Not sure what the weather was like in Melbourne but it was a pea-souper up here in Queensland until almost ten o’clock.  Whatever the weather, it doesn’t seem to have affected the scoring and if you didn’t match your handicap or better, you weren’t in the points.

Well done RodW for a mighty impressive +5.  That will set you back a bit on the handicap front, just in time for the Winter Cup that kicks off next week.  Gilbert and Mostyn haven’t wasted any time settling in to their recently acquired player status and settled for equal second with +3.  Gilbert could easily have been further back in the field if it hadn’t been for an eagle on the 17th. That would have collected him four balls leaving the big bird absolutely devastated with the loss of her little family.

Stefan, Damo and RodG must have thought themselves a chance with a very respectable +2 but eased out the other points scorers Targe and Brendon.

Brendon also managed to gather himself a ball by picking up the Nearest the Pin on the 12th with Stefan collecting the ProPin on the 18th.

Ken and AndrewB played their third round Matchplay and Ken ended up victorious though at this stage the margin is not known.

For the Seniors, RodG, Targe and Mo collected the points but the table has barely changed and the competition is still wide open.

Dick mustn’t have been doing so well so he tried to take out a couple of the leaders with a well directed ricochet from a tree and nearly collected RodW and Mostyn.  SOS also had his moments playing a quite brilliant recovery after a bit of a duff to be within a metre only to take a triple putt to get it into the hole.  It was on the 14th though.

Chrispy started off in the pink (well his ball was anyway) but he ended up playing with a white B51 (where’d he find that one? – in a hazard somewhere?).

It also seems that Stefan tried a new form of sledging with Zimmer but he got some of his own back and it didn’t come off – well not until his daks went into the wash.

The handicaps for those that broke have been adjusted but not the rest of the field which will be done on Wednesday.  The Championship tables have also been updated manually but will be reposted when the official handicap run is done.

Results for Saturday, 13 July 2013
1st Rod White (+5) 2nd Gilbert Demiri(+3) 2nd Mostyn Gregg(+3) 3rd Stefan Belevski(+2)3rd Damien Lee(+2) 3rd Rod Grant(+2)4th Targe Mifsud(+1) 5th Brendon Mitchell(square)

How low can he go?  It looks as if all the practice at Rosanna is beginning to pay off for Ken as he managed to sneak in to take the Medal with 82 off the beater for a nett 64 and a very handy eight points in the Championship Table.  Still a bit of a way to go to catch the front runners but with the Fred Howe coming up in a couple of weeks another double header would put him within striking distance.

The terrible twins, Stefan and Zimmer were only just out of it and avoided the need for a countback decision with a very creditable 65 nett.  They managed to play in the same group, despite the draw for groupings but collusion is not suspected.

Chrispy could very easily have been a contender for the top spot, except for a couple of aberrations but he had to satisfy himself with third spot with nett 66.  David continues to be thereabouts since his recent return to more regular playing and his 67 won’t do much harm to his handicap.

Bill is another who didn’t harm his handicap to collect the last point on offer with his 68.

Ken, BEast and Oliver collected the points for the Seniors and there are still at least half a dozen contenders in there with a chance.

The ProPin today was on the 15th and there weren’t too many names on the flash new marker because Stefan got the nod and he was in the first group.  Nice little divvie there.  The Nearest the Pin for a ball was on the 4th and SOS managed to top the pops for that.  Regardless of the shortage of names on the markers, the birdies weren’t backward in coming forward and there were 21 plodded today.  This must just about be a record though the numbers were slightly higher than in recent times.  Noodles had a chance for an eagle on the 17th but missed the about one metre putt and  only ‘just’ got the next one for the birdie.

At the other end of the scale, there were at least two five putt greens recorded by Harry on the 10th and by AndrewB on the 14th – and none of them were mis-hits.  Another player had his armageddon on the 17th, putting five (yes five) into the hazard.  Needless to say it was dennistating.

Gordon reckons he hit only one straight drive all day and that was into the river from the 17th.  He’s planning to go down to Dight’s Falls to see if he can retrieve it.  Chrispy thought he was playing on a private golf course, the group he was in was so controlled and polite though Oliver did break out and blaspheme when his dream run started to unravel.  SOS was seen to be madly pressing buttons on his buggy remote to try to summon it from afar but little did he know that one of his so-called mates had turned it off while he was looking for his ball and SOS hadn’t noticed that it wasn’t following him.  Be careful next time you pull into a booze-bus lane fellas.

In some of the after game discussion, the topic got around to playing on other courses and dealing with trees and bunkers and it was pointed out to Chrispy that he had less success in bunkers than Adolf Hitler.

The majority of regular members are now either transferred to our GolfLink register, newly registered with us or have been brought in as Non-Home members.  The Ivanhoe Men’s handicapping system will continue as before.  Those that play the inside competition will be entered into the GolfLink system by the clubhouse staff.  Those that do not play the inside competition and who want to have their scores used for their official handicap should fill out a card with their GolfLInk number and handicap and have it marked and signed and hand to the club handicapper who will enter it to the GolfLink system for you.  The new GolfLInk membership cards should be in the mail to you within the next few days.  It seems to take about a week from when the registration/transfer is done.

Results for Saturday, 06 July 2013
1st Ken Grist(64) 2nd Kazim Akdag(65) 2nd Stefan Belevski(65) 3rd Chris Priems(66) 4th David Howard(67) 5th Bill Eastoe(68)

Last week, we had the frost and ice to deal with.  This week the fog and mist.  Not sure which was the worst but some opted to volunteer for the last group to try to avoid the worst of it.  Not sure that it made a huge difference looking at the scores that came in from the last group.  Apparently, there were a couple of lost balls on the first.  The course is still a bit damp in places and so the relief rule was in place once more and that perhaps helped some more than others – or maybe they just played better.

One person who did play better after a few weeks away keeping the ruffians at the Darklands under control was Dennis who looked more than a little concerned when Mehm announced a winning score of 44 points but, fortunately, it was just Mehm’s warped sense of humour.  Well done Dennis, the points have given you a nice little boost up both Championship tables.

Hot on the heels of Dennis was RodW who has been lurking in the background for a while now and is starting to gather a few points.  Gilbert wasn’t too far behind and scored third spot on his own after a calculation error on Mo’s card dropped him down to join Targe in 4th spot.  Zimmer and Noodles filled the last of the point scoring spots.

There were a fair swag of Seniors who scored points today – Dennis (3), Mo and Targe (2) and Mike, Trevor and AndrewB (1).

Nobody else managed to break their handicap today but there were one or two calculation errors on the cards.  So please, chaps, take a bit of care and be sure to cross check where you get strokes and agree the calculations with your marker.

As well as coming in second on the scoring front, RodW did pretty well in other areas as well as he got his name on both the nearest the Pin and ProPin.  This doubling up seems to be getting to be a common thing.  Poor old Jack had to hand over the cash that he was holding from last week so the stakes won’t be nearly so high next week.  The birdie tally was 17 which is pretty good and they seemed to be pretty well spread around.  Nobody seems to have scored an eagle though there was a rumour that somebody might have gone close.

Mostyn and Sinan put in their third cards today and they now have an official Ivanhoe handicap.  Welcome to the Club boys.

One person who didn’t go close was Craig who set a new record for short putting by moving the ball by less than a centimetre.  Craig reckons it was an accident.  Damo must have been doing it tough as he reckoned he had handed the Championship to Oliver by the 13th.  Oliver didn’t make the points though so the status quo remains at the top though there have been some moves further back that have potential to affect the result at the end of the year.

The moves to set up our GolfLink membership are under way and once this weeks results have been entered by the Club House, the membership transfers will begin and you will be notified by e-mail of your new GolfLink number as soon as it becomes available.  You will receive a new membership card in due course.  In the meantime, note your new number and use it to check your scores and handicap on GolfAccess and for entering competitions.  Those of you who are not nominating Ivanhoe Men’s as your Home Club will retain your existing membership number.  New GolfLink members will receive a new handicap according to the rules of the official handicapping system.  The Ivanhoe Men’s competitions and handicapping system will continue as before.  However, if you wish to have scores entered into the official system when you do not play the inside competition, you will have to keep a card with your official handicap and your GolfLink membership number.

Results for Saturday, 29 June 2013
1st Dennis Tiernan(43) 2nd Rodney White(42) 3rd Gilbert Demiri(40) 4th Targe Mifsud(39) 4th Mo Sabih(39) 5th Kazim Akdag(38) 5th Stephen Butterfield(38)

The solstice has passed us by and this morning was the first day of the astronomical winter.  There was a nice high pressure cell overhead and the clear skies allowed the temperature to plunge – minus 2C was reported in places nearby – and the course was nicely frosted over until the sun got above the trees to thaw some of it out.

The soft greens and the accumulation of ice around spikes meant that the greens took on the appearance of the surface of the moon and as they count as spike marks, there was no option for repair – though you’d have been there all day had you tried to.  The ice is a loose impediment though and that could at least be brushed away, provided of course that you were on the putting surface.

The ball did have a tendency to pick up ice and sand and grow somewhat in diameter, track off line and pull up short much to the chagrin of some players.

Despite the icy start, play went well for some and a few fairly impressive scores were forthcoming.  In particular, Bill, who was in the front group and was responsible for a lot of the pock marks in the greens, managed to come in plus four and was quietly confident that he would be hard to beat, particularly with encouragement from David and others in the following group.  As it turned out, he was hard to beat, but he was equalled by none other than SOS who produced a mirror image round with plus one on the front and plus three on the back.  The points have leapfrogged the BEast over Damo in the Championship Table so there is plenty of excitement left the the competition yet.

Ultra reliable Oliver put in another sterling performance to maintain his front runner status with plus two.  A bit of a cluster in third spot with +1 included Damo, Harry and Zimmer.  This was followed by a group of squares such as Ben, Mehm, Chrispy and Stefan.  RodW collected himself another point on his own at -1.  Seniors points went to Bill, Oliver and Harry.

There were two closely fought Matchplay matches played today.  Stefan prevailed over Harry 1 up in a match that was never more than one hole each way and could have gone either way on a number of occasions.  David and Dick also played their second round match in a similarly close run thing with David getting up 1 up as well.  David reckons Dick was a bit stiff on the 17th when he over hit the green with his 5 iron from the tee and the ball could not be found.

Despite some hoo-haa before tee time about the money being on the 4th, it turned out that nobody got close enough to claim so the old stager Jack Potts will hold the cash till next week to see if we can do any better.  The Nearest the Pin for a ball on the 12th went to Stefan who almost broke Harry’s heart by sinking the putt for his birdie after Harry put the pressure on by putting in from off the green for the par.  Speaking of birdies, there were 16 today which isn’t too shabby a number.  Once again the Eagle was left in peace.

It seems that today was a day for hats.  First off Trevor left his at home.  Gordon wore his startled hair hat.  Ben was getting around looking like a Parisian artist/gangster.  Tony was resplendent in a jolly tartan from the Old Course at St Andrews.  And last but not least there was another hat challenge between Bill and Zimmer.  Needless to say, Bill was victorious and was insistent on showing it off instead of getting his photo taken.  He has also promised to keep Zimmer informed of its adventures during the coming week.

In other news, Trevor and Noodles were heard to be admonishing themselves and we also suspect that Damo was not too happy about one of his tee shots.  He made up for it on the 18th by chipping in for a birdie from what appeared to be an impossible position amongst the bushes.  No reports of any draughties today, though Jan was away.

The arrangements with Golf Victoria and GolfLink will be finalised this week and an update will be circulated as soon as information comes to hand.

Results for Saturday, 22 June 2013
1st Bill Eastoe(+4) 1st Stephen O’Sullivan(+4) 2nd Oliver Gross(+2) 3rd Kazim Akdag(+1) 3rd Harry Boughen(+1) 3rd Damien Lee(+1) 4th Ben Akdag(□) 4th Mehmet Akdag(□) 4th Stefan Belevski(□) 4th Chris Priems(□) 5th Rodney White(-1)