Perhaps it was all the chocolate that was consumed over the Easter break or maybe the school holidays kept a few away but we could only muster 18 players on what was a really magnificent day for playing the beautiful game.  The sun was shining and the wasps were out in numbers and according to all reports there were some fine golf shots played.

Trevor turned up with his waist pinched in almost as fine as Ryans thanks to his new back support system and it certainly seems to have kept him pretty well on the straight and narrow.  Except for one occasion when he showed his support for the West Indies Cricket Team and that caused him to force himself to buy drinks for his group after the round.

He didn’t have it all his own way though as there were three others champing on the bit in the Clubhouse and working through the machinations of first and second stage count-backs but to no avail as Trevor ended up doing it easily, carding a nett 32 on the back nine to beat out Michael and Chrispy, who could only manage 32.5, and Harry, who was a bit further back with 33.5.  Playing exactly to handicap (68) eased the handicap pain for the four of them to just the leaders penalty.

Mehmet squeezed into second place on his own and a couple of strokes further back was none other than Laurie who seems to be hitting a bit of a purple patch in recent weeks.  Then followed a veritable horde including Steffie, Blighty, Whitey, Kloppie and DayLee.  Just couldn’t resist trying to get all the ‘e’ endings.

And last on the podium for his maiden Championship point was Taner who had a pretty fair old day of it by seeing off the Beast in the Matchplay 4 and 2.  In a couple of other matchplay results today, Targe was able to come out victorious over Gordon 3 and 1 while Stefan was able to deal with CraigC 2 up.  Ed advised that he would not be able to play his round against David and conceded the match and earlier in the week the Angel conceded his match to Michael.  That puts the event on schedule and one match of the second round has been completed.  Keep up the good work and let’s keep the Event on track.

The Nearest the Pin for a ball was on the 12th and wouldn’t you know it, somebody from the first group put it so close that it was almost no contest from there-on in.  And the person who put it so close and collected the ball was Chrispy who claimed to be suffering all day from a bad case of bridegroom’s groin.  Gordon seems to have had his priorities all wrong when he was sledging Chrispy while at the same time being shown how to play Match by Targe.  The lead did not change once during the match (or even get square).  The ProPin was on the 18th and the three of the four members of the third group put in a good show of fighting it out for the honour only to be trumped by Noodles who put it within a whisker of a metre from the hole.  He then took three putts to put it away so no birdies to add to the tally on that occasion.

There were 11 birdies plodded for the day and, would you believe it, an eagle on the 8th by Whitey who tonked it in from about 145m out (according to some reports).  Not much to show for the effort as only one ball in the nest but it did help his Eclectic score on a little.  Speaking of the Eclectic, once again Noodles has his nose in front which he managed to do for a fair bit of last season as well.  Seems he is pretty good at getting birdies but manages to protect his handicap by stuffing up on others.  Stefan currently has a healthy lead in the Championship and after daylight in second place there is a fair herd of contenders but it is still early days and there are any number of majors still to come to give the points a boost.  The Seniors is also a fair contest at the moment with a bit of a blanket to cover the first four places at least.  But, anything can happen.

Today was also the first round of the IGL Competition and the results were as follows (remember this is stroke so lowest score wins):  Bulldogs 143 defeated Tigers 150, Saints 136 defeated Blues 140 and Hawks 148 defeated Magpies 150.  The Teams, Draw, League Ladder and Rules are on the web under the Competitions Menu.

The Birthday Birdie has checked his calendar again and our recently blooded Treasurer, Stephen (aka Constable SOS) will be fronting up to the candle fire during the week.  Hopefully, the missus will give him something nice.

There were a couple of up and downs worthy of note today.  On the 14th, Harry played his third shot from between the tee markers for the 15th to finish about 1.5m from the hole and sank the putt for the par.  On the 17th, Damo put his tee shot on the side of the 18th tee mound and from an awkward down-hill lie played it over the fence and finished about 5 metres past the hole – a pretty good result in anybody’s book.  He then rattled in the putt for a calm as you like birdie.  Damo did say that he played much better when he gave up hope and relaxed.

Mehm and Noodles played in the same group and by the end of the round Mehm reckoned he was well sick of Noodles borrowing his lighter.  You could give up smoking, Mehm.  Chrispy is sticking by his resolution never to play with a white ball this season and today was no exception as he strode out with a fetching pink number that he agonised over last week while collecting for an inside win a week or two ago.  He had to settle for the fluoro yellow from the Club bag for todays ball-run hand-out.  Michael continues to report problems with his shoulder but claims that it is helping his game by making him concentrate and slow down his back-swing.  It must be said that he was noticed with some fairly significant grimaces on his face particularly after tee shots.

And what is it about our marriageable members and getting to the celebrations on time.  It seems that the blushing bride that joined in holy wedlock with ChrisV yesterday also ended up running late with the grid-lock in the city due to the sit-in demonstrations at Flinders and Swanston.  Hopefully the travel connections will work better and Chris doesn’t come back with bridegroom’s groin.  The reception must have been pretty good as Ryan was heading off home after the game to get some shut-eye.

Results for Saturday, 11 April 2015
1st Harry Boughen(68) 1st Michael Gourlay(68) 1st Trevor Jackson(68 MM cb) 1st Chris Priems(68) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(70) 3rd Laurie Mannix(72) 4th Stefan Belevski(73) 4th Andrew Blight(73) 4th Ed Kloprogge(73) 4th Damien Lee(73) 4th Rodney White(73) 5th Taner Kemal(75)

A lot of people were obviously swanning off around the country-side and others were spending time with their families while others were out till all hours of the night patrolling the streets and slept in.  Still, nine cheerful souls turned up and an enjoyable time was had by all – well almost all.  There was a certain amount of discussion about whether it should have been a Social Event or not particularly from Snags who is restricted in his attendance due to work commitments.  Then of course there was fuel added to the fire when Targe chipped in from the bottom of the hill on the 13th to birdie the hole and he desperately would like it to count towards his eclectic.  It’s hard to believe it was a chip from the bottom of the hill as they reckon that Targe got far enough the hill to see the ball fall into the hole and he has to get further up the hill than most to do that.

There is a theory around that there is a phenomenon in golf known as the PBSU (particularly among the longer handicappers) known as the Post Birdie Stuff-Up.  Well, maybe it took more than one hole for the effect to cut in as Targe managed to put his ball out of bounds on the 15th – not on the left as you might imagine, but on the right across the 16th fairway and into the Tennis Club carpark.  That would just about have to be a first.

On the subject of going astray, as usual, there was an inside ProPin on the 18th and Harry’s tee shot ended up about 600mm from the hole.  The only problem was, it was the hole on the 9th green.  Oh well, them’s the breaks!

Chrispy reckons that Snags had a bit of a brain fade  – now there’s and oxymoron for you – on the 12th.  Craig’s tee-shot landed squarely on the green only a metre or so from ChrisV who was still in the process of filling out the ProPin marker for Ryan, who won the cash that was up for grabs by the way.  Chris was particularly perturbed as he is getting married next Friday and didn’t particularly want to be carrying any unexpected bruising to the event.  Trouble is he reckons he won’t be able to get to golf next Saturday or even for the next five weeks.  Some small matter of a honeymoon appears to be interfering.

No such problems for Chrispy though as he was on deck to do battle in the Matchplay with little brother Rob.  Lots of whinges about having to give little bro 15 strokes and for most of the round it was a fairly close-run thing.  In the end, big bro got up by the margin of 3 and 1 but it was dormie at four and Rob made a good show of trying to bring it in to a chip-off.  A loss at the 17th put the nail in the coffin.

Chrispy’s wedding wasn’t without its moments as it seems that the vehicle tasked with getting them to the Registry Office managed to get lost and then got caught up in traffic for a major event in town and delivered them to said RO about 10 minutes late.  It seems that a few minutes more and the nuptials would have to have been rescheduled.  And it’s not that Chris isn’t going to have a honeymoon, he and the blushing bride are planning to spend a few days in the city staying at posh pubs and the like.  Then they might do the mountains – like Mt Waverley, Mt Eliza and so forth.

After all of that, how did the rest of the field go you might ask.  Well, the best of the bunch was young Laurie who, despite some ups and downs – not the chip and putt ones, managed to put together 36 points to lead the field in the Clubhouse.  He was followed closely by Snags who, despite some belly-aching during the round came in just a single point behind on 35.

Dennis showed that his handicap could very easily head southward in the near future once he gets his contact with the ball back into a more reliable mode.  Harry and ChrisV joined him with 33 points.  Rob actually beat Chrispy on a points basis pipping him 31 to 30 at the end of the day.  Targe also fronted up with 30 points which left Ryan, the ‘big’ winner of the day financially, trailing the field with only 28 points.  And, if there had been Championship points going, he would have been the only one to miss out.

The Birthday Birdie has been checking his diary and sees that there are some Birthday wishes due in the coming week.  Mehmet will have another candle to add to his cake while RodG should start checking his smoke alarms before he light up his collection and blows them out. Also to Rod, hopes for a speedy recovery from the shoulder injury that is keeping him from the greensward.

Now that daylight saving time has finished, our tee time has moved back to 0714 for the time being so, if you don’t read this, please check your email or the next week event details at the top of the page.  If you get there at this week’s time, we will most likely be gone.

Once again the weather gods smiled down and although there were a few spots of rain on the way to the course, there was absolutely nothing when it really mattered.  The fact that it was generally over-cast was to some extent compensated for by the brightness of the shirts that graced the forms of most of our members.  A really good turn up of 25 members, many of whom were just along for the walk showed the respect that the Club has for Stuart.

JohnQ doesn’t own a beach shirt and was dressed to kill at just about any disco in town and the only thing lacking was the shirt open to the waist and the gold chain around the neck.  Not sure how John persuaded his wife that he was actually going to play golf.

After jumping the gun a bit with the beach shirt last week Eddie turned up resplendent again and obviously meant to play.  Though he did waver in a couple of places, a sprinkling of four and three pointers was enough for him to present with another 39 points to take out the main prize by a margin of four points at 78 for the two rounds.  In his response, Ed mentioned what an honour it was to win this memorial trophy for Stuart.  Well done Ed and by the bye, it will be a little while till you play off 10 again.

Another person who obviously came to play with a desire to get his name on the trophy was Rodger who put in a very impressive score of 41 points.  However, it does seem that he had to scramble a bit the whole round but the short game saved the day for him.  Rodger has vowed that he will be back next year to make sure that he gets his name on Stuart’s trophy at least once.

Pepsi started off the day like a house on fire with two birdies after three holes which just about broke Damo’s spirit in the Matchplay round that they were playing.  Damo managed to hang in there though and was probably a bit unlucky to go down in the match 4 and 2.  Particularly as, once the match was over, Pepsi tonked his drive on the 17th while Damo hit it true to the green and then proceeded to sink the putt for an eagle.  Pity there was only one egg in the nest  and the handicapper doesn’t seem to have received Damo’s card.  So does it really count?

Right alongside Pepsi in the wash up was none other than Mehmet who was heard complaining about the large fields and not getting many points.  Well there you go Mehm, six of the best.  Noodles came in next after dropping off the pace a bit from last week.  Maybe it was the pressure of playing in the leaderboard group alongside Ed.  Bob was heard to be claiming some of the credit for Ed’s performance so maybe it didn’t rub off on Noodles.

Last, but not least, in the podium stakes was JohnQ who had a bit of a mixed day of it particularly on the front nine.  Perhaps he was a bit distracted by the matchplay match that he was playing against Harry and didn’t know which part of his game to concentrate on.  He got his mojo back on the back nine though and wore Harry down to eventually take the match 2 up.

Further back (actually that should be forward) in the field  Keith and Mal battled it out in another Matchplay round and it was a pretty close run thing all day before Keith eventually got his nose in front and ended up taking the match 1 up.  The first round of the competition is coming along not too badly but there are still a few matches to be scheduled and only a couple of more weeks to get them out of the way.  Next week’s Social round would be a very good opportunity if you can arrange it.  Those of you who know your opponents for the second round could also start arranging the date.  No shame in getting in as early as possible.

There was supposed to be a Nearest the Pin for a ball and a ProPin but it seems that young Zimmer was so intent on getting away on time to get to his soccer match that he not only forgot to put out the markers but also took them with him in his golf bag so it looks as if we will just have to declare the ProPin null and void and put the money up for grabs again at the next Club Event.  Social event next week will just be for those there on the day.

As well as the ‘non’-eagle, there were only 12 birdies carded today which seems a bit on the low side for the number of players in the field but it does align with the numbers from last week.  The greens certainly are a bit on the bouncy side with the effects of the fungus and bird damage combining to roughen them up more than somewhat.

Damo was having problems working out why his tee shots were being so erratic, draw one, fade the next and the like.  At the 9th, he discovered that he had his shirt on inside out.  Not sure what he had been up to the night before but it can’t have been that dark when he got up this morning.  Also, it didn’t really improve his game that much once he got it right.  At least not until after he had lost the match at the 16th.

Allan was demonstrating one of the idiosyncrasies of his mobility-mobile relating to the operation of the accelerator and how it was the opposite to that on a real bike/scooter.  In the process he forgot the very thing he was on about and accelerated instead of braked and in the process went close to running the scooter up Bobbies leg and behaving something like an overly amourous dog.  Way back, Allan had a motorised buggy that got carried away and tried a similar trick on another players buggy when the remote control turned on in Allan’s pocket.  You’ve got to be careful with all the hi-tech stuff Allan.

Noodles must have thought he was in Tombstone Territory when his drive from the 6th, the tee was right up the back, hit the hole marker (tombstone) on the forward tee and promptly ricocheted back across the 5th green and finished in the middle of said fairway.  Must have made a fair recovery though as he still finished with a 6 for the hole.

Gordon did a fair amount of whoopin’ and hollerin’ on the 12th when his tee shot hit the green and appeared to run up well to the hole and disappeared from sight.  Surely he couldn’t have fluked another HIO.  But no, it was a full 3m short and probably wouldn’t have qualified for the NTP (even if it had been there).

Dennis Ward completed his third card today and now has his handicap and will be able to join the competition next Club Event.  Better watch out, he has a 27 and there is a bit of a history of first time winners.

The catering today was spot on with a good selection of snags and burgers.  Gordon seems to have slipped right into his role as Social Secretary but needs to brush up on his religious instruction as he was careful to check with Mehm if he was OK to eat chicken.  Regardless, the chicken snags did go down a treat.

Results for Saturday, 28 March 2015
1st Ed Kloprogge(39, 39, 78) 2nd Rodger Clarke(33, 41, 74) 3rd Mehmet Akdag(35, 38, 73) 3rd Andrew Petricola(34, 39, 73) 4th Stephen Butterfield(38, 33, 71) 5th John Quinlan(37, 33, 70)

Maybe somebody up there is looking upon us favourably for Stuart’s Memorial Event as the weather could not have been better if we had put in an order for it.  Admittedly there was a bit of a chill in the air first off and only a few of the tougher members headed off in their shirt-sleeves  though after a few holes pretty much everybody had discarded their outer layer.  Eddie jumped the gun a bit and turned up resplendent in his best beach shirt and maybe it was just a ploy to put off the opposition by dazzling them with the brilliance of it all.  As it turned out, he didn’t have to do much dazzling as he turned in one of his major winning performances to take the spot as Clubhouse leader at the half way mark.

Noodles obviously came to play today as he had lined up to meet Mark in their Matchplay round and the two combined nicely to leave him in second place with a nicely positioned 38 points and to win him the match over Mark 4 & 2.  Whilst on the topic of Matchplay, there are not too many weeks left before the deadline for the first round is upon us and we really do want to keep to the schedule this year.  Next week and the social round on Easter Saturday would be excellent times to get them done rather waiting till the last day the week after Easter.  Members who know their round 2 opponent already should start planning to play at the first opportunity.

JohnQ, Paul and ChrisV are also well placed to pounce for the big prize just another point behind Noods.  Paul did particularly well after having shown his support for the West Indian cricket team on the first tee.  John made out that he was less than happy with the way it was going during the round but maybe that was just one of those relative things.  Chris is undecided as to whether he will be gracing us with his presence next week and maybe that has something to do with the fact that he is getting married in a couple of weeks.

Must be something to do with the name as Chrispy also won’t be gracing us with his presence all because of a small matter of having to go to a wedding – his own.  Should have organised things a bit better than that Chris.  Particularly as he is well within striking distance alongside Pepsi  just a few points back on 37.  Pepsi brought tears to the eyes of our venerable Eagle by knocking it in for a three on the 6th to take home four extra balls.

But, there are others who are better placed.  Mehmet is managing to put together some of his old form on a regular basis and is right up there alongside Bob and well placed to cause an upset with a five point turn-around.  Mind you, Bob could easily have been front runner if it hadn’t been for four non-scoring holes on the front nine.  This was interesting because most of the other leaders did significantly better on the front and faded a bit on the back.

The full leader board is posted under the Competitions menu if you want to see how the rest of the field went.  The field will go out more or less in reverse score order next week with the front group detailed to get the bar-b-que going and making sure that the filet steak for group 3 is done to a turn by the time that they come in.  Or at least that is what Gordon would like to think would happen – tell ‘im he’s dreamin’.

Although we did have the Eagles Nest raided this week, the birdies were remarkably thin on the ground given the number of players and compared to recent weeks in that there were only 10 altogether.  One who probably did get one on the 12th was JohnQ who put it about a metre from the hole to collect himself a ball for the Nearest the Pin.  The ProPin was somewhat more controversial as it had been announced to be on 15 and Bob tried his darndest to take it out by putting the ball within a couple of metres.  Alas, the front squad either forgot or decided to give themselves another chance and carried the marker on to the 18th where it languished on the side-lines and did not attract a single scratching on the card.  So, there will be big bucks up for grabs next week and Ed at least is very excited about the prospect.

The Beast was observed playing his second shot with a driver from the fairway on the 7th.  Not sure exactly what happened to the first but this one finished on the edge of the green and Bill finally birdied the 8th when he sank the putt.  He immediately whipped out his phone and texted Oliver the good news at overcoming his nemesis but unfortunately Oliver probably will never get the chance to get his on the 18th.

As usual, Rodger was along for Stuart’s Memorial and while he is a bit back in the field, it would not be an impossible task to collect the trophy.  And this was despite the fact that at the 13th Rodger declared that, if the flag was white, he would be waving it.

If you’ve heard the adage, rooster one week, feather duster the next, then Whitey would have just about epitomised that today.  Almost certainly not due to the cut in handicap that he took after last week’s effort.  Apparently one of his best tee shots for the day was made with his putter, but then again that is not that unheard of from events like the 3 Club Challenge.

Allan was out and about on his new toy, one of those ‘I’m going to be a scooter when I grow up’ personal golf carts.  If it was supposed to help his game, it doesn’t seem to have done a great job – or, then again, maybe it did!

Pepsi was asking all and sundry in the vicinity if anybody had picked up a ball near the 7th tee from his shot from the 8th.  Despite the dark looks and mutterings, the ball was eventually found exactly where it was supposed to be.  Another almost bad one on the 14th prompted a provisional blow from Pepsi but the first turned out to be quite safe and saved the day.

Dennis Ward came along again today and put in his second card so we can look forward to welcoming Dennis to the Competition field in a couple of weeks.

Don’t forget to wear a suitable loud Hawaiian beach shirt or failing that just about anything in bad taste would suffice.  Stuart was known for his taste in shirts and we like to tip our lid to his memory by emulating his style.

First Round Scores – 21 march 2015

1st Ed Kloprogge(39) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(38) 3rd John Quinlan(37) 3rd Paul Rowland(37) 3rd Chris Vinecombe(37) 4th Mehmet Akdag(35) 4th Bob McDonald(35) 5th Andrew Petricola(34) 5th Chris Priems(34)