Weather 1 d. Pikers Nil on 24 October 2020
So keen were the members to get back into the game that there was even a registration before the announcement of the easing of restrictions had been made. And, they kept coming at such a rate that before too long the bucket was full and overflowing and decisions were being made about whether being paid up and passionate out weighed being faster off the mark to register. And then the weather man intervened and started making dire predictions about significant rainfall events on and about our Saturday – how dare he!.
When the day finally arrived, there was an ominous sound of rain on the roof and the radar screen was pretty full of dark blue and even patches of yellow and red. Pepsi was adamant that he was going to play even if there was lightning for some domestic reason that doesn’t bear mentioning here. Chrispy wasn’t sure whether to have a comp or not but, eventually, when enough people had pressed money into the palm of his hand (or not in at least one case, hey Rob) he submitted quietly enough and agreed to play to make up the even number. This rounded the number of players out to twelve with eleven members and one guest, Zimmer.
To draw a horse racing analogy, there are obviously some mud runners in the Club and others that prefer a firmer track. The stand out result for the day was from MattH who managed to master the art of the under-water putt to come in with a handicap equalling score of 36 points. And, just to prove that he is no turkey, Mehmet was not too far behind with his tally of 34 points.
Fortunately for Pepsi there were no lightning bolts to avoid but he did have a couple of not so great (for him) scores that restricted his total for the round to a nice round 30 points. Whitey played with Matt and might have been inspired by that performance to run close behind Pepsi into fourth place with a 29er. Rounding out the points for today was Porks and his 28 points got him one of the Championship type and that split the tie at the top of the table by the smallest possible margin. Game on!
Zimmer has decided that it is time to make a come-back to the great game and he plans to re-join our happy band. If his drive on the first and the score that he put in for his first card for his new handicap is any guide, he has not lost much of his touch despite not having played since he left (or so he says). It certainly showed up on the par threes as he managed to score the BallPin on the 18th with a shot to about 1m and the ProPin on the 15th with a shot to a similar distance. His birdies did not count to the tally of four from the members.
Chrispy managed a win in the Seniors Championship today which might not have been that hard given that he was the only Senior that managed to make it onto the course. The several seniors that turned up but did not venture out might very well be cursing their decision. Or, they might just be content that they stayed dry. For the punters out there, it would pay to check the penetrometer reading before laying out your hard-earned on Noodles if his score today was any guide. The software would not believe the result and some re-programming was required to get the results processed.
Hopefully the weather will be kinder in future and, even more hopefully, there will be further easing of restrictions so that we can get back to some sense of normality sometime soon. In the meantime, take care and stay COVID safe
Results for Saturday, 24 October 2020
1st Matt Hunt(36) 2nd Mehmet Akdag(34) 3rd Andrew Petricola(30) 4th Rodney White(29) 5th Ryan Porker(28)
Seniors Results: 1st Chris Priems (26)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin15th Kazim Akdag BallPin No 1 – No contest BallPin No 2 18th Kazim Akdag
There was a cast of thousands on 01 August 2020.
It was a pretty special day that dawned this morning. The Perseverance rover was on its way to Mars, the astronauts were preparing to take their chances in coming back to Earth in the Endeavour and Chrispy was lining up for his thousandth game at Ivanhoe and for the matchplay of his life against the young fellah, Jake. There were congratulations all round and a nice little hip-flask and badge were prepared to mark the occasion. Whether the flask was full or empty is yet to be determined.
After a certain amount of wheedling by the GOATee marshal and others, we had the OK to squeeze in a couple of extra groups and, as first light approached, there was much searching around for the tee markers for the first hole. It wasn’t that the ground staff had forgotten to put them out, it was just that they were on a previously unknown teeing area over towards the 10th tee. This certainly changed the character of the first hole and could go some way to explaining why Daniel ended up playing his second shot from out on the 13th fairway. Fortunately, our two fearless leaders for the day, Bill and Ben, managed to spot their shots and we were off to a good start. It wasn’t actually a cast of thousands but a total of 26 players was a pretty good impression.
With nothing that could be called rainfall for over a week, the course has dried out more than somewhat and the greens were rated to be a bit on the faster side of recent. These conditions obviously suited a couple of members and the judges had to lay out the Welcome Matt. Now, if this had been an actual Monthly medal and we had played Stroke, there would have had to be a count-back to decide the winner. And, in that case, MattH would have won the medal. As it is, MattH and MattA will just have to fight over dividing the spoils, unless, of course, Noodles does the right thing and divvies it up for them.
The Beast obviously liked the early start and fairly took the front nine apart to turn with twenty-two points. The back nine was not nearly so productive though there were quite a few chances left begging to bring home the final total of 38 points. Peter was not quite so early a starter but he also reveled in the conditions to also post 22 on the front. His back was a little more disappointing and he just managed to play to his handicap with 36 points. Twenty-two was obviously a popular score as Gordon also managed to repeat Peter’s combination to join him on the 3rd spot. He blames Targe saying how well he was playing at the turn for his decline in performance on the back. Brent, on the other hand, did it the other way around with fourteen on the front and twenty-two on the back.
Mr Onagain Offagain, Stef, was just the one point behind with a fair chance that there were a few left out on the course. Mark continues to play nice consistent golf and continues to hint that it will not be long before he lines up for the big time. Brendon, as usual, played his measured game and reckons he would have done better if he hadn’t collected one of the barrier stakes in front of the 10th green full flush with his approach shot. Porks went uncharacteristically astray on the 14th and could easily have done better. Blighty and Jake rounded out the field of non-point getters.
Jake was also heavily involved in the family match in the Matchplay competition against father, Chris. Now, let it be known that Chris had to concede 17 strokes to Jake. Because, Chris certainly did. The match was pretty even for all of six holes. Then Jake woke up to the fact that all he had to do was play it safe and let Dad make the mistakes. Which he did for six holes in a row. A square gave a slight glimmer of hope for Chris but a loss on the 15th sealed the deal and Chrispy had to admit defeat 6 and 5. After that, Chris played better and Jake’s game went off, wouldn’t you know it. Now for the semi-finals where Jake has to meet up with Dave and there will be the battle of the Andrews (No, not Dan!).
The ProPin today was on the 12th hole and Ben and Harry both had hopes of having a little extra to help celebrate their forthcoming birthdays. Harry disappointed Ben by carving close on a metre off the separation from the hole, only to be disappointed in turn by Dennis who managed to halve, almost exactly, Harry’s distance with a shot to 1.91m. Harry, at least, managed to sink the putt for the birdie, which is more than can be said for the other two, and added to the rather small tally of seven from what was a fairly large field. Harry also managed to get onto the 18th (just) for the BallPin only to be foiled by Stef who got within a few metres on a green that scored very few ‘hits’ for the day. The slope up from the lower deck to the upper was taking no prisoners and there was at least one case of three attempts to scale the heights and quite a number of doubles.
Chrispy doesn’t know his own strength. Or maybe he can blame to ball for his Matchplay loss but on one tee shot, the ball he was playing with ‘exploded’ and broke in half. Power or crap golf ball? Make up your own mind! In playing the 6th hole, Noodles managed to play shots from three different teeing areas including the actual 6th tee. Rob’s tee shot on the 16th finished about 300mm from a VW parked in the adjacent car park. Dennis and Jason were playing very social golf, consistently placing their golf balls in the same general area, including on the 15th where they both scored draughties. Our birdie total could have been much higher if Brent had made the seven that he putted for, instead of only one.
Targe was having trouble with shanking the ball on the front nine. It turns out that he was having trouble with his glasses fogging up due to his mask and so he wasn’t wearing them. When he put his glasses on later in the round, the shanks went away. JQ wasn’t shanking them, at least not on the fairway, but he did manage to rack up thirteen putts on the first four holes. As Chrispy trudged despondently up the hill after being bundled out of the Matchplay, he reckoned that he felt like he had just played every bit of a thousand rounds of golf. In a similar vein, Daniel reckons he will stay off the grog on Fridays in future as he struggled to score points and trailed in to bring up the rear of the field.
Results for Saturday, 01 August 2020
1st Matthew Aforozis(41) 1st Matt Hunt(41) 2nd Bill Eastoe(38) 3rd Peter Damou(36) 3rd Gordon Hill(36) 3rd Brent Rowley(36) 4th Stefan Belevski(35) 4th Mark Minney(35) 4th Brendon Mitchell(35) 4th Ryan Porker(35) 5th Andrew Blight(33) 5th Jake Priems(33)
Seniors Results: 1st Bill Eastoe (38) 2nd Gordon Hill (36) 3rd Andrew Blight (33)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin12th Dennis Ward BallPin No 1 18th Stefan Belevski BallPin No 2 – No contest
Who was that masked man? on 25 July 2020.
There were a number of big questions to be answered this week. Would the requirement to wear a face covering put lots of people off playing? The answer would appear to be , No. We still managed to get a field of twenty players and we had the OK to try for at least one more group. What was the best method to stop your glasses fogging up? Coating with detergent, tissue under the top edge, tape over the top edge or not breathing. The latter option was ruled out early in the piece as was the option of running around the course and riding a bike. The application of tape seems to be about the most effective provided that it is both long enough and adequately attached both to your skin and the mask. Access to a good mirror is highly recommended to aid the application.
It has been a couple of months since Stef has been able to join us after a foiled attempt to grab a vacant spot a week or so ago. He racked up a couple of one pointers early in the round but then settled right down to finish the front with a very handy 20 points. Although the handicapper did wonder why he had circled a 7 on the 5th. In actual fact it was one of Stef’s odd looking 4s so it was a birdie that contributed to the 10 that we scored for the day. The back nine was a little less impressive, but a 17 points and a total of 37 for the round was enough to take the honours (and the dividend) for the day.
Mark is keen to get his handicap down as low as possible but he didn’t do his chances of getting there today as he was only able to play right to his handicap. However, it must be said that, when he did score he scored well and there were plenty of holes there that just begged for improvement. Brendon tried to improve his chances by nearly taking out JQ and Stef on the 8th tee with his drive from the 5th. A birdie putt on the 18th that just rimmed the hole and hung on the edge would also not have helped the cause. JQ managed to overcome his shock on the 8th to be just the one point behind his partner in crime though he did lay claim to some assistance from trees along the way. Whitey managed to drag Pepsi around and also played right to his handicap as well but with quite a few ‘could have done better’ scores.
Peter had a bit of a whinge about his recent handicap cuts and how he had lost all of these strokes on the back nine. It still didn’t stop him from going close to playing to it and, if not for a couple of no scores on the back, could very well have fronted the judge again. MattA continues to finish there or thereabouts and if he can just clear up on the ‘horror’ holes he soon won’t have to worry about mis-scoring on holes that he gets two strokes on. A chip in for a birdie on the 5th helped the scoring along no end. Rob didn’t start off either nine with any sort of form but made up for lost time around the rest of the course to score a very creditable 33 points to take the almost (actually) worthless fifth place.
It took a few groups for somebody to get a ball onto the 18th for the BallPin but, when somebody did, it was a beauty that finished a metre or so from the hole. Whitey was the man who put it there and it was pretty much unchallenged by the rest of the field. The ProPin on the 12th also took a while to get a contender on the card but Pepsi’s shot was not quite good enough and it was Brendon who was close enough to collect the pool. There was no estimate of distance so one can only assume that it was outside the 5m limit of the tape.
Bill was another one who took advantage from the surrounding forest. His drive on the 3rd went sharply right and into the trees and fell he knew not where. Despite there being every chance that it was outside the fence, the Beast continued looking and found the ball in the open just on the good side of the cut line along the fence. His drive on the 17th looked to be heading for Dight’s Falls until a convenient tree intervened and tossed it back into the fairway with a clear shot to the green.
Gordon reckons the only putt he sank for the day was for his birdie on the 15th although that did not stop him from placing third in the Seniors! Dennis managed to buy himself a draughtie on the 15th and so had to persuade Brendon to unmask to drink his cappuccino after the round. MattH never was all that comfortable wearing the mask but there was no suggestion that it had caused him to fall short of the red markers on the 3rd. Matt was blaming the presence of a witches hat marking work in progress by the ground-staff but a little birdie suggests that was not to blame and that he almost didn’t make the grade with his second shot.
Results for Saturday, 25 July 2020
1st Stefan Belevski(37) 2nd Mark Minney(36) 2nd Brendon Mitchell(36) 2nd John Quinlan(36) 2nd Rodney White(36) 3rd Peter Damou(35) 4th Matthew Aforozis(34) 5th Robert Priems(33)
Seniors Results: 1st Bill Eastoe (30) 2nd Harry Boughen (29) 3rd Dennis Ward (28) 3rd Gordon Hill (28)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin12th Brendon Mitchell BallPin No 1 18th Rodney White BallPin No 2 – No contest
Da moon was new and da air was cold on 18 July 2020.
It was light enough to play significantly earlier today, partly because the sun is getting up a little earlier but mainly because there was no cloud bank out in the north east casting a shadow over our little world at Ivanhoe. There was a hint of high cloud but not enough to hide the weakly shining, almost new moon. The clear skies meant that the ground temperature could get low enough to create some frost down on the flats and the fingers took a fair bit of persuading to have any sort of feeling other than that one of dropping off. Dennis was torn between using his rechargeable hand warmers or the one timers, of which he had a plenteous supply, that lasted a lot longer supplying warmth. Duration won the day.
We had our full complement of 20 players on the tees today and we seem to have managed to get away promptly although the round time of about three hours forty-five was perhaps just a little below the pace we would like to see. Only nineteen finished as JQ had to dash off to a domestic emergency and we all hope that all is well in that department. Harry volunteered to play on alone and, despite everybody’s expectations, he did not suddenly start getting par on every hole though it must be said that the back nine was much more respectable than the front.
At the start of the day some opinions were expressed, particularly after finding the second tee right back on the bank and the flag at the very back of the green, that the winning score was likely to be even at best. That prognostication could very well have been true, if it hadn’t been for Peter Damou (couldn’t resist getting in that rhyme!). Pete scorched it in with a +4 and did his handicap a bit more harm but maybe we should be bringing back points and the winner’s penalty. Pepsi took a little while to get going. This might have been because he was involved in a fight to the death with the Beast in their matchplay round. And just to give you an idea on the second hole, two of our longer hitters and lower markers had to play out to sevens to finalise the hole in the match. Pepsi got an early lead and, although Bill tried valiantly to peg him back, the match went dormie 4 at the 14th and a square on the 15th gave the match to Pepsi 4 and 3. The next big battles will be between the Andrews and between the Priems. Should be fun to watch!
Adam had been playing with JQ up until the 6th and joined up with Brent on the 7th and promptly went into a slump with three consecutive gashes to round out the nine three down. After a bit of a hesitant start on the back, he got his mojo back and scored five consecutive plus scores and finished the round exactly square. Harry had a bit of strife with trees on the front nine particularly on the third and ninth and so he wasn’t necessarily the happiest of campers. Things improved on the back and a monster putt from off the green for a birdie on the 11th improved the state of mind considerably. Brendon was happy with his game except for the fact that he three putted seven of the last nine holes. Dennis started off well but had a bit of a bad run on the first half of the back nine and the best that he could do was tie it up with Harry and Brendon on -1.
MattH had nothing good to report about his round. He started off with a couple of plus in the first three holes but after that they were few and far between. SOS, on the other hand, started off a bit poorly, settled, then put in a burst at the start of the back and then faded in the run down the straight. Whitey was looking as flash as a rat with a gold tooth (literally). Unfortunately, every time he looked like putting a run of scores on the positive side of the ledger, an equal run in the opposite direction undid all the good work. And so he was one of the trio that would have scored a point if there was a point on offer.
The BallPin today was on the 18th and Dennis was hanging around anxiously watching to see if anybody would knock him off for the ball. He had to wait until the last group when Chrispy knocked him off big time. It wasn’t quite the ‘almost hole in one’ that Chris claimed but it was close enough for him to sink the birdie putt and contribute to the tally of 11 for the day. Gordon also helped the total with one on the 14th with a long curving putt from off the green. How good is golf? The ProPin was on the 12th. And, just a note, during the restricted competition, the 5m minimum has been lifted. Anywhere on the green and verge is valid but, if the distance is less than 5m then it should be measured and recorded. If you want, metre paces can be recorded for outside five. Anyway, the ultimate winner, at four paces, was Adam. Adam also went close to raiding the Eagle’s Nest when his approach shot on the first rimmed the cup. It was travelling a bit fast to drop and the 2.5m return putt proved too much and a par was the result.
Damo wasn’t particularly happy today and was heard muttering something about a walk spoiled. He invested in a new ‘fat’ grip on his putter during the week and he reckoned it made his ‘yips’ worse. He may yet set fire to it, or he might give it another chance. Time will tell. Brent was another bewailing a long series of three putt greens. Porks lost sight of his ball on the first. He reckons it was too dark and foggy. And he wasn’t even in the first group. It was quite easily found by a following group nestled behind the pencil pine beside the path up the the second tee. Definitely unplayable. Although a lot of the tees were well back, on the fourth, they were well forward and off the prepared area. And, what is more, the blue markers were placed in front of the reds (just). That is, until they were moved back marginally to be, at least, on the same line. No wonder Chrispy was heard to be grumpy about the set up of the course.
Results for Saturday, 18 July 2020
1st Peter Damou(+4) 2nd Andrew Petricola(+1) 3rd Adam King(□) 4th Harry Boughen(-1) 4th Brendon Mitchell(-1) 4th Dennis Ward(-1) 5th Matt Hunt(-3) 5th Stephen O’Sullivan(-3) 5th Rodney White(-3)
Seniors Results: 1st Dennis Ward (-1) 1st Harry Boughen (-1) 2nd Andrew Blight ( -4) 2nd Bill Eastoe ( -4) 3rd Chris Priems ( -5) 3rd Targe Mifsud ( -5)
Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin12th Adam King BallPin No 1 18th Chris Priems BallPin No 2 – No contest