There was no movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the COVID, we regret, had got away,
And had joined the wild bush virus - it was fast to get around,
Epi-demi-ologists joined the fray.
....
With apologies to The Banjo.

Unfortunately, we were bitten on the bum again, and we were barred from the green, green fields of Ivanhoe once more. Hopefully, we will be able to get back into it next week, so could every body who wants a game at Ivanhoe, if it is possible, please register as normal. We really do need to know numbers because of the Punter’s Club taking a fair bunch away, and we have to reduce our booking. Also, we need at least six for there to be a competition.

At the moment we have 18 people who have put their names down for the Matchplay. We can run with that number, but there are 32 places available, and we would hate to have people coming whinging that they haven’t been seeded after the draw is done. That will occur after play on the 27th, so don’t procrastinate too much longer. Just so it is clear, the draw will be for seeds 1 to 32. Opponents will be determined by a standard draw table with 1 v 32 etc.

What an absolutely magnificent day for a game of golf. The rain event that the BOM had forecast did not quite come off although there were a few little downpours in some parts of the city and surrounds. Not a lot at Royal Ivanhoe however and so the course continues to be in tip-top condition, although there are a few complaints about the presence of bare/tufty areas that are claimed to interfere with the high standard of shot-making that is to be expected of all and sundry. At the end of the day, we had 21 members turn out for the fray, but only twenty managed to pay their comp fee. Stan was so keen to get out of the house to get to the course that he forgot his money. Trevor was in a similar rush and forgot his hat, but he did have a cap and a supply of jelly-beans to help him to complete his round. Well done Trev. Now all you have to do is get that swing back in the groove and get your form back. The real story of the day however was down to Bob who lined up on the 15th and whacked his drive deep into the out-of-bounds. Undaunted, Bob reloaded, launched the ball out over the trees, landed it on the hill, the ball bounced down onto the green and ran, ever so delicately, into the hole. Unfortunately, second shot doesn’t count for either the hole-in-one, the Eagle, or the nearest the pin.

But, what, you might ask, did Damo do to warrant getting his picture plastered all over the blog. Well, it seems that he left a number of putts short of the hole on the front nine which might very well have prevented him from adding to his laurels in the Par Makers and Breakers table. As it was he scored three birdies on the back nine for 32 off-the-stick (one under par) to go with his three over on the front to finish just two over for the round and a net score of 59. Come in handicapper!

For the second week in a row, Porks has come in with a score that you could be forgiven for thinking might be in there with a chance. And, for the second week in a row, he was beaten by a fairly wide margin. Still, he can probably take consolation from the adage, play often and come second, and be happy with his second place with a score of 64 on the bottom line. Ryan was right up there in the birdie scoring stakes and one birdie putt was travelling so fast that it nearly broke the pin on the 12th. If it hadn’t hit and dropped in he was looking and a rather long putt or even a chip to get back.

Blighty went ‘loco’ today and played a full round without losing a ball. Technically, but not strictly, true it seems. His distinctive Dunlop Loco Motion golf ball went missing on the 3rd, but while coming up the 5th a ball was spotted hiding under a leaf and, lo and behold, it was that darned Loco ball. Must have been alright though because Blighty was able to front the judges with a very nice net score of 65.

Pepsi was quite convinced that Patrick was going to be in for the big ‘chop’ on his first round in competition. Now, Pepsi has been known to stretch things a little but Pat did manage a birdie on the 6th and a fairly reasonable collection of pars, but suffered something of a slump on the last four holes. Pepsi called it a handbrake job, but who can tell. Craig has been away on King Island and in Tassie honing his bisection skills which were standing him in very good stead today when he carded a one over on the front nine. A lost ball on the 17th probably robbed him of a higher placing than the fifth that he got for his net of 67.

Trev nominated the holes for the first BallPin and the ProPin today. He set the 4th for the ball again, because he reckoned he had a chance of reaching that one. He was going to leave the ProPin on the 12th but Harry suggested that maybe it should be moved, so on the 15th it went. Wouldn’t you know it, but Harry’s shot on the 12th finished just over a metre from the hole. Enough of the back-story. The Bisector (Craig) took of the 4th and, after a tight contest, Zimmer was victorious to collect the ball for the 18th. The ProPin on the 15th eluded everybody, including the ill-starred Bob, until Pepsi came along and plonked his ball to 1.31m. The birdie eluded him from that distance and so the tally for the day was limited to 20.

The Birthday Birdie is going to be a bit busy this week as he has a triple header to deal with Ken (Grist), Bob and Brent sharing a day to celebrate during the week.

JQ has been taking some coaching and one of the tips given was to widen his stance. John obviously took this very much to heart and widened his stance so much that the crutch of his shorts split. Luckily, he wasn’t travelling commando!

Rob and Bob had certified draughties today. Bob’s was a beauty as his club hit the big ball several centimetres behind the little ball and bounced clean over leaving the little ball sitting tauntingly on the tee and the big ball nursing a head-ache. In something of a disputed decision, Zimmer shanked his ball OOB from the 4th tee, and he was not prepared to concede that it had not made it past the red markers. And, while on the subject of shanks. SOS, a past master of the art, went close to taking out Brendon beside the 14th green. It was only lightning fast reflexes, an evasive duck and a collapse back onto the slope of the 15th tee mound that saved the expat Kiwi from a fate worse than death.

Another call for people to register for the Matchplay seeding draw. If your name is not on the register, you will not be included and seeded. Only three more weeks until registration closes.

Also, a similar time frame exists for nominations for positions on the Committee with the AGM to be held on 06 March. Don’t be frightened to nominate, a bit of competition is a good thing. Otherwise, why do we keep turning up every Saturday.

Results for Saturday, 06 February 2021
1st Damien Lee (59) 2nd Ryan Porker (64) 3rd Andrew Blight (65) 4th Patrick McSweeney (66) 5th Craig Cameron (67)

Seniors Results: 1st Andrew Blight (65) 2nd Craig Cameron (67) 3rd Bob McDonald (72) 3rd Harry Boughen (72)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin15th Andrew Petricola BallPin No 1 4th Craig Cameron BallPin No 2 18th Kazim Akdag

What’s that you say! Surely the heavy rain from yesterday was all gone. Yes, the course did collect about 50 or more from the tropical low that fed moisture in yesterday but, you would hardly have known it and the course was in tip-top condition. The coconuts were down to Mango Man, Ken, who didn’t have quite enough to go round the sixteen members who made it to the tee today. Noodles was conspicuous by his absence for the round, and his excuse afterwards was that he was just too tired to get himself out of bed when the alarm went off. The conditions were certainly very favourable for playing golf if the scores that were handed in by the leaders were any indication. The scores at the tail end of the field would tend to put the lie to that little theory though. But, we won’t go there!

What can we say about Jason? It seems that he could do nothing wrong today. Thirteen pars and two birdies on the way to a gross score of 70 strokes and a fairly mind-blowing total of plus eight. And not a single grandpar in the lot. Even when did fluff a tee shot, on the 12th, he just upped and chipped it in for the birdie. Even on his new handicap, he’d have still gone close to winning the day.

Now, the next two must have given themselves a bit of a chance to collect the top points when the were able to sign off on cards showing plus five on the bottom line. Ryan didn’t have to make use of any grandpars to get his score but ChrisV was able to sneak the double score onto his card twice in his effort to tie for second place. Chris reckons he hasn’t been practising, he just plays better after a break, and he did admit to starting to think about things a bit too much after his front nine and a monster putt on the 10th for one of his double points.

Keith was another one who managed to snare himself a double pointer with a very nice par on the 8th. He was on the verge of abandoning his ball on the 14th after it had disappeared among the trees on the left and was heard to bounce on the path. Just in the nick of time the ball was spotted hiding in plain sight to allow a squared hole to be the result.

Usually, a Priems does not have to pray for a tree to intervene. But, today, it seems that Rob was doing just that as his ball from the 13th tee headed for the penalty area. With no obvious intervention, the search was started in said penalty area until somebody spotted a ball in the middle of the fairway. Rob’s prayers had been answered. SOS wasn’t able to hang around afterwards, but his card shows nothing spectacular and nothing terrible on his way to matching it with Rob with a square card into fourth place.

Old Reliable was, it seems, a little less reliable with his second shot to the green on the 13th, and it finished in the gutter on the path behind the green. The only place to drop was on the steep slope behind. The awkward chip popped over the path, ran down the slope, across the green and lipped out to finish just centimetres away. A tap in scored the ‘easiest’ of pars. Brendon was just a little too consistent in managing to produce regular negative scores which were just enough to outweigh the positive ones and his final score of minus one matched it with Craig for the last podium place.

The ProPin today was on the 12th and, although Noodles did buy a new tape, the fact that he did not make it to the starter meant that we only have an estimate of the distance from the pin. We also only have to believe the report that Craig (at about 2m) was closer to the pin than JQ (est. 2.2m). The first BallPin was on the 4th and Brendon was the one to put his smiley face on the card. It was a bit of a close-run thing though as there had to be a pace-off to separate two contenders from the group. The 18th BallPin was knocked down to the Beast. None of the NTP wins ended up producing a birdie, and, so, the tally of 10 for the day has to be down to scores on other holes or by other people.

Rob has a garage full of bits and pieces to build himself a wood-fire pizza oven. Although the instructions suggest anybody can do it, Rob reckons that you just about need an engineering degree to work it all out. He reckons he might put on a pizza night when it is finished, but you have to make your own as he doesn’t cook pizza??? Matt is adamant that the reason that he won’t be here for the next few weeks is not to protect his handicap for the Punters Club weekend. He is just as adamant that the club slipped out of his hands today. Bobbie seems to have gotten his wheels back into gear as he was noticed sauntering along behind his cart rather than wrestling with it as he was last week.

Results for Saturday, 30 January 2021
1st Jason Hopkins(+8) 2nd Ryan Porker(+5) 2nd Chris Vinecombe(+5) 3rd Keith Delzoppo(+2) 4th Robert Priems(□) 4th Stephen O’Sullivan(□) 5th Craig Cameron(-1) 5th Brendon Mitchell(-1)

Seniors Results: 1st Keith Delzoppo (+2) 2nd Craig Cameron (-1) 3rd Ken Watson (-2)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 12th Craig Cameron BallPin No 1 4th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 2 18th Bill Eastoe

It seems that it was a weekend for a celebration when you’re not having a celebration. Some call it Australia day, some call it Invasion Day, some call it First Fleet Day and some call it nothing at all so as not to offend anyone (or everyone). Whatever the excuse, it seems that a lot of our members decided that they wanted the day off, and we only ended up with seventeen registrations to fill the field. Trev started out valiantly and, despite hitting the same tree three times on the first, he soldiered on until the sixth when his state of health got the better of him, and he had to gracefully withdraw. Look after yourself old mate and take it easy. Noodles on the other hand, lasted until the 13th at which stage he decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and he also withdrew to avoid blowing a fuse entirely and actually causing equipment damage. For the rest of the field, the weather was kind and didn’t get too steamy. The course was also kind, at least to some, but the trees and hazards still could have their nasty way with those who strayed from the straight and narrow.

Now, don’t you just love it when somebody says, on the 8th tee – I don’t want to put the moz on you, but you’re playing really well. And don’t you just hate it when the drive gets caught up in the trees. Fortunately, H was able to recover the situation and get in with a bogey and not have to beat somebody about the ears for putting the moz on him. An exemplary round all round but a couple of double bogies just prevented Harry from achieving his target of breaking 80 and limited his point scoring to 40 to take out the top points for the day.

Targe seems to have found his groove in recent times. He even managed to par the second today which is still quite a feat even though the tee was on the front box. With his handicap, that amounted to a very handy four points on the way to a total of 39. Ryan (the Unreadable) was able to match Harry for points on the front nine, but he fell just the one short on the back to tie it up with Targe for second place.

Brendon also set a fairly cracking pace on the front nine with a tally of 21 which must surely have had him anticipating potential glory at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the mojo seems to have departed a little early, although he did still manage to break his handicap with a final score of 37 points. Chrispy had the handicapper scratching his head there for a moment. The score at the top of the card said 37 but the score at the bottom of the card said 35. Fortunately, the computer agreed with the score at the top of the card and so, Chrispy maintained his placing as equal third. Blame little brother!

There was a suggestion that Zimmer had applied the handbrake a little too severely after he had matched Brendon with a 21 on the front. Perhaps just a little too much youthful exuberance. Bob struggled for nine holes. Not so much with his golf as with his rather recalcitrant buggy. Bob blamed a pothole on the path down from the first for ‘breaking’ it. Must speak to the course management about that! Treasurer Noodles, on the other hand struggled with accounting for two strokes per hole and so Bob only had 33 points rather than the 34 that was announced. However, this turned out to be a happy happenstance for Blighty who was promoted to a point with a share of fifth place.

For the second week in a row, the ProPin was set on the 4th and it took a couple of groups before somebody was able to put their name on the chit. It seems that the ball headed straight for the hole but had just a little too much pace and glided by ever so close to finish 2.85m past to collect the money for Ken. The first BallPin was set on the 15th and there was a contender early on that was good enough to fend off all comers and the name on the chit was Captain Matt. On the 18th, the pin was on the lower deck and there was a bit of a contest with Brendon easing out Damo for the ball. Matt was the only one of the contenders to make the birdie and this could go some little way to explaining why we only managed four for the day.

Damo was telling a story about the 45m putts that he was faced with last Sunday. He then lines up on the practice green, aims for the furthest hole (maybe not quite 45m) and sinks the putt. He reckoned he wouldn’t be able to repeat it within 2m and he was right. Blighty was so worried about driving into the tree on the left of the 9th that he used the hardest part of the tee box and struggled to get a long tee in deep enough. He took a shorter tee and promptly hit his drive into the tree. Not sure exactly how many lefties we have in the Club, but, today there were three of them in the one group – Trev, Stan and Porks. You could almost say that there was something sinister about that!

There are suggestions that there are manifestations of the Bermuda Triangle out there on the course after balls mysteriously disappeared for Damo and Zimmer on the 11th and the 14th. Bob possibly thinks the same about the 14th but the consensus was that the ball hadn’t actually cleared the penalty area.

SOS dashed off early, presumably because he had to go to work and not because of his performance on the 16th. The contact off the tee was not good and the ball finished nestled in a nearby bush. The first attempt at a left hand shot out of the bush was not successful and this was quickly followed by a second. In the end, he gave up and got the ball out with a right hand swing.

Damo bellied his tee shot on the fourth and the ball went a low mile through the green and across the 5th tee into the bushes. When he made it to the area, lo and behold, there was his ball in the middle of the tee ground. Obviously, the fickle finger of fate had come to the rescue and Damien was more than happy to play it as it lay.

Don’t forget to register your intentions for the Matchplay. Just over a month until we do the seedings. If you haven’t indicated your wish to be included by the deadline, there will not be a second chance. But, please consider not registering if you think work, family or other commitments will prevent you from complying with the deadlines for the rounds. Also, the AGM is coming up and all Committee positions are up for contest. If a current Committee member is planning to retire, please consider arranging for your replacement. Also, don’t be afraid to stand against existing Committeemen, we can pretty much guarantee that this election cannot be ‘stolen’. And remember that the Club is only as good as its leadership group, and you might just be the person to make it better.

The Birthday birdie was so excited to have a job (and a big one) that he almost forgot that he had to get some wishes out to Keith, Jason, and MattA. Hope it is a good one guys I know you will feel hardly a day older.

Results for Saturday, 23 January 2021
1st Harry Boughen(40) 2nd Targe Mifsud(39) 2nd Ryan Porker(39) 3rd Brendon Mitchell(37) 3rd Chris Priems(37) 4th Kazim Akdag(35) 5th Andrew Blight(33) 5th Bob McDonald(33)

Seniors Results: 1st Harry Boughen (40) 2nd Targe Mifsud (39) 3rd Chris Priems (37)

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 4th Ken Watson BallPin No 1 15th Matt Hunt BallPin No 2 18th Brendon Mitchell