How come some people manage to perform on days when their handicap won’t be affected?  Must be something to do with associating with bird-brains.  Regardless of the circumstances, a great round by Eddie with 81 off the stick and 64 nett was more than enough to snare the main trophy. And it included at least four double bogies.  Ed wasn’t entirely on his own with Oliver only two strokes behind in second place.

These were the only two to better the course with a veritable flock of ducks carding that popular number sixty-nine.  Purely for the sake of curiosity, Mehmet won from the bunch on a count-back.

As well as the Champion of Champions, there was an unofficial event for the Chump of Chumps.  Not sure how to determine the ‘winner’ of this one but on the basis of best nett, Tony scored with a nett 70.  Out of kindness, it won’t be mentioned who came in at the other end of the field

SOS managed to lob one onto the 12th to score a ball for Nearest the Pin but once again the ProPin on the 15th went begging so Double Jackpot for the next official round for the January Monthly Medal.  Lobbying to put it on next week was largely unsuccessful.  There’ll just have to be an unofficial one over the next couple of weeks.

There were a couple of unfamiliar faces on deck today.  Emilio was back to try to build on his early burst of form but the good food and fellowship in Italy and playing on a ‘flash’ course doesn’t seem to have done his game much good as he was well out of contention.

Club Life member, Neil Argall came along for the after gathering and lunch and reminisced about the good old days and helped out with the trophy presentations.

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Trevor hadn’t suffered any ill effects from his fall but it seems that his ankle was much the worse for wear as a result and so he only signed up for 9 holes and hobbled around for the love of the game.  He sprang up pretty lively though when Gordon presented him with his winnings from the Calcutta Auction.

The weather forecast was a bit ambivalent and things didn’t look too bad to start with but after about an hour it started to look as if we would have to call for the lights to be turned on.  And then came the rain – well sort of.  After a couple more holes, it started to brighten and the nervous glances at the sky after the one rumble of thunder soon made way for an appreciation of the lightening (and progressively more blue) sky.  Not sure whether the weather affected the scoring or not but Bill was being a bit erratic on the second and went close to cleaning up the group teeing off on the 5th.  Harry can’t really blame the close call for his score on the front nine but he did manage a fourteen stroke improvement on the back.  Pepsi also had his moments and was 3 under after seven but then, to quote, he lost the plot   Still, 71 off the stick is not too shabby at the end of the day.  Chrispee also had a few moments with a pretty badly shanked chip on one hole – a rare event.

The other item of note was the AGM and the presentation of trophies.  The Treasurer reported on the current state of the accounts and Chris leaves the Club with a good financial buffer that will be put to good use to benefit the members.  Chris expressed his appreciation for the holiday in Thailand, but not at all sure what he meant by that, and the gibes about fine payments are surely unfounded.  Pepsi also expressed his satisfaction at having been able to serve the Club as president over the last few years.  He also presented a token of appreciation to Rodger who has retired as Social Secretary and who is also going to concentrate on his new Club membership though he will still play with us from time to time.

The baton now passes to the new committee with Gordon as President and Mehmet as Vice-President.   The Turkish mafia is well represented with Ben taking on the role of Social Secretary.  David will continue as Secretary while Brendon will take over as Treasurer and will be assisted by SOS who will provide a Police escort for the voluminous Club funds.  Pepsi will be the Club Captain while Chris and Craig will team up to run the tee marshalling – volunteers welcome.  Harry will continue to run the handicapping and website.

For those taking a break over the Christmas period, have a great one and hopefully Santa will bring you all you could wish for.  For those keeping their swing in shape (if not their waist line) there are social events over the next couple of weeks and competitions will be ad hoc with no handicap penalties – unless of course it is on suspicion.

Well, as it turned out, the three point buffer from week 1 was more than enough and Bill was only able to claw back one stroke on the first entrant in this years Champion of Champions, Ken Grist.  Well done Ken on two fine rounds and welcome to your new handicap.  Trevor will be pleased with his investment.  Bill was philosophical about the result and spent some of his earnings by setting up a tab on the bar and then proceeded to twist people’s arms to have something on him.  The rest of the point scorers came from the Senior ranks as well except for Noodles who would have had an extraordinary round if he had been able to putt.  Mike Mann put in a blinder on the back nine with just four over the par including at least a double and a triple.

Ken also scored himself a ball on the 12th for the nearest the pin but the ProPin went begging on the 15th though there were a swag of birdies on the hole.  Must have been some monster putts sunk.  There was at least one memorable one that I can think of.  Laurie saved himself for the Clubhouse ProPin on the 18th but he was quite pessimistic about his chances of holding on having only won it the time he got a hole-in-one.  Or maybe it is just selective memory.  Our ProPin will be definitely worth winning next week.

We are wondering whether Rodger has been pinged for using two spaces in the main car park or is he just easing himself out of the Club by parking further away.  Tarcisio is a bit upset that he has been picked on in the blog over the last couple of weeks.  David got himself into the first group on the grounds that he had to go to his daughters dance class concert however it was also noticed that he didn’t exactly rush off after the round finished.

Craig has been having his fair share of troubles over the last few rounds and apparently he played the 13th via the 10th green, then flirted with a water hazard and then a tree.  Speaking of trees, Allan managed to collect three with the one shot after taking a drop off the 10th green from his tee shot on the 11th.  As an aside, Harry was on the green as well a couple of feet away.  Allan’s well struck blow ricocheted across the fairway to bounce off two more before finishing with not much of a back swing because of the third.  SOS managed to score a birdie today, but not the sort you might think.  A shot penetrated well into a tree and instead of the ball an unfortunate noisy miner fell to the ground.  SOS decided that it should be put out of its misery but from what I saw it was less than a clinical despatch.  Hopefully the Police Manual for dealing with the bad guys aims for a better outcome.

Next week is the final event for this calendar year, the Stuart Clarke Champion of Champions.  The plan is to squad all of the qualifiers together at the tail of the field and the also-rans and casuals will go off in front.  The groups of champions (in no particular order but Rodger’s group probably should be first of these and should be filled from casuals if there are vacancies) are:

• Noodles, Pepsi, Damo, Gordon
• Mike, Oliver, Chris, Bill
• Mo, Targe, Mehm, MalA
• Rodger, Emilio, Eddie, (Laurie to travel with Rodger)

I don’t beleve that I have missed anybody but if I have you can slot into any vacancies.

Results for Saturday, 01/08 December 2012
1st Ken Grist(128) 2nd Bill Eastoe(130) 3rd Mike Mann(137) 3rd Bob McDonald(137) 4th Stephen Butterfield(138) 5th Oliver Gross(139)

The prestige associated with this event was evidenced by the size of the field over the last couple of weeks.  They were out in force last week to suss out the field and put their money on the table and this week to try their hand for the trophy and to keep an eye on their investments.  Some of these investments now seem to have been wise while others might have been a little on the fool-hardy side.

The skies looked a little threatening as the first group headed off down the fairways dampened by the recent rains but by the end of the round the skies had cleared sufficiently to gladden the heart of those with recently commissioned solar panels on their roof.

Was it the fact that there is now a clean slate as far as the points tables go or has he been keeping his light under a bushell.  Regardless it was all Grist for the mill and the young fella put in a blinder with 81 off the stick and a net 62 for a three stroke buffer going into the second round.  Let’s hope the jockey doesn’t have a bet on another horse in the same race!  Not that jockeys would do that sort of thing.

Bill and Ben  (not the Flowerpot Men) had their chances and will round out the last group with handy enough net scores of 65 and 66 respectively.  Bill was so intent on keeping his head down that he didn’t get around to telling Harry what he was doing wrong (other than trying to play golf) until after the 18th.  And Ben was so intent on his game that he didn’t notice his buggy had made an escape bid and was wildly careering across the 5th towards the 3rd before he crash tackled it and wrestled it into submission.  There was some concern that he had done a hammy in the process.

The second last group will consist of three contenders with 67 on the card by name of Oliver, Brendon and Bob.  The dark horses will make up the third last group with Chrispy, Zimmer, SOS and Tony with scores ranging between 67 and 69.

Counting down the rest of the groups there are:

• Pepsi, David, Noodles and Jan.
• Gordon, Mike, AndrewB and Mehmet
• Laurie, Rodger, Craig and Trevor
• Allan, Targe, Harry and Dennis

Any casual players will be squadded in front and so should ring to book in and be there early.

There were 18 birdies today but nobody managed to snare the ProPin on the 18th while Pepsi got closest for a ball on the 15th.  Speaking of the NTP markers, guess which group forgot to pick them up as they came through.  Can’t trust these Kiwis and Yanks can you.

In other news, Chrispy was in the first group because he wanted to get away to go to a wedding in the Yarra Valley but even so the timing was going to be tight.  So it was suggested that he should get Zimmer to drive and maybe SOS could arrange a police escort.  Trevor had his fair share of problems on the round, firstly by falling through a fence after retrieving a ball from OOB with concerns that he had done himself an injury and then he lost his favourite glove that put him right off his game.  Fortunately, there was no injury and the glove was returned in one piece.  It’s not clear that his game improved as a result of getting it back.  Laurie has a feeling that he might be the dark horse after putting a pretty speccie back nine so if he can just keep the improvement up watch out for him in the straight.

Last week Targe had so much cash in his wallet he couldn’t fit his card into his hip pocket, this week money was falling out of his shorts pockets and rolling all over the verandah outside the Clubhouse.  Business must be good in the Gun Shop.

Well, the one day of the year really brought them out of the wood-work.  Of course, there was a lot riding on the results today.  Last chance for a spot in the Champion of Champions, last championship points for this competition year, Calcutta Auction.  All the stars were aligned.

The Prince of Persia, Mo, streeted the field by a clear five strokes with a 61 net and didn’t do his handicap any favours for the CoCs and the start of the new competition year.  The suggestion that he hadn’t counted his putts was perhaps a little unfair.  Mo’s wife tells him that they are flying out next Saturday and so he has had to scratch himself from the Vin O’Meara.  Would his selling price been higher or lower after today?  I guess we’ll never know.  Another would be local if he could be, Oliver, came in second with a very creditable 66 and in the process managed to squeeze out SOS and Chris for third place in the Club Championship table with 81 points.  In the process Oliver also picked up some more points in the Seniors Championship but Gordon’s lead in that event was unassailable and Oliver had to be satisfied with runner-up.

Speaking of Gordon, he managed to fend off the sledging from his playing partners in the final group and kept his head down to card a net 67 to collect points in both Championship Tables (final totals 97 and 42) and to leap away from Noodles who, unfortunately, didn’t improve on his total from last week.  Still, runner-up with 89 points and having played only two thirds of the season is not too shabby by anyones standards.

SOS and Chris also picked up points but all for nought.  Ah well, there is always next year.  Laurie also plugged away, despite being saddled with Rodger, and picked up a point as well.

Brendon scored a ball with the NTP in the 4th for his daughter to chew on while the Calcutta Auction was in progress and Bob picked up the ProPin packet of gold coins for a fine shot on the 18th – the only good one of the day according to Bob.  Bob got his birdie but it seems that Brendon was a long way from gimme distance with his shot, and the one after and the one after ( Sorry Brendon, looked at the wrong hole).  There were 18 other birdies plodded but that elusive big bird just keeps laying her eggs.

At one stage, Targe was heard complaining about not being able to fit his card into his hip pocket.  Not sure whether he has put on weight or just had so much money in his wallet for the Calcutta Auction.  Craig came in quite convinced that his card just had to go on the bottom of the deck and had to check for himself when told that there were quite a number below his spot.  Gordon was also heard complaining about the number of three putts that he took.  Some people are never satisfied though I suppose over 100 Championship points would have been quite an achievement if he hadn’t choked so much.

Zimmer was back on deck and was apparently launching his drives about as fast as he used to drive his car.  Lucky there are no speed limits on the Golf Course.

Despite the various bits of confusion about the ins and outs of the modified Calcutta Auction Pool and Fixed Price Pool, it all ended up going very well with Rodger tickling a few fancies with his form guide.  It’s going to be a hard act to follow.  The $1500 CAP limit was quite easily exceeded which should mean fairly cheap shirts this year.  It just remains to be seen which jockeys turn up moderately rested and not too hung-over over the next two weeks.  Besides the prestigious trophy, there is also the incentive to get the point scoring for the new playing year off to a flying start with double on offer after the second week.

Results for Saturday, 24 November 2012
1st Mo Sabih(61) 2nd Oliver Gross(66) 3rd Gordon Hill(67) 4th Stephen O’Sullivan(68) 5th Laurie Mannix(70) 5th Chris Priems(70)