of the hole.  And later, when it warmed up and the greens dried out, for putting it way past.  Excuses, excuses.

Second, there was a turn-up for the books, when a bloke, who plays a lot of golf and prides himself on knowing the Rules, played in the Medal of Medallists event and ‘forgot’ to sign his card and his potential winning score was disallowed.

No such misfortune befell him in the Club event though and, despite his marker’s card going missing, Ed was able to romp it home by an even bigger margin than anybody thought.  Another Medal to add to Ed’s growing collection.

Targe didn’t start off too flash and might have been forgiven for giving up hope after a triple bogie at the 4th.  However, like the little Maltese battler that he is,he stuck to his guns and came into second place in both the main and the Seniors event with a nett score of 66.

Keith rounded out the Seniors sweep of the top placings with his score of 68.  There was a lot of potential left out there as there was a fair scattering of triples and even one quadruple.  Heading up the young fellers were MattH and Ryan just a stroke shy on 69, everybody’s favourite number.

There were a swag of players filling fifth spot.  Pepsi probably should have been further up the line if not for an uncharacteristic triple on the 13th.  Rob, on the other hand waited until the 17th to rack up his triple for the round.  Stefan, on the other hand didn’t manage a triple on his card but he did manage to put his drive to about 10m short of the green on the 16th to score a birdie on the hole.  In so doing, he contributed to the grand total of 15 that were recorded for the day.  Chrispy, however, was obviously pre-occupied with his match against Brent and seemed to have put his scores on the players side of the card and Brent’s on the marker’s side which caused more than a little confusion for the handicapper.  A correction of an arithmetic error allowed him to be elevated from the ranks of the also-rans to that of the almost-rans.

The nearest the pin competitions were also well contested.  Brent, Allan and Jason had their names down for the BallPin on the 12th with Jason getting the nod with the closest spot.  Brent tried again for the ProPin on the 15th only to see Stefan go inside him moment later from the 16th tee.  Stef’s ball finished 1.53m past the pin.  Stef always was a big hitter!.  The ProPin on the 18th saw the pin on the ‘difficult’ top tier but that was no problem for Harry who judged it nicely to finish 4.34m to the left of pin high.

Then there was the Matchplay.  And the first round got off to a good start with no less than seven matches contested.  Well, really only six.  Michael has been making a come-back from his back injury and was taking on Blighty but, unfortunately, his back problem returned with a vengeance and he had to retire after the 6th hole and conceded the match to Blighty.  Michael has reported that he has been sworn off golf by his doctor and it could be some months before he is able to return to play.  This is indeed unfortunate and we wish Michael well for a successful and complete recovery and we look forward to seeing him back on the tee later in the year.

Stefan took on MattN and, despite giving away 14 strokes, he managed to lose only four holes on his way to taking the match 4 and 2.  Although DennisW had registered not to be included in the seeding, he was included (blame the handicapper) so he agreed to take on the Beast as they were both present on the day.  Dennis seemed to be having one of his ‘off’ days and the result was an easy win for Bill 5 and 3.  The other Dennis also mumbled that he didn’t know why he was included because the footy season is coming up but he took on Ryan regardless and put up a pretty good fight but in the end he lost the match 3 and 2.

The other Matt had to take on Dale in his match and the pundits were tipping that it could have been a pretty close run thing..  And for a fair bit of the round it was with the result being square after eleven holes.  Matt then took the bit between his teeth and built up a handy lead.  But a disastrous result for Dale on the 14th seemed to inspire him and he went close to clawing back the short-fall.  It was not to be and Matt finished the match 2 and 1.  Pepsi took on Allan and looked to be making short work of it by winning the first five holes on the trot.  Allan tried hard to recover the situation but the match eventually finished 4 and 3 in Pepsi’s favour.

In the Battle of the in-laws, Chrispy took on the young gun of the family, Brent.  With them both on a handicap of twelve, it was going to be a scratch score shoot-out.  The sledging event was a pretty close run thing and the judges were unable to pick a winner.  On the golf side, the honours were dead even after nine holes and Chris was still looking for the lead that he hoped would cause Brent to ‘crumble’.  The desired lead did not eventuate and, after a minor disaster for Brent on the 16th, Chris had some hope of being able to hold on to his one up to the end of the round.  Chris played ‘safe’ on the 17th and his ‘power fade’ managed to get a tree on the fence line and bring the ball back into play.  Brent stuck with his decision to ‘go for the green’ and put it on to make a pretty easy birdie and bring the match back to square.  A sconed drive, half way up the hill, followed by a brilliant chip to a metre made for an easy par while Chris could only make a bogie to give up the match to Brent 1 up.  No bragging rights this week, hey Creamsy.

Simon is keen to get his game in shape for his trip to King Island later in the year.  He was obviously not too happy with some of today’s shots if the thumping noises from his direction were any guide.  Gordon might well have been thumping the ground after taking an 11 (yes, eleven) on the 13th.  He obviously kept his cool though as he followed up with two birdies in the remaining five holes.

Still plenty of matches to complete in the first round of the Matchplay.  Don’t forget, you can play your first round match during the week if it suits your and your opponent better to get it in before the deadline.  Also, if you know your second round opponent already, that match can be played at any time as well.  Please note, as well, that the matches on the draw table read down both sides of the table and not across the table.

The AGM will be held next week.  Please try to attend so that you have a say in who runs your Club for the next year.  Don’t be afraid to put your name forward for Committee.  It is not particularly onerous and can actually be quite fulfilling to have a little more input into the way that the Club is managed.  Committee Nomination Forms are available from the Forms section of the web-site side-bar.

Results for Saturday, 03 March 2018
1st Ed Kloprogge(64) 2nd Targe Mifsud(66) 3rd Keith Delzoppo(68) 4th Matt Hunt(69) 4th Ryan Porker(69) 5th Stefan Belevski(70) 5th Andrew Petricola(70) 5th Chris Priems(70) 5th Robert Priems(70)

Seniors Results: 1st Ed Kloprogge (64) 2nd Targe Mifsud (66) 3rd Keith Delzoppo (68)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 15th Stefan Belevski ProPin No 2 18th Harry Boughen BallPin 12th Jason Hopkins

Despite the conclusion that you might be forgiven for drawing from the featured photo, the day started off quite warm although there was a bit of wind to make things interesting.  The members were very happy to see that the ground-staff had been out on the job early again and that the greens had been freshly mowed.

A threat of some rain held off at least until the round was over and so an enjoyable day was had by all if the banter around the tables was any guide.  The prospect of extra points in a par event seems to have lifted the general mood and the person to lay claim to the first two pointer was Gordon who managed a birdie on the very first hole.  It will be interesting to see who can bring home the first three pointer.

Brendon seems to have hit a bit of a streak and he has now made a break to the front of the pack in the Championship Table.  He obviously likes the Par style of play as his two wins have been in that format.  How much of today’s plus six scoreline was down to the extra points has not been divulged.

Porks certainly took advantage of the extra points by gathering a couple on consecutive holes at the 3rd and 4th and in the process saved himself from further outward drift of his handicap.  His card of plus four was well and truly matched by Gordo who has already been mentioned in despatches.

DennisW managed to present with a card that was also in positive territory to snag third place on the podium.  Dennis conducted a master class in play from tee to green but, unfortunately, the flat stick let him down a little and the result could have been entirely different if a few more of the rolls had dropped.

Simon played an exemplary second shot into the 3rd green and the ball finished under half a metre from the hole.  Simon removed his hat to take a bow except that his hat was not on his head but quite a distance back along the fairway.  Maybe the chemicals from his ‘puffer’ or the lack of tar from the ‘darts’ have addled his brain.  Michael obligingly jogged back to retrieve the hat while Ed rolled about laughing at Michael’s running style.  Mal has kept up his run of form since his return and also produced a square card to finish alongside Si.

Rob (the good looking one) was just a stroke behind with minus one.  As well as his point for fifth place, Rob managed to collect a ball by putting it close enough on the BallPin 4th hole.  The 12th was a double jackpot ProPin pool this week and this could very well be the reason that Michael made a come-back from his back injury as he was able to put it to 2.4m.  In the process he just managed to squeeze out Brendon at 2.5m with Gordon and Porks also thinking they had some sort of a chance.  Brendon made up for his disappointment by sneaking in to just under the 5m limit (4.51m) from the rather difficult top tier pin placement on the 18th to take out the second ProPin.

Michael’s return to play started well with several birdies and it obviously continued at least until the 12th.  However the loot counting might have distracted him because it was all down hill from there and a couple of three putt greens on the 14th and 15th caused some serious muttering under the breath and a determination to consult with the sports psychologist once again.

Michael was not alone in the psychology stakes.  MattH might or might not have been distracted by a worm popping its head out of the ground when he duffed a chip.  Whatever the case he seems to have taken it out on the worm population if the picture of the result is any guide.  Noodles also apparently went very close to breaking his New Year resolution but the proximity of a playing partner seems to have saved the day.

MattN might have caught a bad case of the Chrispy’s (aka shanks).  His second from the centre of the 1st finished in the middle of the 10th.  Not to be outdone, his second on the 2nd, from the centre of the fairway, finished OOB.  And so it continued for the rest of the round.  SOS started off well with a plus on the first and a good laugh at Matt’s shank.  But then karma took over and SOS managed to score minus on 13 of the next 17 holes.  Needless to say, the final score-line did not look pretty.  Targe had a bit of a tricky down-hill putt, obviously on one of the sloped greens.  The ball was heading so far past the hole that Targe ran after as fast as his legs would carry and managed to stop the ball.  The ensuing penalties ensured a negative score on the hole.

The Matchplay seeding has been done and the draw is out.  Please check it out and remind yourself of the rules.  You have until the April MM to complete your first round match.  If, for any reason, you are unable to play within that time frame please defer to the reserves in the order that they appear at the bottom of the table.  And remember, no result by the deadline, both players are eliminated.

As notified previously, because of the unavoidable absence of the President, the AGM of the Club has been postponed for one week to 10 March.

Results for Saturday, 24 February 2018
1st Brendon Mitchell(+6) 2nd Gordon Hill(+4) 2nd Ryan Porker(+4) 3rd Dennis Ward(+1) 4th Malcolm Fleming(□) 4th Simon Powell(□) 5th Robert Priems(-1)

Seniors Results: 1st Gordon Hill (4) 2nd Dennis Ward (1) 3rd Malcolm Fleming (0) 3rd Simon Powell (0)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Michael Gourlay ProPin No 2 18th Brendon Mitchell BallPin 4th Robert Priems

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The weather could not have been kinder to the twenty-one members and one guest who took to the field today.  The staff had been up at sparrow’s and the greens were freshly mowed so there were few excuses to be had for not scoring low though, it must be said, there were a few low scores returned.  Now, before you get your backwards all forwards, the competition today was Stableford and so low scores get high scores and vice versa.  If that makes sense.

So, it is a bit grim when a member hands in a card on which he played to his handicap for him to be told sorry, that doesn’t get a point.  And, one of the reasons for that was that el Presidente, JohnQ, beat his personal best by five strokes and coasted home with a total of 46 points to leave most of the rest of the field in his dust.  Chrispy reckoned he was getting RSI from having to write threes on the card so John very kindly scored a four pointer on the 17th to give him some relief.  What made it worse for Chris was the fact that his sump plug had fallen out completely and he was putting gashes on his own side of the card (some of the time, anyway).

Dale also had a round of doing nothing much wrong and he was Clubhouse leader for a little while.  He was noticed to heave something of a sigh of relief when news of John landed so that he wouldn’t get the winners penalty even if there were a few less points as a result.  Dennis had also been Clubhouse leader for some time (he was in the first group) and his result could have been somewhat better with a total of four lost balls for the round.  Two on the 13th when his tee shot finished in the right hand hazard.  His penalty shot over the hazard and trees went so well that it finished in the hazard on the other side of the fairway which resulted in a casual walk to the green.

CraigC made a bit of a come-back today and showed that a break from the course hadn’t done him any harm though he did admit to having played around a bit – I mean having played a few rounds.  Mal filled out the fifth position with a small break of his new handicap and showed that there is life in the old dog yet.  And the result could have been even better if he hadn’t had a run in with three trees on the one fairway (well not exactly ‘on’ the fairway) and a couple of other little aberrations.

There was a Jackpot ProPin on the 12th from last week and the pin was tucked into the far right corner of the green (again).  As a result, nobody got within the required 5m distance and so there will be a Double Jackpot next week.  Actually, somebody did get within 5m, but Porks couldn’t claim the pool because he wasn’t on the green.  He did get the birdie though and in the process he contributed to the total of 19 for the day, which is a pretty respectable total.  The BallPin was on the 15th and there was a bit of a contest that was won by Brent.  The ProPin on the 18th was even more fiercely contested.  In the first group, Simon eased out Dennis by a margin that varies from a few millimetres to a few inches depending on who you listen to.  But the prize went to Craig who managed to put it to 40cm.

The Birthday Birdie has a small job to do this week and he will be hunting down Noodles later in the week to make sure that he has a swiping good time for his special day.

Targe has been getting pretty familiar with the pumping system beside the 9th fairway.  His drive from the 1st was just by the pump-house while that from the 9th ended in the enclosure around the valve set.  When said drive looked as if it might have finished under the big deciduous tree on the left side, Ed reckoned that there was enough room for a full swing under there (even more so for Targe!)

Brendon didn’t have much of a day, even his playing companions felt sorry for him.  On one hole, he had his ball ‘stolen’ with a far inferior ball left in its place.  On another hole, as he lined up his putter behind the ball he touched it and it moved although, apparently, Brendon was the only one who noticed.  Plus he also had lots of problems with trees interfering with the flight of his ball..  As Chrispy said, it wasn’t a day for ‘good’ golfers.  Perhaps that is why Chris could be heard proclaiming his displeasure from one end of the course to the other.

Bob also had a few words to say and there is a move afoot to count the blasphemies to see whether he uses more than he takes strokes.  Another person who perhaps had a reason to swear, but there are no reports as to whether he did or not, was Jason, who left a putt about 50mm from the hole, and who went to ‘tap’ it in whereupon the ball did not move from its spot.

Next week will be our first GrandPar event for the year.  They are scheduled for any month when there are two ‘Club” Par rounds in a month.  The idea is that, if you win a hole without using all of your strokes you score extra points for the remaining strokes.  So, if you have a stroke on a hole and you birdie the hole you score +2.  This will require some concentration, particularly if you are playing inside as well as that will be a standard Par event and so it is possible that your scores will be different.

The AGM is scheduled for the week after.  If you have a hankering to be involved in the management of the Club you can nominate for any position on the Committee by downloading and printing a nomination form from the website (under Forms on the side-bar) and strong-arming a couple of your mates to nominate and second your nomination.  Any current Committee member who is planning to stand down it would be handy if you could persuade a replacement to stand or at least let the President or Secretary know of your intentions.

After next week’s round, the seeding for the Matchplay will be done in preparation for the start of the event the week after.  If you do not want to be included in the seeding for any reason, please advise by using the Registration Form as soon as possible so that the draw is as ‘clean’ as possible and all contestants intend to abide by the Rules of the competition.  The most important one is that, if a pairing have not played or advised an agreed result by the end of play on the closing date of the round, both contestants will be eliminated.  Please talk to each other.  Phone numbers and emails are on the Contacts/Member Directory.  As a hint, the security question still includes the sand trap that used to be on the 1st fairway.

Results for Saturday, 17 February 2018
1st John Quinlan(46) 2nd Dale Webb(44) 3rd Dennis Ward(40) 4th Craig Cameron(38) 5th Malcolm Fleming(37)

Seniors Results: 1st Dennis Ward (40) 2nd Craig Cameron (38) 3rd Malcolm Fleming (37)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Jackpot ProPin No 2 18th Craig Cameron BallPin 15th Brent Rowley