Well, well, well – talk about three holes in the ground.  Where to start.  There were people complaining how badly they were doing and plodding heaps of plusses and people who thought they were doing all right but finding themselves towards the back of the field.  Plus three or better to score a point, where will it end.  At the end of the handicappers hatchet hopefully.

Despite all that and more strength to his arm, congratulations are well and truly due to Mal who turned with a plus five and despite a couple of wobbles on the back thrust his chest out in a lunge to the line to take first place from a brace of players on plus six. After a round on Thursday, Mal was heard to comment that this had been a practice for Saturday – must have been a darn good practice.

Trevor was contemplating the extra winners penalty stroke for a while until he was joined by Damien and then Andrew B in the eventual second place spot.  Andrew will be happy with the ball he collected in the ball run since he managed to lose three and still turned in a score.

Chrispy had thought himself a chance but had to be satisfied with not having to share third place with anyone with a handicap sapping +5.  Next cabs off the rank were Oliver and Tony who were only able to manage a meagre plus four.

Last but not least a point each went to Mo and Targe.  What happened to Ben you might ask.  Well, it seems that Ben and Targe made compensating errors in calculating Ben’s points so that their strokes and points agreed but unfortunately the correct answerwas that Ben only had +2 and so was not eligible to collect a point this time.  A good reason to check off hole by hole and not just the totals at the end of the round.

Tony was jumping out of his skin again when he collected another ball for his collection by snagging the nearest the pin on the 15th while Andrew B was smiling all the way to the bank with the proceeds from the ProPin on the 4th.  Andrew didn’t manage the birdie but there were eleven others and the big bird is broken hearted after Mehmet raided the nest with an eagle on the 17th.  Mehmet was a bit lucky to get the eagle as the ball went very close to going into the hole from the tee leaving him with the shortest of putts that he wanted to play with a pool cue but settled for a very short grip on his putter.  The tee shot must have been something of a contrast to a shot on the previous hole where a fallen branch was deemed to not come into play.  Unfortunately it did and the subsequent ricochets placed his next shot from somewhere behind him.

There obviously mustn’t have been any slow play today to put Damo off his game considering the score but he did complain that he had stuffed up the last hole.   Oliver claims that he has never hit his drives so long and he was having trouble adjusting for the shorter approaches into the green.  Maybe the drier course has something to do with the run.  As an aside, Gordon is the only square in the field.  Pepsi was heard advising himself in no uncertain terms and fairly vehemently to stop moving his head, and this was only while putting.  Chrispy obviously has been taking lessons from Ken and as well as running his ball up a tree he also managed to leave it lodged in the branches.  The shank of the day goes to Harry who plonked a nice drive down the 8th with a wide open shot to the green only to nearly scone Bob and put it into the billabong.  The replay finished pin high (where the first effort should have been) but the putt for a square proved elusive.  Targe apparently gratefully accepted what is affectionately known as the moron’s flag.

Social Secretary Ben announced that he has been looking at venues for the Annual Challenge (away weekend) and one place that can accommodate the expected sort of group is Murray Downs at Swan Hill.  Ben would like an indication of likely interest so that he can firm up on the tentative reservation that he has made.  As I recall the cost will be about $260 for golfers including golf, accommodation on course, breakfast and dinner – slightly cheaper for non-playing partners.  Check the website for more details of the course and location.

Also just a reminder that the annual sub is now due ($20) so if you can all ante up to the treasurer or his assistant asap that would be good.

Results for Saturday, 12 January 2013
1st Malcolm Fleming(7) 2nd Andrew Blight(6) 2nd Trevor Jackson(6) 2nd Damien Lee(6) 3rd Chris Priems(5) 4th Oliver Gross(4) 4th Tony Mifsud(4) 5th Targe Mifsud(3) 5th Mo Sabih(3)

Wowsers!  The competition out on the course today was almost as hot as the temperature was yesterday.  Thank goodness for the cool change – even if it was a dry one.  Speaking of dry, I gather from the ground staff that the river is reaching restriction levels for pumping and so I think we can expect to see the fairways getting a lot drier especially with some more scorchers predicted for the next week or so.  Certainly the drier conditions brings the run along the ground back into play.  Though, it was noticed that the 10th green today was verging on becoming a water hazard.  A couple of weeks ago they had to come and sweep the water off – perhaps a bit unfair on those who had already come through and had to deal with it.

As far as Mike the Mann is concerned, the ‘shanks’ are well and truly forgotten and he mostly played like a demon today.  I seem to recall that he got a mention in despatches last week as a man on a mission.  Except – a rather unfortunate triple on the 6th and a couple of other slips of the club let the sharpster, Craig through to breast (or should that be stomach) the winning post.  Still and all, the 60 and 61 nett that they carded will keep the handicapper happy and the points will go some way to narrowing the gap on Ken.

Bob continues to enjoy a bit of a purple patch and if he can keep from playing for the cover drives could end up being a force to contend with as the year progresses.  Tony is so short of balls that he was psyching himself up on any par 3 that might have a ball riding on the outcome and he was grinning like the cat that got the cream when the ball run stretched to fourth place.  Brendon and Chrispy rounded out the point getters, just edging out Mal and Harry from opening their scoring for the year.

The big biccies for the jackpotted ProPin on the 15th went off to none other than ex-pres Pepsi who put it just inside 4.5m.  So there wasn’t an awful lot between that and another jackpot.  Damien had to console wimself with a ball for the NTP on the 12th.  There were eight birdies plodded today, down a bit on normal.  And, as an aside, one player wrote down an incorrect handicap and his score has been adjusted to suit.  It pays to check the sheet, despite what you might think, your handicap does change from time to time – in both directions.

Ken is philosophical about his handicap after his win in the Vin O’Meara last month and seems to be keeping himself amused by pulling off impossible shots.  It seems that this week he ran a ball up the trunk of a tree and lodged it in the fork.  A lindrum was his only chance of being able to play it.

Mal should have been up there with the front runners except for some errant play on the 13th.  Mal is well known for a fairly consistent fade/slice but for twice, it didn’t come into play and he put two OOB on the 13th and ended up legs eleven on the hole.  Give him a five and he would have been equal second.

A couple of players also had the in-coming Treasurer cowering behind a tree as he came up the 10th.  At least he was able to spot Tony’s ball where it rolled into the hazard.  SOS also had a fair amount of strife with the greenery so it is told.  Pepsi claimed to be playing Army golf – left, right, left, right…  And I think that somebody must have mentioned Julia to Dennis and distracted him so much that he couldn’t find his ball on the 6th.  He chose not to replay because of the congestion behind us.

Speaking of which, there were definitely six spots booked last weekend but it seems that during the week somebody looked at an old attendance sheet and decided that based on that we didn’t need that many places and cancelled a couple.

Results for Saturday, 05 January 2013
1st Craig Sharp(60) 2nd Mike Mann(61) 3rd Bob McDonald(63) 4th Tony Mifsud(65) 5th Brendon Mitchell(66) 5th Chris Priems(66)

Only seven players managed to make it to the manicured fairways of Ivanhoe to test their ability to keep their head down after the recent festivities.  Perhaps the early overcast put a few off and at least one had grandfatherly duties to attend to.  In any case the handicapper is viewing some of the results with a jaundiced eye.

Chrispy did pretty well with a mere 41 points and regarded it as a tune-up for next week where-as Craig would only reveal that his round was a ‘tuna’ – perhaps one that had been out of the fridge a little too long.  Dennis was also well pleased with his round of 42 points with 25 (yes twenty-five) on the back.  He was still complaining about not having a chance to win the inside comp however.

Ken was also there and is playing his cards close to his chest to try to build on his early burst out of the blocks in the Championship race.  Damo lost a bet on the last as to who in the following group would pick up and pocket the ball that he left lying just down the hill from the front of the green.  Ken eyed it with interest but resisted the temptation only to be detailed to pick it up by Damo.  Others might have told Damo where to get off.

Mike managed to leave the shanks at home and played to his handicap and might be considering the possibility of early points in the coming weeks.  Damo drove to the centre of the green on the 14th and went within a Michael-hair of sinking the putt for an eagle.  It looked in for all money until it reached the hole and then deflected to rim out.  Craig denies that his pin tending was at fault and at least Damo didn’t miss out on cleaning out the Eagle’s Nest.  One of the little known facts about Craig concerns his skills in all things computing – it seems he has this new app for paying for things on the net called PenPal.

Another hot topic was the things that put people off their game and that could come in handy when the Matchplay rounds come up.  The burning question is whether to publish or keep it for my own devious means or whether to auction the info on e-Bay.  Perhaps, I’ll just let it out a bit at a time or send it to Julian to publish on Wiki-Leaks.

The Christmas spirit has obviously had an effect.  We could only fill three groups and then only with the help of a couple of guests and despite the picture they didn’t include Santa.  Looks like the old fella’s putting style could do with a brush up and I’m not sure what the green-keeper will think about him tromping all over the edge of the cup.  And he doesn’t appear to be wearing sprigs.

There wasn’t a lot of interest in an informal comp from those that did play so how people actually went is a bit hard to guage.  Plus about four seem to have managed to get lost on the course or nicked off without calling into the Clubhouse. Dennis was insisting that as it wasn’t a formal event it should be ‘no names no pack-drill’ but he was complaining that he was going to lose handicap having returned +2 in the inside comp and it probably wouldn’t be enough to win anything.

Mike the Mann had a really bad case of the ‘shanks’ and managed to give just about every tree on the course some sort of attention.  He did manage to avoid the trees on the 12th, much to his relief.

Bill was trying to persuade his guest, Angelo, that it was a Club rule that guests were required to shout the field.  It also seems that Angelo was so consistently down the middle that Bill didn’t need to point out bunkers and hazards (after the event).

Nobody is sure how it happened, but Harry’s tee shot on the 18th hit the ground so hard that the club shaft struck him just below the knee and caused a nice little bruise and drew blood.

On the basis of the small numbers attending, the number of tee times booked for next week has been reduced to four.  If people can give an indication if they intend to turn up we might be able to squeeze in more.

The first official event for the new year will be the January Monthly Medal on  5th January.