PAR

Yes, Par - the game that can really punish you when you're not at your best. It's very easy to let those minuses mount up.



So, on a hot day like today it was good to see most managing to control the damage.

Most managed to wrangle the electronic cards successfully - although Richard Osborne did have an extended argument with the computer over whether his 7 on the par 4 merited a square or a minus. We gather the computer eventually prevailed.

You'll now be aware of how the system works - you pay your green fee to Glen, which is the same as members of the public pay for their round. From the competition fee that you pay to Wembley, the club gets back the prizes, plus the balls for the novelties - in the past these have come from the surplus that you paid over and above the public's green fee, which is no longer levied.

You're paying an extra $2 a week over and above the previous surplus, from this we get the extra prizes for second and third, the prizes to replace those which were given as sponsorship, plus a surplus which will go to rewarding those who play most often.

In return, we get the competitions and the handicaps administered by Wembley on our behalf, with the added benefit of instant correlation and correction of mistakes on the card. The extra payment doesn't go to Wembley, it comes back to the club.

Paul made the point that he didn't want to see prizes growing too large - that's also the committee's view, we'll restrict the first prize to being no more than the value of a free game. It's a social club, and we play for fun, not for the money.

So, thank you to everyone for your efforts in helping to make the new system work - there'll inevitably be teething problems but we'll work through them.



Good to see Stephanie back from NZ, and Tom back from up north.



The bar apologised that the aircon wasn't working too well, but after surviving the 38 degrees outside it felt like the inside of the fridge. 

Seems today that once you got your name on the novelties it stayed there - not too many challengers.

	NOVELTY	HOLE	CONTENDERS	WINNER
	NTP in 2	10		Colin
	NTP in 3	14	Vickie, Max, Ian	Glen
	LD	7		Kerry
	NTP	2		Greg

But the big news of the day was that the Old Course Golden Hole finally went off - this time to Lynne, who no doubt wishes that the figure of $153 is kept secret, so we won't advertise it.

And the competition results -

	PLAYER	SCORE
	Vickie	-9
	Kerry	-7
	David	-3
	Gim	-3
	Paul	-3
	Lynne	-2
	Gerry	-2
	Richard O	-2
	Jack	-1
	Gary	-1
	Ian	0
	Max	0
	Peter	0
	Don	1
	Stephanie	1
	Glen	3
	Derek	3
	John	4
	Thomas	5

A great result by Thomas, +5 is a very decent score when playing Par. 

This is the photo I couldn't take of Thomas because he'd left before the results were announced. 

Remember to keep January 31st free. It's a Thursday, and we'll be playing nine holes at the Claremont par 3, teeing off at 5.30 pm. There'll be a meal afterwards and beer, wine and soft drinks from the club.

I'm hoping to get the golf and meal packaged for $30, but the guy who runs it has been on holiday all this week and isn't returning my calls - I'll keep you updated by email .

Next week, it's the Australia Day Cup - played on the Tuart.