MATCH PLAY, ROUND TWO

 

It was Match Play!

That great leveller

Where David can overcome Goliath

Where the lowly sparrow can outwit the eagle

Where a single-figure handicapper can be felled by a 36-er.

And yes, there was a bit of this today:

But all played in the spirit that nature intended, with warm handshakes and congratulations to the winners.

And now those on four points feeling confident about making the finals, while those with lesser scores needing more work in round three.

What a beautiful day.

Perth at its very winter best - a perfect twenty degrees and clear blue skies

Crisp at the start, but those jumpers were soon off, revealing the new SOS shirts in all their glory.

There were plenty of birdies.

Goochie on the 2^nd and 14^th

Mark Wilson on the 11^th and 18^th

and Mark Hill on the 7^th and 10^th

Pug Dog mnages to wipe out Keith's buggy. 
Unsporting behaviour!

 

And the novelties were keenly contested as always

The ladies’ longest drive on the 14^th went to Carol, who put one on the fairway in the first group, and was never bettered.

The men’s longest on the 10^th, Derek knocked one down the middle, but was easily overtaken by Paul B, then Pug Dog.

Nearest the pin on the 2^nd saw Goochy drop one two feet from the pin for a tap-in birdie, and unsurprisingly, that’s where the marker stayed.

The longest putt on the 5^th saw Frances with a reasonable effort, Pug Dog did better, and James better still.

Nearest the pin in 2 on the 6^th saw Derek on the card, overhauled by Paul B before Lynley got inside.

And the Golden Hole marker on the 16^th sat desolately on the fringe, unclaimed all afternoon.

A couple of players went round scoring Stableford

Paul Boquest managed a reasonable 30, while Lynne and Lynley carded 32 each.

Lynne also celebrated her birthday this week.

And the results of the match play contests

Frances and Goochy, all square

Carol beat Derek 2 and 1

Mark W beat Greg 2 and 1

Roland 1 up against Colin

Earle 5 and 4 versus Wayne

Pug Dog 4 and 3 versus Gerry

Keith 1 up against Faye

Peter and Barry all square

Shelley 1 up against Gary

James 5 and 3 versus Mark Hill.

Next week, we’re looking at playing for the WA Week Cup on the Old Course. Let's see if anyone can wrench the trophy from the grasp of Kerry Edwards.

Fellowship Day with WABGA

The annual Fellowship Day, with SOS competing against members of the West Australian Blind Golfers Association, got underway at 9.16 am despite a morbid weather forecast. However, the umbrellas only went up once for a few short minutes as competitors and caddies enjoyed mostly blue skies with a few clouds.

Neville Walker (Caddy), David Lee (WABGA) with SOS President Gerry Tessier

The Fellowship Day competition is normally played on the Old Course which members of the WABGA would have been familiar with. However, due to re-scheduling this year's event by several weeks, the competition was held on the Tuart Course which, arguably, has narrower fairways and trickier slopes!

Austin Engineering was the sponsor for the Fellowship Cup
The award ceremony and sausage sizzle was held at Perry Lakes 

The course was often wet underfoot from recent rains!

Barry, Gerry, Roland & Shelly ready to start

Gary, Barry & Roland 

Keith & Gary

Roland, Steve & Colin

Steve, Caddy & Colin on the 1st

Shelly with Peter Drury & Kevin Williamson

Keith Barrow with Neville Walker & David Lee

Neville walker surveys the 1st fairway for David Lee

David lines up

David shows the form that has taken him to the World Championships !

So far, so good !

David Lee has reached the top 5 in the Order of Merit for the Blind Golfers Association, and so was invited to play in August at the World Championships at The Greens at Renton, at Simcoe, near Toronto, Canada. David is part of a team of 8 , the only one from WA, and he will also be playing at the Canadian Open.

Peter's tee shot on the 1st only went 40 m and into the trees on the left!
The ball was a new yellow Titleist Pro V1  !!

Steve plays from the rough watched on by Colin, Greg & Caddy.

After the competition, everyone met at the Perry Lakes BBQ area for a sausage sizzle and awards ceremony.

Not a drop of rain fell on the gathering despite the dire forecast and nervous comments!

The early markers got the table set up and
 the snaggers & chopped onion on the hot plate.

Frances, Carol & Vickie
The Social Committee members sorting the buns

David enjoys a champers 

Keith, Neville & David at the Sizzle

Time to eat !

Shelley, Gerry, Colin & Roland

Barry, Derek, Roland & Colin enjoying the ambiance !

Are those rain clouds?

The Results

SOS Captain, Andrea Williams, read out the competition scores and announced that SOS had prevailed over the WABGA by a significant margin.  The average score for all SOS players was 30.7 against WABGA of 20.8.

The individual scores and those who made the 6 birdies are:

SOS President Gerry Tessier holds the Fellowship Cup aloft 

The Novelty competition results were:

Golden Hole - no winner today!  As both 'Pots' were won last week, today's $12 pot rolls over to the next competition on the Tuart Course.

The ladies longest drive on the 5th recorded Shelley, outdistanced by Lynne !

The mens longest drive on the 8th included Glenn 'Juicy' Niceljewski, Gerry, but won by Gary !

The longest putt on the 8th noted Juicy, outdone by Andrea !

Nearest to pin in 2 on hole 10 - Andrea , won by Gerry !

Nearest to the pin on 18 - Andrea, Keith beaten by Lynley !

The Ash Tray Collection

Each week members and guests are invited to donate money to the Ash Tray Fund which the SOS Fines Committee has currently split into 20 categories including:

Touch the Lucky Wood (tree to fairway)

SAS training (bush to bush / rough to rough)

Dead sheep (still 'Ewe')

 . . . and many more !

The Ash Tray collection was a spirited affair with $35.55 donated by the participants to compensate for hitting wildlife, uncouth language, trespassing on adjacent fairways, dead sheep and many other misdeeds!

Vickie about to donate?

Treasurer Peter discusses the budget forecast
with President Gerry Tessier.

SOS Donation to WABGA

SOS President Gerry Tessier presented a 'cheque' for $750 to WABGA's Peter Drury to assist the WABGA in continuing its support of vision impaired golfers.

Gerry acknowledged the donation to WABGA had been funded by SOS's major sponsor, Austin Engineering.

Gerry hands over the 'cheque' to Peter Drury

Next Week's Competition

The 2nd qualifying round of the Matchplay competition will be held on the Old Course, scheduled to start at 9.32 am.

Many thanks to several contributors of photos - Gerry, Derek and Andrea.

Please advise Peter if any names have been attributed to incorrect faces - there were gaps in the information trail!  

💨 

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP, ROUND 2

Look at that blue sky!

 

A stroke game on the Tuart.

Faye and Lynley about to put the hammer down

Don’t risk a new ball on that first tee - many a ball is lost on that left hand side.

And don’t use a yellow ball either, because you’ll have a bewildering choice of options for your second shot.

The weather was of course glorious, until the last group finished the eighteenth, at which point it started to rain.

Well done, whoever organised that.

We welcomed some new faces.

Mick Fisher, who put in his second card.

Mick all set and ready to go

And Courtney Zampogna, who came as the guest of Mark Hill.

Gerry introduces himself to Courtney

Gary Burgess was present, returning from his tour responsibilities with a very creditable 17^th position in the Scottish Open, out of the 60 players in his division, and 11^th net.

He's back!

And in the G4D Open, played at Woburn, he came 8^th overall in his division. Well done, Gary.

His "medals"

Gerry awarded the remaining shirts to players who hadn’t played last week.

These Club Championship games are always well-attended; today was no exception, with seven groups lining up for our 09:40am start.

There was a fair spread of scores, as would be expected, but with one outstanding round - more of that later.

Novelties went as follows:

Nearest the Pin on the 18^th, Mark Wilson beaten by Lynley (who managed to not only miss the birdie, but also the putt coming back!)

Nearest in two on the 10^th, no-one beat Gary.

The ladies’ longest drive on the 7^th, Gim was competitive, but again Lynley wins.

Lynley misreads the 6 for a 9 and goes short on the third.

The men’s longest drive on the 17^th , Wayne, beaten by Gerry (an absolute monster).

The 2^nd Golden Hole was claimed by Mark Wilson, who won $63, and the original Golden Hole won by Stephanie, who claimed the full $150. (apparently she needs to pay the plumber, so the funds will come in handy). We gather there was spirited discussion as to whether the shot was within the required distance of the pin, and it became necessary to consult the bylaws before the prize could be awarded.

One of those days

There were birdies aplenty

Shelley and Mark W on the 6^th,

Mark W, Roland and Keith on the 9^th

Gary on the 10^th

Greg on the 14^th (wow!)

..and the winner of the raffle was...Roland!

So, to the scores on the day:

 

A remarkable round from Stephanie, with 81 off the stick! Her playing partners apparently in awe.

Winners all

 

We celebate Greg Bennett’s Birthday today - Happy Birthday, Greg. We also marked Friday as Malcolm Yeo’s birthday. For those newer members, Malcolm (Shelley’s husband) was a stalwart member of the club until he passed a couple of years ago.

There were some important decisions made by your committee after the game.

The Match Play competition will hold a play-off for third place between the two losing semi-finalists, and the auction proceeds will then be split 60%, 25%, 15% between first, second and third place.

As presently scheduled, there would be five club championship days on the Tuart, and only two on the Old. To avoid this, the fourth round will be played on the Old, on July 5, and the two rounds of the Winter Cup on July 12 and 19. This will mean three rounds of the CC on the Old, and four on the Tuart, a more balanced arrangement.

Mark Wilson's view of the green after his first shot of the day. 
Set the tone nicely for the rest of the round.

The bylaws state that the maximum handicap is 27 for men, and 36 for women, but that the Captain has the discretion to relax this requirement. Our Captain has decided to do exactly that, and for the rest of the season, all players will play in competition with the handicap that is calculated for them by Golflink. Their score at the end of play will remain as so calculated, and will not be changed by applying the difference between their calculated score and 27 or 36 as has sometimes happened in the past.

Peter sorts the fines

Next week, we are hoping that WAGBA are able to join us. Arrangements for celebrations after the game are weather-dependant at this stage. We will be playing Stableford.

Our hard-working treasurer still at it, 
long after everyone else has gone home.