O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
      He chortled in his joy.

That little snippet from Jabberwocky pretty much sums up the feeling among the Ivanhovians who gathered this morning. The weather

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

But, as it had been eight weeks since there had been a club wielded in anger, the general feeling on the first tee can best be described

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood

But, although there was a general feeling of gladness that the long wait to return to the fray was over, there was also a cause for sadness as well. While we have all had our little grumbles about things like working from home, schooling the kids and no footy to go to, we must spare a thought for Whitey who had to go through the isolation nursing the knowledge that his wife had passed away after a long struggle with cancer. To make matters worse, the restrictions have meant that there has been no funeral or other memorial to help with the easing of grief. Whitey is particularly thankful that now, at least, he can get out and socialise with his mates, even if he still has to keep his social distance. The Committee and members understand your pain Whitey and if you ever feel the need for a chat, any and all are only a phone call away.

Well, the social round was intended to get some of the kinks straightened out before we get back into the serious business of playing for points. And did we succeed? We certainly did. Well, some did. Damo took it easy on the first couple of holes but he soon cast off his inhibitions and managed to put together a pretty fancy front nine of 19 points. With his dander right up, he then took to the back nine with more than a little gusto to gather 21 points and a ball busting total of 40 for the round. Gordo also meant business today although he did manage to sneak in a practice round on Thursday so he wasn’t exactly cold, other than in a physical sense. He matched Damo on the front nine but slipped a bit on the back to come in with a mere 37 points. Think of it as an early birthday present Gordo. The Birthday Birdie apologises to those members missed during the lockdown.

Brent turned up today and was not feeling at all confident of how things were going to go but he half reluctantly agreed to take on Noodles in their matchplay round. Perhaps it was the prospect of giving Noodles a beating that inspired him, but he managed to play to his handicap for a nice little 36 points. In the early stages, the match looked to be a bit nip and tuck until a couple of wins let Brent get his nose in front. A string of squares held the line for a while until Noods found a little run of form (or Brent a run of out of form) and brought the match to square. Brent’s birdie on the 17th got his nose back in front and he held on to take the match one up. Hardly a beating but any win is good.

What can you say about Pepsi. In an Irish sort of way he struggled on the front nine and at the cross-over he repaired to the clubhouse and came to the 10th strolling casually and munching on a pie. Not sure what he did in the Clubhouse other than buy the pie and relieve himself of some unnecessary weight but, with a different ball on the tee, he set about dismantling the back nine by scoring as many points in the first four holes as he did on the whole front nine. He scored three four pointers with Eagle on the 11th, birdie on the 13th and birdie on the 16th to finish the nine three under par (having been four under at one stage) for 23 points and a mere fourth place with 35 points. Noodles rounded out those who would have collected points, if there had been any, with his tally of 34 points.

It must be mentioned that there was a second Eagle scored today and that was by Jake on the 17th, which must have been a real highlight of an otherwise ordinary round. So much so that his hair turned a ghastly shade of yellow as a result. There were a few ‘looking good’ but ‘not quite’ shots today. JQ left his tee shot about 0.5m short of the hole on the 12th to take out the BallPin there. Harry’s shot on the 15th was, maybe, a bit over a metre short and the lack of a marker in sight raised hopes of a dividend. Unfortunately, Craig had already made it to 0.9m to take out the dosh for the ProPin. He didn’t get the birdie but, then again, neither did Harry. Harry had another go on the 18th but was foiled by Whitey, who managed to get on the green by about 50mm but closer to the pin to get the second BallPin on offer.

The ducks have obviously gotten used to having the course to themselves. Pepsi let his buggy run down the hill on the 10th, as is his wont, and, so unperturbed were the gaggle of ducks at the foot of the hill that one of them very nearly got itself mowed down. Also, should mention that Pepsi and Dale racked up a couple of milestones today. Pepsi has put together a pretty impressive total of 600 rounds with the Club while Dale is a little along the way by bringing up his ton.

Some people did have their share of problems today. MatthewO managed the only reported draughtie by dint of a spectacular mishit on the third tee. Brent’s efforts to hand the matchplay round to Noodles were helped along by a couple of OOBs on the 14th. One was a spectacular duck hook that disappeared into the no man’s land on the left of the path. Bob had all sorts of trouble with the controls of his electric buggy and it kept leading him into the trees and bushes. His playing companions were terribly concerned that he should ever get anywhere near water. Bob is hoping to graduate from his Ls to his Ps sometime soon.

Chrispy had brought along a banana to provide a little sustenance during the round and he had carefully placed it on the buggy as it was parked by the tee. Being a little forgetful, he headed down the hill without a thought for his precious banana. The banana slipped off the buggy onto the path and Chrispy planted his great splaw foot on it and went close to going base over apex down the hill. Fortunately, the ankle was not injured.

Damo decided to rest his weary feet and sat down on the wall outside the clubhouse only to find that it was still wet with dew and he had what you might call a wet arse. SOS has made it back from his hip replacement without losing any ground in the Championship race. The way he was hitting the ball at times today you would have to suspect that they did a swing replacement as well.

With no sand buckets available for sharing, the course policy is that you bring your own or you can buy one to keep for a mere two dollars. Gordon was too tight to do the latter so he raided the grand-kids toy box to come up with what was probably the flashiest sand bucket on the course. Please think about bringing your own or the course will soon be a field of craters. Maybe we could compete to bring lairy buckets to go with our lairy shirts that we traditionally wear for the final round of the Stuart Clarke which is scheduled for next week. Don’t forget. And don’t forget that you now have to register through the event register form on the website, preferably by 20:00 on Wednesday and certainly no later than Thursday afternoon so that the groups and tee times can be settled and notified. No register, no play. Unfortunately, there will not be a barbecue afterwards. But we might manage to sneak in a presentation, with appropriate social distancing, of course.

Results for Saturday, 16 May 2020
1st Damien Lee (40) 2 balls 2nd Gordon Hill (37) 1 ball 3rd Brent Rowley (36) 1 ball 4th Andrew Petricola (35) 1 ball 5th Stephen Butterfield (34) No balls

Nearest the Pin Results: ProPin 15th Craig Cameron BallPin No 1 12th John Quinlan BallPin No 2 18th Rod White

Eagle’s nest Results: Eagle 11th Andrew Petricola Eagle 17th Jake Priems

Results for Saturday, 21 March 2020
Leaderboard Round 1: 1st Andrew Blight(39) 1st Allan Davies(39) 2nd Ben Akdag(38) 2nd Dennis Ward(38) 3rd Enzo Cirone(37) 3rd Daniel O’Rourke(37) 3rd Andrew Petricola(37) 4th Matthew Aforozis(36) 4th Gordon Hill(36) 4th Matt Hunt(36) 5th Bill Eastoe(35) 5th Chris Priems(35) 5th Dale Webb(35)

Seniors Leaderboard: 1st Allan Davies (39) 1st Andrew Blight (39) 2nd Dennis Ward (38) 3rd Enzo Cirone (37)

This was an Anzac Day like none that we have seen before. No parades of veterans marching proudly through the streets. No crowds to wish them well and cheer them on. No gunfire breakfast to warm the cockles of the heart. No game of two-up to fritter away the weeks pay. No game of footy to take away the voice for a few days at least. And, above all, on this solemn Saturday, no golf to frustrate the hell out of you.

Instead, the isolation brought people to their front yards and footpaths to set up shrines and to lay out fields of poppies and to light candles. Some played their radios and televisions at full volume. Some dragged out their cornets. Some dragged out the trumpets. Some their clarinets. And some dragged out their bagpipes. And a lot just stood in silence. Lest we forget.

But, the isolation has set people off on all sorts of tasks that they have been meaning to do for years and years. Ben has obviously been sorting and cataloguing all those shoe boxes of photographs that he has collected over the years and came across the little gem above. The size of the trophy suggested that it was a Major but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

So, he resorted to the Statistics pages on the web-site but could not find his name and figured that somehow he had been missed out. He then searched laboriously through the archives (he hasn’t been able to find the trophy yet but the lock-down will last for a while longer yet) and discovered that it was the Matchplay Championship for 2011. Sure enough, his name did appear in every place in the various lists that it was supposed to (how could he think otherwise?). He was just looking in the ‘wrong’ one.

Which just goes to prove that little things do mean a lot whether it is Anzac day or not.

Things were pretty beastly. It was Thursday and there was still no golf to be had. Youtube lessons, interviews and classic games are no substitute for actually getting out in the fresh air with a few of your mates and flailing vigorously at the infuriating little white (or yellow, or orange etc) ball. Not to mention the walking and coffee and cake and chit-chat.

So, it was during a little trip to the local shopping centre to stock up on a few necessary supplies for the fridge and pantry and who should be striding down the ramp to the shops? It was the Beast himself.

Naturally, we stopped for a chat while taking great care to maintain the requisite social distance. And, just as naturally, the topic of golf came up after we had dispensed with the niceties. And, during the conversation, Bill revealed that he was saving himself from insanity with a little practice net that he had rigged up in the back yard using a piece of netting that he just happened to have lying about in his shed. He has also taken care of matters with respect to occupational health and safety even to the extent of fencing the water hazard. It’s highly unlikely that he will need his scuba for ball recovery unless his game has gone off more than somewhat. Crowds of spectators are probably only slightly more likely.

Methinks this could be the next project with the bird netting recently removed from the tomato garden bed. There were a few tomatoes left but they were never likely to ripen so they contributed to a very nice batch of Tomato Relish. And, it tastes almost exactly like the relish that Mum used to make! That’s if the old taste-buds have a memory worth relying on.

Will the review on May 11 lift the restrictions on our favourite game? Golf, not AFL, you idjits! Maybe, maybe not. When they do, it is likely that it will be under all sorts of limitations but, hey, we can put up with that. But, don’t forget, this is going to be around for a long time. The show isn’t over ’til the fat lady sings and she hasn’t even done her warm-ups yet.

Stay safe and well and we will see you on the other side (of the pandemic, not the Pearly Gates).

Back in 1969, there was a (not so) great movie ‘If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium’ made, based on the premise that the only way to keep track of of where you were on a bus tour of Europe was by means of the day of the week. In 2020, in the midst of the shutdown by way of contrast, it is difficult to keep track of the days of the week without golf. Tomorrow is short game practice, so today must be Monday. Yesterday was short game practice so today must be Wednesday and tomorrow we play golf. Yesterday was golf and tomorrow is golf so today must be Friday. Knowing the day of the week – easy peasy. Now, who knows what day it is!

There’s always the newspaper. Getting it home delivered is good. You get to go outside and search about the footpath, the road and gutters, your garden, and neighbour’s garden to find where it has been cunningly deposited by the passing tosser. Then, there is a good ten minutes trying to find the edge of the plastic wrapping so that you can upwrap the damn thing. Though, sometimes they spoil the fun by having a ragged, unstuck end that makes it easy to find. Then you get to strip out all the advertising wrap-arounds and inserts and sections you never read. Ah, The Good Food Guide, it must be Tuesday. Then you get to the good bits, the comic cuts and the puzzles page.

Easter did help a bit. Good Friday called for Hot Cross Buns – home-made, of course. A couple of batches does wonders for the waist-line but did eat into the stock of flour and the supermarket shelves are still bare of that particular commodity. On Sunday, the Easter Barramundi left a chocolate Murray Cod which gives the rather toothsome problem of deciding how to deal with it. You can’t really cut fillets off it so, do you just nibble from one end to the other. If so, do you start at the head and work to the tail or vice versa. Or, start from both ends and meet in the middle.

Trips to the shopping centre don’t really define days of the week but you do need to get necessities (if they are available) and visits to the chemist to get prescriptions filled are sort of necessary but you might need to get your temperature taken to get in. Brumby’s is open for business but seems to have relatively few customers. Probably because people are desperately trying to use up all the flour that they bought in a panic a while back.

Television is not much help. Every second program seems to be a repeat. Lots of historic football games on offer as well but not too many repeats of great games of golf. Maybe there is on Stan or Foxtel or somewhere. That sort of leaves YouTube. Who knew that chipping could be such a simple thing and there are only about fifty-seven different ways of doing it properly. Or, that getting an extra ten or twenty yards on your drive could be so easy. And, as for curing that hook or slice!

Looks like it’s going to be at least May before there is any hope of getting some real golf into the system but do not hold your breath. You could get very blue in the face if you do. Stay together but apart. Practice your hygiene, if not your golf, and we will see you on the course and not in an ICU.