My, wasn’t it a lovely day for a round of golf? This contention was supported by the fact that we had seventeen members (including new boy on the block, Peter Sein) turn out to sample the joys that Ivanhoe had to offer. With AndrewN putting in his second card and James Hale along as a guest of BrentL submitting his first, the prospects for membership are looking almost as sunny as the day itself. The course continues to be in fine fettle, with the fairways being fairly forgiving in the run department, and the greens being smooth and true. So, once again, there was absolutely no reason not to score your pants off. And, by and large, the scoring was nothing to be embarrassed about, with the majority of the rest of the field only just out of the points.

To start off with a double bogie on the first would not elicit a comment. However, scoring a triple on the seventeenth when you are one over the card on the back nine did result in a few comments about protecting handicap and other dastardly deeds. Despite this little aberration, ChrisJ was able to report a personal best stroke score of 78 and a very impressive plus six for the round. Old Reliable was back to his old reliable self today, largely due to not leaving his putts short, as has been the case a few times recently. It can make a huge difference, so you have to wonder why so many of us do it so consistently. CJ is getting to be almost as reliable as Old Reliable, and he was able to join Craig in second place with his score of plus two. It seems that the turf difference between the ‘Hoe and the Frog requires a bit of an adjustment to his chipping technique, which he reckons he has just about worked it out. Seems to show in the results at any rate.

Brent is back after a bit of a break, and he brought along his mate James. They drew the short straw and had to lead out the field. With a group of shamateurs just in front, things almost took a nasty turn on the first green when James took a solid blow on the lower leg from a very errant shot from the second tee. This is not the sort of welcome we normally hand out to prospective members on their first round. Usually, it takes a bit longer! Despite this little incident, Brent was able to show that the break has not seriously affected his game, and he collected third place for his score of plus one.

Ken was very quiet about his round that included a couple of bright spots as well as a couple of dull spots. These pretty much cancelled each other out, and he played exactly to his handicap to occupy the fourth spot on the podium with a square card. On the bottom deck, with a score of minus one, we had a fair sort of crowd. Adam was pretty pleased with his chip in for birdie on the 13th, which would have helped his Eclectic score. It also contributed to the twelve that the club scored today. Bob seems to have completed the round without a buggy incident, and if it hadn’t been for a couple of ‘fat ladies’, he could easily have been further up the table. Peter didn’t muck about with his first competition round, playing from his GA handicap. It took him five or six holes to adjust to the Ivanhoe course, after playing at Northern in recent times, so we might see more of Peter on the podium before too long. Even though the tee on the second was on the front block, a remarkable number of members had triples on the hole. SOS was one of them, but it was about the only real blemish on his card.

Having been put in charge of putting out the markers for the Nearest the Pin, Brent obviously thought that he should put his name on every one of them. Well, almost every one of them. Unfortunately, people had other ideas, and none of his attempts survived. On the 12th, the first BallPin went to Craig, while the second, on the 18th, went to Pepsi. The ProPin was on the 4th, and it could have been a bit challenging with the tee set well back. However, Pepsi came to the fore once more, and scooped the pool with his shot to 1.8m.

The Birthday Birdie has one call to make this week, and that is to our old mate Keith, who is still on the road to recovery, and who we look forward to seeing back into the swing of things soon. Have a good one, Keith.

Raj has obviously been impressed by the skills of the Priems. On the 8th, his tee shot headed in the direction of the 6th before getting tangled in the trees, from whence it was ejected back onto the fairway. The next shot was headed well out into the billabong, before it was subject to a multiple ricobound, to once again finish out in the middle of the fairway. Pepsi found the pond on the 11th, and decided that the ball was playable. There was a massive explosion of water and mud, out of which exited the ball, which finished nicely on the green about a metre and a half from the hole. And, while talking about the 11th, Porks just happened to drive the green, but missed the putt for the eagle by the narrowest of margins. Stan could have been disheartened after the front nine, but he demonstrated that he is made of sterner stuff and stormed home to finish only just outside the points distribution

Results for Saturday, 21 Jan 2023
1st Chris James (+6) 2nd Craig Cameron (+2) 2nd Chris Priems (+2) 3rd Brent Loeskow (+1) 4th Ken Watson (□) 5th Adam King (-1) 5th Bob McDonald (-1) 5th Peter Sein (-1) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan (-1)

Seniors Results: 1st Chris Priems (+2) 1st Craig Cameron (+2) 2nd Ken Watson (□) 3rd Bob McDonald (-1) 3rd Peter Sein (-1)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 4th Andrew Petricola BallPin No 1 – 12th Craig Cameron BallPin No 2 – 18th Andrew Petricola

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There was a fair bit of hype about heat during the week, as the BOM promised a scorcher for today. So, with appropriate warnings in place, twelve members set out to test their skill and to try to get the round finished before the worst of the heat arrived. And, to that end, they were pretty much successful. Despite Siri insisting that the temperature was 27 or 28, the general consensus was that it felt rather more than that, and the water bottles got a fair work out. As the options to find shade along the edge of the fairways declined, Harry resorted to raising the umbrella to provide a bit more shelter. The sprinklers have been is use and at least one low spot near the first green went close to being called as casual water. However, the fairways generally were firm and fast to favour plenty of run. SOS can attest to that when he was able to play the 11th to par despite the fact that the highest point that his ball achieved was when it was sitting on the tee peg. The greens could have done with a blow job, with some putts requiring a lot of gardening to clear a path from the fallen leaves.

As purple patches go, Harry has been having one of the deepest shades possible. He started with a par, which sometimes has been a portent for ‘trouble’. However, after five holes, he was still only two over par, and by the end of the front nine that had only extended to six over for a very handy 21 points. On the back nine, the pars just kept on rolling in, and by the end there were 12 to grace the card, and the points tally had extended to 45, more than enough to win the day. The strokes taken were a personal best, and the total was 78, which achieved a long time ambition to play to his age. The next target has to be to break it.

Ryan’s patch was only a lighter shade of pale, as he scored five of the thirteen birdies that we scored for the day on his way to a round of just two over par and a total of 40 stableford points. His day didn’t start off the greatest when his drive from the first carried a bit left into the trees, and finished perilously close to being completely unplayable. Being a leftie, he managed some sort of a shot, and had little difficulty in making just the bogie. He then made the first of his birdies on the very next hole, something of a rare event, but the tee was set up on the front block. Ryan played with and scored for Harry, so maybe they just pushed one another on to bigger and better things.

Matt brought along his son, Josh, as a guest today. Now, you would think that it would be the fatherly thing to do, and shout your son for the green fee. Matt obviously believes in tough love, and it was ‘not on your nelly’. Now, Josh is all of nineteen, and, in his own words, he is getting back into golf. He can give the ball a good whack, and he did so on the 3rd, except that the ball hit a tree fair and square about 80m away, and the ricobound brought the ball back to about 300mm on the ‘wrong’ side of the red markers. Would Matt ‘forgive’ his offspring the shout. Not on your nelly. Definitely tough love. Anyway, Matt scored 39 points. He was joined by Rob, who is also making something of a comeback from the ‘dead’ although he is beginning to wonder what he has to do not to be relegated to third place with his 39 points. It is not clear whether Rob’s score was affected by the fact that he ‘lost’ his chipper by the 4th green, requiring him to do a sprint from the 8th fairway to recover it. The fact that it was still where he left it is testament to the fact that nobody else wants/uses that sort of club.

There was a suggestion that Raj has been influenced by the talents of the Priems brothers in using the woodwork to bring their ball back into play. He tried the technique quite a number of times on the front nine, but he did not seem to have the required knack, and his score suffered as a result. He seems to have reverted to a more conventional approach on the back nine, and the resultant good scoring brought his total for the round up to 38 points for the fourth spot on his own. On a day when you had to play to your handicap just to get a point, there were three members who did just that. Old Reliable, Craig, was joined by Adam and Pepsi. Pepsi might have done better if not for an uncharacteristic drive on the 14th, which left him playing from a spot that he had never played from before. This was obviously very significant because his shot from the unaccustomed spot finished firmly in the penalty area, leaving him with little chance other than to wipe the hole.

Ben did warn us when he cancelled his spot that his guest, Atila, was a bit of a demon on the course. This certainly proved to be the case on the 12th, which just happened to be the double Jackpot ProPin. Atila was in the first group and put his drive on the hole, pin high, and a mere 440mm from the hole, pretty much sealing the deal short of a hole-in-one. When handed the weighty bag of shrapnel, he thought he would go through it looking for rare ones, only to be informed by SOS that he had already done so. Not satisfied with the cash, Atila also lined up to collect the BallPin from the 15th. He wasn’t able to clean sweep the event, and it was left up to SOS to take home the BallPin from the 18th. It was close enough for him to rattle in the birdie, which made it two in a row for him. He went for the green on the 17th, and left a longish putt for the eagle. Unfortunately, that died on the edge of the hole, where another half turn could easily have resulted in a drop in the side door. Close, but no cigar.

We had one more guest today, who started out as a ring-in from another tee time. By the end of the round, John O’Callahan was submitting his card as the first step to joining our merry band. So, two potential members in the one day with Josh and John, and a big welcome to them. Atila is just visiting Melbourne, so he could not be persuaded to stay and join us.

Blighty was putting like a demon on the front nine, and he probably only had about ten putts for the nine (and not because he picked up on a heap of holes). Unfortunately, the magic departed him on the back, and he had to finish just outside the points. Despite Rob’s score today, he did make one errant shot, where his tee shot from the 15th finished somewhere out in the tennis court car park. A raven was spotted trying to raid Rob’s bag after the round, and it was suggested that the bird was probably after his wallet for the moths that it contains. And, while on the subject of Rob, the Birthday Birdie has to flutter over to his place later in the week to wish him Happy Birthday and to check out the new pergola over the pizza oven.

Results for Saturday, 14 Jan 2023
1st Harry Boughen (45) 2nd Ryan Porker (40) 3rd Matt Hunt (39) 3rd Robert Priems (39) 4th Rajesh Mahto (38) 5th Craig Cameron (36) 5th Adam King (36) 5th Andrew Petricola (36)

Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (45) 2nd Craig Cameron (36) 3rd Andrew Blight (35)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin – 12th Atila Koca BallPin No 1 – 15th Atila Koca BallPin No 2 – 18th Stephen O’Sullivan

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