Last week we saw the playing of The Presidents Cup at Medinah CC at Illinois, USA and this week we commenced the main attraction, The Benkeer Cup named in honour of the Club's two longstanding members, Greg Bennett and Colin Kerr. The tournament is played over two weekends, round 1 on The Old and round 2 on The Tuart. Unfortunately Colin couldn't play because he has injured his knee.
Conditions could not have been better with a light breeze, maximum temperature of 21 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and a good field of 24 players - 13 representing the Rest of the World (ROW) and 11 representing Australia (Aus).
The lengths each player went to display their allegiance varied greatly with zero effort by some to extreme patriotic displays by others as illustrated in the following pre-match photos.
Excellent effort by Lynne, Lynley and Shelly representing Australia and Birgit representing the EU (specifically Germany)
Great cart work as usual by Lynne and Lynley
Lynne and Lynley went to great lengths to show their allegiance, right down to their socks
Shelly had the perfect head gear for our extreme UV and her LIV Golf Ripper GC shirt, the same shirt she was wearing when she was hurling cups of beer at the players on the Watering 12th Hole at The Grange course last year.
Earle and Barry made no effort at all
Coops was colour coordinated in his Africa shirt and just happened to also be woofing off a bacon and egg toasty. - how unusual?
Nice contrast in this photo, minimal to no effort in the left side pairing, Goochy went all out down to his Jesus sandals and Garry sporting a tartan cap.
SPOTS OF BOVVER
Faye and Roland (who had a shocking day out) seemed to come off worst than the rest of the field as illustrated in the following photos.
Faye with no backswing.
Faye again in an impossible position.
Roland gesticulating about something (possibly why me God). Thankfully we have no audio.
Steph & Birgit KO'd by a wayward drive from Thom
Steph in the woods on the 12th with what appears top be a tent, or is that an umbrella or just an optical illusion?
Prior to the presentation Gerry announced members birthdays for which there was only one and that was Earle
THE RESULTS
THE WINNERS
The individual Stapleford winners for the day were Coops (ROW) with a very impressive 40 points followed by Gary (ROW) in second and on count back Greg (Aus) both on 36 points.
THE LOLLIES
The lollies went to out Captain Roland on 21 points
BIRDIES
Hole 16 - Coops and Goochy
Hole 11 - Gary
Hole1 - James
Hole 3 - James
THE OVERALL STANDING AT THE COMPLETION OF ROUND 1
The stableford score for each team is taken by adding up the sum of scores and dividing it by the number of players in each team leaving us with Australia on 30.54 and ROW on 28.92 points.
NOVELTIES
There was a lot of confusion involved in putting out the novelties so following is the best interpretation of what happened.
Silver Hole #2 - Club
Longest Putt #9 - Earle (his birthday present)
Nearest in 3, originally meant to be Hole #10 but ended up Hole #14 - Keith
Nearest the Bunker, originally meant to be Hole #14 but ended up being Hole #17 - Faye
Nearest the stick on Hole #15 - Popey followed by Lynley
Golden Hole #16 - Club
THE WHEEL OF FURTUNE
We had a great response with all numbers sold and demand for still more. Frst number out winning a $10 voucher was Lucky Dave Millar.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Clubs social highlight of the year "The Gala Dinner" will once again be held, through the generosity of the Popes, at Lot Six Zero on Saturday 28 November. Details to follow.
Next week its Round 2 of The Benkerr Cup to be played on the Tuart with a tee off time of 8.20. last years winners were ROW so lets see if Aus can retain their lead and take it out this year.
