Blighty obviously fancied his chances so he begged and pleaded and promised all sorts of good things to be allowed to come and play.  A few others either didn’t like their chances or didn’t put up a good enough argument and so there were 19 members out to play, either for the love of the game or because they could feel a good round coming on and figured they had a chance of featuring, one way or another.  The weather bureau was kind and turned the thermostat up just a smidgen but they forgot about the wind machine and the brisk nor-wester helped to up the wind chill factor and, if you can believe some of the members, it downed the scoring factor.

The man who was able to put the wind right behind him, in a scoring sense at least, was Dale who reveled in the conditions and put together a pair of very consistent nines to make a scorecard of 41 points for the day.  That, plus his 36 points last week, was more than enough to see off all comers with the all-up total of 77 points.  You could almost say that daylight filled second place.

However, daylight has not paid his Club sub and so is not eligible for the event.  Noodles has paid his Club sub and, with a bit of a turn around in form from last week he wasn’t too far behind Dale on the card today.  Last week’s 30 points and today’s 38 points put him into second place a mere nine points behind the winner.  But, with not too much damage to the handicap and the double points, Noodles is now within sniffing distance of the lead in the Championship.  And if anybody knows what it is like to be within sniffing distance it would have to be Noodles.

In third place, we have a bit of a quadrella that came in just a point behind Noodles and all would have agreed that they could easily have made just that couple of extra points.  But, what will be will be, and Harry, JohnQ, Brendon and Keith will just have to be happy with their lot.  JohnQ has, somehow, even he doesn’t know why, changed the shape of his tee shots from a fade/slice to a draw/hook.  Sometimes it helps and sometimes it hinders.  A virtuallly unplayable on the 17th did not help the cause.  Brendon duck hooked one into the long rough beside the 16th and managed to pull off a fairly respectable exit.  Harry had some problems with his sciatic nerve early on and a wince off the tee on the 1st resulted in a draughtie.  And Keith just never really hit his straps and couldn’t repeat his back nine performance from last week.  Harry and Keith headed the field in the Seniors and would be pretty pleased with that.

Blighty’s faith in his chances was only slightly misplaced and although today’s round was not all that spectacular, it was enough for him to hold on for the fourth placing.  Damo thought he had Harry on toast after the front nine and while he improved on the way home, Harry improved more leaving Damo to settle for fifth place.  A putt missed from about 250mm did not help the cause at all and there were a few other slightly longer ones that missed the mark including another gettable one for eagle on the 17th.  That’s two weeks in a row!  The birdie was easy and that helped to boost the teams effort to a total of 8.  Not the greatest tally in the world.  Maybe it was the wind.

The BallPin was set for the 12th today and it was up to Targe to get his name on the marker and collect himself a ball.  Michael was a little bit bitter about being done out of a ProPin recently and so when he got to put his name on the card at the 15th for his 1.53m spot he let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that he would be ‘not happy, Jan’ if anybody, but JQ in particular, got inside that mark.  Our old mate Jack was up to his tricks again on the 18th where the tee was well back and the pin was on the top shelf.  A good reason to come along next week if only to have a go at the Jackpot ProPin although there will be points and handicap adjustments as well.

Harry was not alone on the draughtie front today though he does owe his mates through being as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger sorting out the scores and the notes and the presentation pictures, money, etc etc.  Jason managed to not reach the red markers on the 15th.  Ed could have been a bit lucky when one of his tee shots actually hit one of said red markers.  Reports have it that the marker actually broke as a result.  Ed does tend to be a big hitter.  But that doesn’t go close to one event today by someone, not in our merry band.  A group teeing off from the 6th tee, which was well back, struck a low flying ball that hit the edge of the ‘tombstone’ and flew back over their heads and finished by the toilet block on the sports oval.  Not something you would see every day!

Matt must have had to get up early to get here from the Basin or there-abouts.  He was obviously a bit out of it when he left his phone on the seat of his buggy from where it fell off and Allan had to motor back to recover it for him.  That wouldn’t have been so bad, but he managed to repeat the performance.  To lose you phone once could be considered bad luck, to lose it twice is downright careless.  And, as for Allan, he was tootling along on Thunderbird II, minding his own business when, suddenly, it crashed, but didn’t burn, and Allan was unceremoniously deposited on the ground in the middle of the fairway.  And, no, he hadn’t been drinking.

In an endeavour to encourage people to use the new path up from the 13th green, the management have installed a little barrier consisting of pegs and safety tape and put up a sign saying to use the path.  Now, Chrispy does carry his bag and didn’t feel the need to obey either the sign or the tape though he probably wouldn’t dare do a similar thing at work.  His effort to ‘jump’ the tape caused him to trip and he ended up on the ground, a tangle of arms, legs, bag and clubs.  Maybe he’s not as young and as spritely as he thinks he is and maybe he will know better next time.

Results for Saturday, 22 July 2017
1st Dale Webb(36, 41, 77) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(30, 38, 68) 3rd Harry Boughen(35, 32, 67) 3rd John Quinlan(34, 33, 67) 3rd Brendon Mitchell(35, 32, 67) 3rd Keith Delzoppo(39, 28, 67) 4th Andrew Blight(38, 28, 66) 5th Damien Lee(34, 31, 65)

Seniors Results:  1st Harry Boughen (32,35,67) 1st Keith Delzoppo (28,39,67) 2nd Andrew Blight (38,28,66) 3rd Craig Cameron (27,36,63)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 15th Michael Gourlay ProPin No 2 18th Jackpot BallPin 12th Targe Mifsud

As befits one of our prestigious major events for the year, there was an excellent turn out of twenty-four members on a bright but fairly chilly morning.  A number of members were noted standing at high points with their backs to the sun and arms akimbo to maximise the surface area to intercept the warming rays from old Sol.  In some ways, it was reminiscent of a cormorant on a log in the swamp drying his wings for the next dive.  And, if the score cards are any guide, quite a few needed to warm up before hitting their straps and shooting the lights out on the back nine.  On the other hand, some of the more hot blooded members started out like a house on fire but, like a fire stoked with small kindling, they soon burned out and struggled to turn a score on the back.

One man, who seemed to be struggling for the first nine holes and appeared to be a contender for the Chef’s Hat, really started the back nine off with a bang and a four pointer on the 10th.  From there, he never looked back and Keith came home with 26 points for the back nine and a total of 39 for the whole round.  The flat stick was apparently the club of the day and Keith was sinking them from where-ever he was on the green, no matter what the distance.  His driving can’t have been too bad either as he was able to put his drive on the 18th to 3.62m from the pin to take out the ProPin having successfully shut everybody else out of the event.

Now, Blighty was in a group with JohnQ today and it seems that there was a bit of argy-bargy going on between them and they had a bit of a contest to see who could hit the longest drives.  It turned out that Blighty won the contest with a tally of 9 holes to 8.  Presumably, the one remaining hole was too close to call or they just forgot to count it.  Anyway, Blighty managed to rack up at least three birdies and in so doing he contributed to the total of 18 that we managed for the day.  The good thing for Andrew was that some of them were on new holes and his lead in the Eclectic is at least three,  although he will lose a little when the handicapping is done next week and his 38 points are taken into account.

No such handicap adjustment on this weeks round for Dale who sits in third place with his score of 36 points.  Dale was one of the hot-blooded ones who started off well but faded as the day progressed.  Harry and Brendon both carded 35 points and will be well placed in the leaders group to make a big move to collect the trophy.  Harry hopes he can repeat his wedge shot on the 17th that was a complete miss-hit that caught one of the small trees on the edge of the pond that took just enough off to have the ball finish on the green instead of on the 18th tee.  Brendon is expecting that another week off the sherbet, thanks to his entry in the DryJuly fund-raiser (support from all and sundry is very welcome donate here) will stand him in good stead for a stellar round.  Perhaps it was withdrawal that caused him to take three putts from less than half a metre today.

Damo has had his fair share of run-ins with the golf ball and today was no exception when he was hit on the foot by a ball from the following group.  No damage to the foot or to his game as he fills the next leaderboard position beside JohnQ.  Six points is not an impossible catch-up target for either of these two players.  Damo was on the green from the tee on the 17th but he was unable to make the fairly simple putt for the Eagle.  Which is maybe just as well.  If he had made it, then Stef would have had to share the Belevski Benefit Eagles Nest pool after he did make the putt on the 14th following a drive that was deemed to be worth waiting for due to a bit of a bottle-neck behind the group in front.  The first ProPin today was a Jackpot on the 4th and the greenkeepers had the tee blocks set well back again and so the hole was pretty much as difficult as it was last week.  Not for JohnQ, though, as he put his ball to 1.38m to pretty much seal the deal.  He didn’t make the birdie though and he was very concerned to find out whether he had succeeded in holding his spot as he passed by the last group as they waited on the 7th tee.

The rest of the field scores appear on the Leaderboard page and the groups next week will be in reverse Leaderboard order (with allowance for those not playing next week).  Any new players next week will be sent out early in the field after/with the Chef’s Hat Brigade.

The BallPin was on the 15th and Michael managed to get it on with what he claimed was a ‘shank’.  But, it didn’t last and eventually Stef added to his now bulging ball bag with another one for nearest the pin.

After last week’s victory, Allan was in an experimental mood and was using his sand-wedge for all chip shots.  Not wanting to make a cheap shot about it, but it wasn’t going too well at all.  Eventually he relented and went back to his 8 iron and, in his view at least, things improved.  And that’s half the battle after all.  With your mind, that is.

Rob and Chrispy played in the same group and it seems that Rob really fell in a hole after scoring strongly on the front nine and only managed 10 points on the back.  Rob blames the form slump on Chris and Chris happily accepts responsibility for putting the mockers on him.  Who needs enemies when you’ve got a brother!  Chris on the other hand claims he would have scored much better if it hadn’t been for the low-flying air-ambulance chopper.  He reckons the down-draft put him off his putting.  And, while on the subject of draft, there was only one draughtie today and that was down to Allan who apparently decided to change his grip in mid-backswing on the 12th and left the ball sufficiently short of the red markers to have potential for a repeat performance.  Fortunately, he got the second one away.

Results for Saturday, 15 July 2017
Leaderboard Round 1 1st Keith Delzoppo(39) 2nd Andrew Blight(38) 3rd Dale Webb(36) 4th Harry Boughen(35) 4th Brendon Mitchell(35) 5th Damien Lee(34) 5th John Quinlan(34)

Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Keith Delzoppo (39) 2nd Andrew Blight (38) 3rd Harry Boughen (35)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 4th John Quinlan ProPin No 2 18th Keith Delzoppo BallPin 15th Stefan Belevski

Eagle’s nest Results: Eagle 14th Stefan Belevski

Despite the continuing wintery snap, there were a total of eighteen members out on the course today to tackle our favourite competition – Par.  There wasn’t as much frost on the ground as last week but the conditions felt just as chilly and there was the usual discussion about those hardy souls turning out in shorts and the associated condition with no feeling as well as some about certain parts of the anatomy turning blue.

Now, nobody was running particularly hot, but Allan was able to claim a bit of warmth when he managed to come in front of the pack of hounds with a +1 on the card.  In actual fact, there was not a pack of hounds in sight so it is unclear what the fox, spotted running across the 6th and 3rd fairways, was high-tailing it from.  Old rocker, Allan, immediately brought to mind the song, Fox on the run, and struggled to keep it out of his brain for the rest of the round.   Maybe it was the beat that kept his swing in synch and his putting stroke smooth.

Damo came in second with a square card and even if he had sunk the 1.5m eagle putt on the 17th, he wouldn’t have equalled the top score as the birdie was enough to give him a plus and added one to the tally of seven that we managed for the day.  A marginally better strike rate for birdies than in recent weeks.  Damo did admit to being distracted by what he thought was an escapee from a nearby retirement home but in actual fact it was merely Allan tootling around on Thunderbird II.

Gordon, Rob and the Beast came in in third place with one less point than second.  All three would be ruing the occasional (and not so occasional) negative results on the card.  There was no particular cause or failure of note to report and the round was generally described as ‘boring as bat-droppings’ or some similar analogy.  Michael put in a very steady round with not too many non-square results on the card and scored himself 4th place with a score of -2.  Bringing up the rear, in a place-getters sense, were Ryan and JohnQ, just another point behind with -3.  Jason dipped out of the winners circle by dint of claiming an extra stroke on the 13th from an 18 handicap.  Not hard to do if you are used to getting 2 there.

The BallPin today was on the 12th, which was a bit of a challenge with the tee blocks set well to the back.  Allan bought himself a new seven wood at the op-shop for $5.00 and tried it out for the first time on the 12th and, not only did he hit the ball well, he got his name on the BallPin card as well.  However, Michael came along and put one closer and shut Allan out of getting a fair bit of his investment back.  The first ProPin was set for the 4th.  The tee blocks were as far back as they could go and the pin was at the back edge of the green but whether this is a valid reason why nobody managed to put one onto the green within the required distance is very much open to question.  So, it will be on the 4th again next week as a Jackpot.  The second ProPin, on the 18th, on the other hand, had the tee at the front and the pin on the bottom deck.  Brendon put his on, but when the tape came out, it was just beyond the 5m limit.  No such problem for Noodles who put his to 1.81m and collected a few dollars for his TAB account.

There was a Matchplay match played today between Pepsi and Michael and with them both on a handicap of 3 it was very much a head to head battle.  Michael won the first hole and, try as he might, Pepsi was never able to peg him back to any significant degree and the match eventually went Michael’s way 3 and 2.  Michael wasn’t particularly happy with the way he played but Pepsi reckoned he couldn’t putt for love nor money.  Reckons he must have caught Chrispy’s disease down at Bellarine the week before last.  Or maybe it was still a hang-over from last week-end’s celebrations.  The Chrispy thing does have a bit of a ring of truth about it though as it seems that Chris took five (yes 5) putts on one green, including three that lipped out for less than half a metre.

Noodles had a new, short grip, putter today courtesy of Michael.  Not sure how the putter actually went but Noodles, playing in a three behind a four, seemed to be blaming standing around waiting for some of his less spectacular outcomes.  Brendon had a few problems with trees and things today and in one particularly bad sequence managed to put together four of the horizontals in a row.  This brought the suggestion from Gordo, that this should provide grounds for making a shout for your group.  As it turned out, Brendon would not have been alone in that cart as Chrispy and Blighty achieved a similar (or even greater) feat.  Blighty didn’t hang around to comment as he wanted to be off for another afternoon of misery at a Collingwood match.

Next week is the first round of the Fred Howe Winter Cup.  A good chance to get some double points to catch up to Bob.  Plus, it ushers in three (yes, 3) weeks of Stableford so get out there and take advantage of it while you can.  Also, just over a month to the Annual Challenge up at Shepparton.  Gordo should be issuing more details shortly although he could be a little distracted for the next couple of weeks as he heads off to Wauchope for (as the say on Radio Melbourne) a well deserved break.

Results for Saturday, 08 July 2017
1st Allan Davies(+1) 2nd Damien Lee(□) 3rd Bill Eastoe(-1) 3rd Gordon Hill(-1) 3rd Robert Priems(-1) 4th Michael Gourlay(-2) 5th Ryan Porker(-3) 5th John Quinlan(-3)

Seniors Results: 1st Allan Davies (+1) 2nd Bill Eastoe (-1) 2nd Gordon Hill (-1) 3rd Keith Delzoppo (-4)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 4th Jackpot ProPin No 2 18th Stephen Butterfield BallPin 12th Michael Gourlay

A couple of weeks ago, the Club was delighted to spot a number of the extremely rare cah-cah birds shuffling around the first tee as we waited to hit off.  Well today it was the even rarer oohma bird.  For those not into ornithology, this is another bird that lives in the Antarctic but it has absolutely no legs.  And every time it comes to land on the ice it can be heard giving out its characteristic cry – oohma doodle, oohma doodle.

An example of one such bird was captured out on the course being chatted up by one of our hardy band of of shorts wearing members though there was some discussion as to whether it really was an oohma, the characteristic call not having been heard, or whether its tiny feet were just frozen to the ground.  Keith was not responsible for the apparent dazed condition of the bird.  Needless to say, it was pretty icy out there and quite a few topped shots were blamed on the fact that players were carrying an extra inch of ice on the soles of their shoes.  The area around the pin on the second was giving a very good impression of the surface of the moon with the multitude of craters from iced up sprigs.

There was also a bit of fog about for a while but not one of our twenty-one players managed to get lost although there were a couple of early withdrawals.  Steve reckoned he was coming down with something but managed to make it to the 9th before pulling the pin and heading for somewhere warmer.  Dave, on the other hand looked as if he was going to come up with something and his playing companions assessed him as being a ‘lighter shade of pale’ before he too headed off to put his head down.  Just what he was going to put it down was not specified.  Something he drank the night before was a likely cause.  So, with two down there were only nineteen left to finish off the round to decide the July Medal.  At this point, the Birthday Birdie would like to mention that this week sees a significant milestone for Pepsi on the anniversary front and today’s celebrations are just a few days early of the mark.  Happy Birthday Pepsi.  But, just imagine how many players we would have had were it not for the big bash today.

Dennis wasn’t one hundred percent happy with his game despite being assured that he wasn’t going too badly and was in with a chance.  As the back nine progressed, his swing found its groove and the club really started to make contact with the ball.  So much so, that on the 15th, the ball almost ended in the car-park so it was somewhat off line.  Targe reported its position but it turned to be too hard to find.  On the 17th, the drive was right in the Lord Mayor’s Office and the chip was right on line but pulled up just a bit short.  The birdie was a welcome result. It contributed to another paltry total of five for the field and won the event with a nett card of 69.

A par there would have resulted in a three way tie with the Beast and Dale who both had their moments with quadruple bogies on their cards.  As it turned out, Dennis would still have won on a count-back.  Bill could easily have been much further down the field as he hit three balls from the tee on the 14th.  Fortunately for Bill, he found the first and proceeded to get his par for the hole.  Michael was heard to be less than happy with at least one of his tee shots but in true Michael style he was still able to put together a pretty good round and came in 3rd spot with his nett 71 from a 74 off the stick.  He was joined by Brendon who was spotted almost lying prone in the middle of the 16th trying to get a sight on the pin of the 14th with his laser range-finder.  Gordon also shared this podium spot after thrilling the crowd with a monster putt for birdie on the 1st, only to let them down when he missed a tiddler on the 18th.  Gordon is a bit of a numbers man and he was all excited about the significance of today’s date and the fact that if you wrote it a certain way it read the same backwards and forwards, which could go some way to explaining the hash he made of writing the date on the top of the results sheet.

Targe (popularly known as Yours Truly) scored himself the 4th place spot on his own with a very steady 72 nett.  Craig reckons he could have played better if it hadn’t taken at least six holes to start thawing out and to stop wearing elevator shoes.  Bob started out a bit on the average side but his game did pick up and he opined that he had not had a whinge all day.  A contra view was that he was actually crying.  Still, a point is a point, and Bob is still the man to catch.  When Bob handed his card in, Targe and others did a double-take as the score written in the result block showed nett 23.  Noodles swears that it was a seven but the only explanation can be that he had a severe case of the hiccups at the time that he wrote it.

After a serious run of Jackpots on the Nearest the Pin competitions over the last month, everyone was on tenterhooks as to whether the run would continue today.  But, it was not to be though there were a few groups through before a name was penned.  The BallPin was on the 15th and Gordo got it not all that close but obviously close enough.  Harry’s was exactly pin high and probably closer but it was his second shot after a stray went OOB.  The ProPin on the 12th only just went off with Simon putting his to 4.52m which was, according to Simon, the highlight of his day.  Only seventeen more to go Si!  The ProPin on the 18th was another one that Harry was exactly pin high to, just not on the green.  That job was left up to Porks who collected the dosh with 2.29m.

And, while on the topic of Noodles, he achieved something today that few others in the club have and had a par on the 2nd from the back blocks.  His drive wasn’t all that great, his second was OK, but the third was a bottler and put the ball almost to gimme distance.  Just goes to show that you chip and putt for dough.  And still on the subject of Noodles and his putting it seems that he is experimenting with different styles to try to improve his performance (putting, that is).  He has worked through conventional, baseball, claw, Wie claw and so forth.  The most successful might have him buying one of the cut-down kids putters though he thinks he might not be able to stand after playing a round putting bent double.

Ed and Michael played in the same group today and marked each other’s cards.  Now Michael has been known to leave it for a hole or two before ‘catching up’ and it seems that Ed’s short term memory went out the window with his teeth.  As a result there was quite a bit of discussion between them about scores and the card marked by Ed was messier than normal.  On the 8th, Michael estimated that Ed’s approach shot was probably on a fairway over at Greenacres but Ed insisted on searching for it while the rest of the group putted out.  By the time that they persuaded Ed out of the jungle and he finished off his 8 strokes for the hole they were about two holes behind and never really caught up.

There was only one draughtie reported today and that was down to Trevor once again.  Not sure which hole it was on but today was not one of Trev’s best.  But, hang in there Trev, one in twenty is a good one (just ask Simon).  Allan has formed a view that deafness can cause heart attacks.  It’s not that he has gone deaf or anything though his dog has and he reckons it just about has a heart attack if you surprise it when it is not looking.

Winter Cup coming up the week after next so this is a big chance for someone to catch Bob (unless, of course, he wins it).  And, yes, it is Par next week but that is no excuse not to come along.  After that, you can revel in three weeks of Stableford.

Results for Saturday, 01 July 2017
1st Dennis Ward(69) 2nd Bill Eastoe(70) 2nd Dale Webb(70) 3rd Michael Gourlay(71) 3rd Gordon Hill(71) 3rd Brendon Mitchell(71) 4th Targe Mifsud(72) 5th Craig Cameron(73) 5th Bob McDonald(73)

Seniors Results: 1st Dennis Ward (69) 2nd Bill Eastoe (70) 3rd Gordon Hill (71)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin No 1 12th Simon Powell ProPin No 2 18th Ryan Porker BallPin 15th Gordon Hill