According to the newspapers, today was the first day of autumn.  Some would argue that there are another three weeks of summer to go.  Regardless, it was a lovely day out there though a few were commenting on how much darker it is in the morning.  A small relief next week as our times have started moving out as we head towards the cooler weather.

The change in seasons did not faze David (aka Morwell) as he was really on fire today and despite a slightly shaky start managed to come in with a nett 59.  All to no avail as far as the medal was concerned but he does rack up the eight points for finishing in front and he improved his eclectic score on no less than nine holes.  Chrispy was heard to say before tee time that he felt that he would line up for back-to-back Medals, which he duly did with his nett 63.  A very fine effort but it does suggest that the handicapping system is not severe enough.  Maybe we need an extra penalty for back-to-backs.  Just joking.

Mehmet thought he was in with a bit of a chance with his nett 64 but it was another turn as bridesmaid again.  MalA also put together one of his better rounds for a while and but for a couple of aberrations he would have been well in contention for the top spot but finished two strokes behind Chrispy.  Laurie played a round of two halves and if he hadn’t taken nine holes to get his act together to finish the back nine in 14 strokes less than he took on the front, two halves like that would have been unbeatable.

The birdies seemed to flow fairly freely today with a total of 15.  Chrispy managed to make the ball bounce at right angles on the ProPin hole (12th) after almost missing the green to take out the money.  MalA got his name on the flag to collect the trophy for the ball hole on the 15th.

There was one official Matchplay match today between Keith and Trevor.  Things were pretty even but Trevor’s gammy leg got the better of him and he conceded when he retired after nine holes.  There was also a Clayton’s second round match between Gordo and Mehm and Gordo was rather pleased that it was make-believe and not for real as Mehm was the notional winner 4 and 3.

Targe was striding confidently forward to recover his ball from the hole when it spun round the lip for a 360 and finished teetering on the lip.  Probably best to wait for the tinkle of the ball in the bottom of the cup, eh, Targe.  One small step for a slug, one giant step for slugkind.  Apparently the worlds first slugstronaut hitched a ride on Stefan’s ball and was last seen heading moonwards a la Minuscule for those that watch ABC TV.

There was a very close call on the 18th tee when a shot from the 17th whistled past one players ear and close to another before striking a parked buggy.  Except for that, there is a fair chance that the ball would have been OOB.  Yes, the bell had been rung but that does not necessarily mean that the players are out of danger.

One of the groups seemed to be having trouble with their counting as all four of them were heard to be shouting ‘four’ over and over.  Brendon, must have had something against the cyclists and walkers on the path by the 3rd as he had a couple of goes at knocking them over with wayward balls.

There was a Committee gathering after the presentations to consider the official end of year accounts and some minor changes to the Club Rules of Association.  In order to ratify the accounts and the Rules changes, there will have to be a Club meeting on 15th March.  This will have the status of an Annual General Meeting and in future years the AGM will be held in March rather than in December at the break-up and presentation day.

The Club also has some donated trophies from the course management.  It has been decided that these will be used for special competitions.  The first two are rounds of golf for 4 people (two must be non-Ivanhoe members) including carts and beers (value approx $150).  These will be contested on the next two monthly medal days (April and May).  The entry fee will be $5 and the results will be determined on Stableford points.  The other trophy is a golf bag valued at about $400.  This will be competed over the month of June which has five rounds in the month.  The entry fee will be $15 and the result will be determined by the best three rounds submitted during the month.  The more rounds you play, the more chance you have of getting three good ones.  The scores will be converted to Stableford for the purposes of the competition.

The Club really would like to get in some new members and we can’t rely on somebody else to do our promotions for us so cast your minds around suitable friends and acquaintances to bring along and join our merry band of burglars.

Results for Saturday, 01 March 2014
1st David Howard(59) 2nd Chris Priems(63) MM 3rd Mehmet Akdag(64) 4th Malcolm Adey(65) 5th Laurie Mannix(67)

Sixteen souls graced the green sward of Ivanhoe on Saturday though only six had taken the time to visit the web-site and indicate their intentions before the page closed.  Still, the competition was obviously fierce and some pretty respectable scores were the result.

The time that Damo has spent coaching the kidlets on how to hit the big red ball doesn’t seem to have harmed his ability to hit the little white one and he hit the ground running to share the honours with Eddie with 39 points.  Although Eddie complains bitterly every time his handicap gets cut he still seems to manage to play to his new one so he should be more than happy about his new mark.

Oliver got off a plane back from somewhere at 0600 and made it to the course in time to play, albeit without a set of clubs and so he had to hire a set.  He claimed that, on the basis that he wasn’t playing with his own clubs, his 38 points should have been enough to win the event.  Quite possibly a fair point, but perhaps AndrewB, who also carded a 38 would have demanded equal treatment so unfortunately for Oliver, the appeal was turned down and both he and Andrew will have to be happy with second place.

If Craig is still short of sleep, it doesn’t seem to be doing the golf any harm with yet another ascent of the podium, right along-side Noodles who is also having a bit of a purple patch.  Another man who has been there or there-abouts in recent times is Bill who came in fourth place though he didn’t improve his eclectic this week even though he did card a couple of the ten or so birdies that were on the cards.  Rounding out the point-getters were Pepsi and Laurie who were just one stroke short of playing to their handicap.

The ProPin on the 12th which had Jackpotted last week went off to Craig who left it 1.73m shy of the mark which was just a bit too long for him the ‘snag’ the birdie.  Nobody put their mark on the ball hole.  There was mention of Jackpot but it is not clear whether that rule applies for the ball.

There were a couple of matchplay matches decided.  Pepsi had to give MalF 19 strokes and it ended up being a reasonable competition with Pepsi eventually prevailing 4 and 2 after a bit of a melt-down by Mal in the 16th.  The other match, between Mehm and SOS was the best match ever (or not) and went down to the wire for Mehm to come in victorious 2 and 1.

Not sure whether the Police ethics lectures have been sinking in or whether SOS has embraced Buddhist principles, but he rescued a dragon (not damsel) fly in distress and carefully placed it on his golf bag to dry out.  Apparently, the dragon’s name was Darren (not Puff) and by the next hole Darren had recovered enough to take flight and rejoin his kin.

Targe has been known to lay off to allow for the curvature of the ball flight after it leaves the club but, on odd occasions, the ball has been known not to take its usual non-linear path.  This might have been the case on the 7th where, it seems, that Targe had to play his second shot from behind where he started after the ball hit a tree.  That would just about have to be double drinks, wouldn’t it?

Results for Saturday, 22 February 2014
1st Ed Kloprogge(39) 1st Damien Lee(39) 2nd Andrew Blight(38) 2nd Oliver Gross(38) 3rd Stephen Butterfield(37) 3rd Craig Sharp(37) 4th Bill Eastoe(36) 5th Laurie Mannix(35) 5th Andrew Petricola(35)

You could be forgiven for thinking that there had been a couple of inches of rain on the course over-night but it seems that the green-keepers are just taking full advantage of the allocation from the Yarra or where-ever they are sourcing the water from these days though it is hard to imagine that the new storm-water system would be contributing much given the lack of precipitation over the last several weeks.  Still, if the course was too dry and bony there’d probably be comments about that as well.

There got to be a bit of warmth in the air and the humidity was up a bit as well so a few people got a bit sticky.  Not to mention the flies that were a bit sticky as well.

No flies on Targe though as he shrugged off the softness underfoot, the heat and humidity and the flies to take out the event with plus three points.  Nothing spectacular, just good steady golf and squaring over half the course.  So not a lot of minus signs on the card.

He wasn’t out in front by too much though with a fair posse right on his tail just a single point behind.  Zimmer, Eddie and Brendon all started out well but seems to have faded just a little on the back nine.  All three had the same results out and back with plus 3 and minus 1.

An even larger group of likely types came just another stroke back and included Craig, RodG, Mehmet and Keith.  Three of the four had very even halves but Keith’s disbelief at how well he was playing got the better of him and he turned a plus five on the front into a minus four on the back to finish in the middle of the field.

The podium got to be pretty crowded today with another three handing in square cards and a further four coming in with minus one.  Which sort of begs the question, just who didn’t get points today?

The ProPin was on the 4th and was somebody heard to ask why was it put on there?  Well, what do you know, it didn’t go off and so there will be a Jackpot for the hungry types to fight over next week.  Eddie is keeping up his supply of balls by taking out the Nearest the Pin on the 15th.  There was also a swag of birdies today with a total of 14.  Craig didn’t do his Eclectic score any harm by gathering four (yes 4) in a row between the 8th and the 11th.  Not bad for a bloke who claims to be not getting too much sleep (wonder why that would be?).  Maybe he dozed off and that helped his game.

Craig was playing Eddie in the Matchplay and that run turned the whole match around and it ended coming down to the wire all square and so the result had to be decided by a chip-off.  Neither chip inspired much confidence, but Craig was able to hold his nerve to sink the putt and take the match.  In other matches, RodG took on Chrispy and it was nip and tuck until the last two holes before RodG finished victorious, 2 up.  Gordon and Ken also did battle to an even closer result with Gordon clinching it on the last, 1 up, after Ken’s chip teetered on the brink of the hole but didn’t fall while Gordon calmed his butterflies and sank the putt.

Laurie had reason to curse the golf gods after a drive on the third finished close by one tree with only a narrow gap between that and a second.  A nicely executed chip navigated the gap only to finish right at the base of another with absolutely nowhere to go from this one.  Brendon was playing in front of MalA again today and had a touch of the nervous nellies when Mal’s shot into the 14th finished uncomfortably close to his buggy.  Fortunately, no damage was done.  And any way, lightning never strikes twice – does it?

Brendon was also hitting the ball out of sight for most of the day.  This was particularly the case on the 17th where he was noticed searching diligently in grass that was as high as an elephant’s eye.  Alas, to no avail and even if he had found it it is doubtful whether it would have been playable.   While on the subject of searching for balls, Bill says he wants a new set of playing partners because the ones he had today didn’t search long enough.  He reckons it was more like five seconds than five minutes.

Results for Saturday, 15 February 2014
1st Targe Mifsud(+3) 2nd Kazim Akdag(+2) 2nd Ed Kloprogge(+2) 2nd Brendon Mitchell(+2) 3rd Mehmet Akdag(+1) 3rd Keith Delzoppo(+1) 3rd Rod Grant(+1) 3rd Craig Sharp(+1) 4th Malcolm Adey(□) 4th Bill Eastoe(□) 4th Oliver Gross(□) 5th Malcolm Fleming(-1) 5th Gordon Hill(-1) 5th Laurie Mannix(-1) 5th Chris Priems(-1)

It must have been the heat addling peoples brains.  Three marked their card off the incorrect handicap, a couple more couldn’t add up their points straight and Targe tried to put scores down for ten holes on the back nine.  One way to increase your points tally even if a little unconventional.

Despite all that and despite the fact that he was one of the miscreants, today’s winner by a good margin with 41 points was none other than Brendon whose Achilles seems to have snapped right back into place so there should be no holding him now though he does have a new handicap to play with so he will need to check it twice next week just to be sure.

Next was the man who isn’t sure whether it is better to be long and soft or short and hard or even the other way around.   Though Noodles was a little way behind Brendon, he was well in front of next place with 38 points and he will also suffer a little at the handicappers hands.

Blighty is back from swanning around the Continent and wasted no time in getting himself onto the podium alongside Chrispy with 35 of the best, a couple in front of the Beast and Targe both of whom left a couple of scratchies on otherwise good cards.

Mehmet, Mostyn Eddie and Gordon managed to stick together to gather the last of the points on offer today.  Given that there were only 14 starters, that didn’t leave too many out of the points – no names, no packdrill.

The Nearest the Pin for a ball on the 12th went to Chrispy who wasn’t too far from the elusive HIO according to all reports.  Interestingly, he only plodded a par for the hole so his legendary putting skills must have abandoned him temporarily.  Speaking of birdies, the count for the day was 11 which is a fair swag given the number of players.  Bill didn’t manage any today though he did try hard to get an eagle on the 17th after his screamer off the tee was variously called as ‘the middle of the green’ or ‘maybe OOB over the back’.  The reality was between the two – on the green back edge.

Guess who was in charge of putting out the ProPin marker on the 15th and ‘forgot’ so opted to put it on the 18th where it just so happened that his ball was in play and he ended up collecting the money.  Just a clue, his name starts with MalF.

There were two Matchplay matches contested today.  Noodles got up over Mostyn 4 and 3 and, after being 7 down and dormie at one stage, Harry lost to Targe also 4 and 3.

It’s a good thing Chrispy is ambidextrous after getting himself into an awkward little spot on the 8th.  It would have been a tough spot even for a left-hander but not for Chris.  Not sure whether he used the face or the back of the club but, which-ever, it was a rescue that rescued him though he did have to settle for a bogey.

Despite the passage of time, Brendon is still whingeing about the broken control knob on his buggy though it doesn’t seem to have affected his game if today’s result is any guide.  Of course, if he had bought some proper Aussie gear he wouldn’t have had to send off to Pommie-land for spare parts and it would probably have been fixed by now.

Mostyn has booked into a flash hotel for a dirty (cool) weekend, ostensibly to escape the heat.  Mehm was suggesting livening proceedings by sending in a dwarf stripper.  Luckily, Targe wasn’t around when his name was mentioned as a contender for the role.

The experiment for getting a system of on-line registration last week seems to have caused a bit of confusion and maybe it could have been explained a bit better.  One of the problems of filling out the sheet after the game is knowing/remembering the intentions of those that are not present.  So, the idea is to get people to register on-line so that the numbers of players can be confirmed more accurately.

After some feed-back, a new form has been prepared and is available under the Registration Tab on the Menu bar at the top of the page.  If you click on that, you will be taken to a page where you can fill out your name and indicate Yes/No for playing next week.  The form will be open until Wednesday.  If everybody does it whether you are playing or not we should be able to confirm our bookings more accurately and keep the Course management on side.  They do look after us, particularly in that we do not have to pay in advance and so forth and we would hate to lose that privilege.

Results for Saturday, 08 February 2014
1st Brendon Mitchell(41) 2nd Stephen Butterfield(38) 3rd Andrew Blight(35) 3rd Chris Priems(35) 4th Bill Eastoe(33) 4th Targe Mifsud(33) 5th Mehmet Akdag(32) 5th Mostyn Gregg(32) 5th Gordon Hill(32) 5th Ed Kloprogge(32)