Vice Captains Choice - 3 clubs and a putter

Nerves were on edge as 19 SOS members assembled at the 1st tee of the Old Course for a game of stableford using only 3 clubs! The putter was mandatory to protect the greens, but many found it could be usefully applied in difficult situations well away from the greens!  Some opted to keep their driver, which was fine on the tees but using them on the fairways proved to be a hit and miss affair!

Meanwhile, guest Alex Mancini was allowed a full bag of clubs as he was completing his 3rd round prior to applying for SOS membership. Welcome back Alex.

Conditions at the start were chilly and gusty with cloud cover. Those with only one layer of clothes wondered if autumn had actually arrived however, by the 3rd hole the clouds disappeared, the wind abated somewhat and clear blue skies made for a very pleasant day's golfing!

  

Peter swings his warm up stik at the 1st tee white markers, having
 already used his 3 wood off the green tee without a warm up!

On the 4th(?) hole, Gerry and Frances' tee shots
 landed within a metre of each other 

 

The Golden Hole, worth $78, was sooooo nearly claimed by Frances, her
 ball being an inch too far from the 16th hole cup!

Keith in the jungle!
Almost unheard of for Keith to be so far off course!

Using a 3 wood off the Par 3 6th tee only got Peter's ball half way to the green.
Using an 8 iron, and avoiding wrapping the shaft around the tree, the
 ball only made it another 15 metres or so, resulting in three strokes to get on the green!

Presidential Address

SOS President, Gerry Tessier, welcomed those present to the post match meeting, including guest and Member nominee, Alex Mancini.

Gerry raised the suggestion that SOS may like to help support the Charlies Angels Foundation by making a donation and generally raising awareness of the Foundation's work in providing support to bereaved families.  SOS long term committee member and sponsor, Glen Pope, and his daughter became involved with the Foundation in recent times.

The suggestion was well received by those present as was Gerry's following fund raising method.

For the next two weeks all Ash Tray collections and Raffle proceeds will be donated to the Charlies Angels Foundation  - we count on you to be generous and if you are not joining the competition in the next two weeks you can delegate someone to make a donation on your behalf :). 

Next week Glen Pope will provide additional information on the Foundation, while an outline can be found at the end of this blog.

SOS T SHIRTS

1.     OLD STYLE (pre Anniversary, but still very stylish)

There are several pre anniversay T Shirts still available at a cost of $20 each. Details are:

2 x Mens SM Long sleeve

2 x Mens M  Short sleeve

1 x Womens size 10 short sleeve

Please see Shelley is you wish to purchase one of these 'superceded' SOS shirts.

2.    NEW STYLE

If you wish to acquire a new style SOS T-Shirt please make sure you place your order with Shelley Yeo well before March 3. You will need to provide Shelley with the size of shirt and elect for short or long sleeves.

A single, Polo Style, shirt is available free to accredited SOS members as at 31 December 2024.

Players currently becoming members shall pay $20.

Anyone else, or those requiring a second shirt, will need to pay $40 for a short sleeve or $45 for a long sleeve shirt.

If you will not be needing a new style shirt, please let Shelley know so she can cross you off the list.

Please note the cost of each new T Shirt in the March 2025 order will become lower as the number purchased goes up. As the SOS Committee looks to produce a new T Shirt every 3 years or so members should condider the merits of purchasing an additional shirt with the current 'free' shirt. Orders for additional shirts can be made mid term however, a minimum of 10 shirts is required and the unit cost is much higher! 

Finally, if for any reason if you do not want to get a new shirt, please send a quick email to Shelley, to avoid unnecessary expenses to the club. 

The Results

Leaving 71% of your clubs in the boot of your vehicle can be a cathartic experience, as many found out!  Club selection was no longer a complex and stressful mathmatical equation, factoring in distance, elevation, fairway terrain etc. ; just grab a club and give the ball a whack!

Those that had ditched their driver for a 3 wood regularly found their tee shots going further and straighter.  How else do you explain that during the Ash Tray collection no-one admitted to losing a ball?

Glenn, aka Pugdog or Puggy, won the competition by scoring a very commendable 36 stableford points followed 4 strokes behind by Shelley and Gardi on 32 points.

Interestingly, 13 players managed to better on the back 9 than the front 9. with 5 players scoring better on the front 9.  Only Goochy managed to score equally on both, carding a solid 30 points in total.

Frances and Peter's chances of a podium finish were dashed by a very poor front 9, each scoring the same 12  + 19 for a total 31 points.

Gardi 3rd - Pugdog 1st  -  Shelley 2nd
The winners were grinners!

Shelley Yeo was flying the SOS flag when she met Aussie PGF pro and LIV competitor Lucas Herbert at the LIV golf tournament held at Adelaide's Grange golf course recently. Lucas tied for 31st place with an even score over the three rounds (54 holes). For those unfamiliar with the 'LIV' name it is the Roman numeral for 54.

Shelley Yeo & Lucus Herbert

Meanwhile, back on the Old Course . . . . 

 

Shelley uses her driver to take a swipe at her ball on the fairway!

The post match gathering was a colourful affair with Steph flaunting the latest in fashionable golfing attire.

TEMU's Ambassador at large, Stiff
displays their latest golf attire! 

Another Temu offering available on-line . . . . 

Novelty Holes

Karl announced the results of the Novelty holes which were dominated by today's competition winner, Puggy, who presumably had his driver in the bag to take out the longest drive!!

:

Hole 2 NTP - Goochy

Hole 3 NTP in 3 - Puggy

Hole 6 NTP in 2 - Steph

Hole 10 LD - Puggy

Hole 11 Longest putt - Shelley

The Golden Hole was worth $78 and very nearly won today by Frances who's ball landed 1 inch away from the tip of the flag stick. The 'pot' therefore jackpots to the next game on the Old Course.

Birdies

Only 4 birdies from 3 players, perhaps suggesting only 3 clubs and a putter is not as effective as a full bag!  

Puggy -  4 & 10

Keith  - 14

Peter   - 15

Raffle

There were 54 raffle numbers purchased providing a 1 in 5 chance of holding a winning number!

Raffle Master, Puggy, spun the barrel and the $10 Wembley gift card was won by Karl Wolzak.

Ash Tray Fund

Derek won the bag of lollies and read out the list of fine categories and managed to raise $24.95 from those present wishing to atone for their transgressions, which included several four putts, trees to fairway etc. No-one admitted to losing a ball!

The start of a 4 putt disaster!

CHARLIES ANGELS FOUNDATION

End

Summer Cup Round 2

A new look!

And don’t we like a new look.

No, not this one

Which brings us directly to the subject of golf shirts.

The existing design is being retired, it having persisted for three years

And is to be replaced with this.

A design that will enable us to look down on other golf groups less sartorially elegant than us.

As elegant as it gets

You will need to let Shelley know your size, gender and preference for short- or long-sleeved version. Please do so asap so that we can put our order into the supplier.

Should you wish two (or three!) shirts, subsequent ones will incur a cost - short-sleeved are $40, long-sleeved $45. However, your first shirt is paid for by the club.

Wayne on the second, lost 2 balls but found 8!

 

And now to the game. Stroke play on the Old Course, the second round of the Summer Cup.

Paul B encounters a spot of bovver.....

....but deals with it masterfully.

Pug Dog had established a very significant lead from last week, but would any of the chasing pack have what it takes to overhaul the front runner?

The day started unusually windy, and had warmed up quite considerably by the time the first group was contesting the eighteenth hole.

However, the temperature didn’t reach the 37 degrees the BOM had been threatening earlier in the week.

Gerry has had his eyes fixed, which means that while he is still hitting the ball into the bush from time to time, he now knows into which bush he has hit it.

A great step forward.

"Start your engines!"

Good to see Goochy again, he tells us he is getting his old game back again - well, at least the shitty parts of it.

Not a bad drive on the fourth, though

And while there were no ‘anniversaires’ again this week, we did celebrate that on Feb 7^th, 1975, Colin played his first game for SOS. That’s right, 50 years a member. It was suggested  that some members were not even born then, although we were struggling to work out just who that would have been.

Here;s Karl in trouble on the 11th. 

Interestingly (yes, really) back then the SOS newsletter was known as ‘The Sausage’, hence our attempt at a bit of retro styling at the head of the blog this week.

Meanwhile, hats off to  Gary, who managed a very creditable 12^th at the Victorian Open in his category, where he represented the SOS golf group. No mention of sausages there.

The novelties were shared around this week:

Nearest the pin on 2 went to Goochy, who edged out Lynley.

Nearest in 2 on the 15^th, went to Roland

The longest drive on the 14^th was bagged by Karl

Nearest in 3 on the 3^rd saw Lynley again in contention, but beaten this time by Andrea, and

Longest Putt on the 9^th, had Earle on the card, but Colin did better.

The Golden Hole failed to go off, so has jackpotted.

Colin Kerr manages to top off a bad day 
with this on the fifteenth. 

So, to the birdies:

Don on 7 and 17

Paul B on 6

Andrea on 10

Goochy on 1

Pug Dog on 11, and

Roland on 15.

Always nice to start with a birdie, Goochy.

Vicki in a spot of bovver on the tenth

Today’s results were as follows:

 

 

Top of the tree

Do note that Karl also won the raffle - how often does that happen?

Which means that the podium for the Summer Cup competition looks like this:

 

On aggregate scores of 147 were Andrea and Roland,

but just, and only just holding on to his lead from last week:

Pug Dog!

Held off the challengers

Congratulations

Next week, it  is VC’s choice. There was much lobbying in favour of Stroke, but in the absence of the VC, Keith has chosen that the game will be Stableford, played with three clubs and a putter.

We generally find with such games that the scores have not varied much from the usual. We can thus conclude that around ten of the clubs you carry around with you every week are totally superfluous!

Just saying. 

And thanks to all our photographers this week - we couldn’t do it without you!

And remember...

SUMMER CUP - ROUND 1

The first major for the SOS golfing calendar heralded the beginning of the 2025 season with Round 1 of 54th playing of The Summer Cup on the Tuart in fairly warm and balmy conditions. Together with the SOS Cup the Summer Cup is the oldest event in the clubs history.

A strong field of 22 players that included defending champion, Keith Barrow, two time winner Mark Wilson (2022, & 2023), and one time winners Paul Gardner (2017), Shelly Yeo (2016) and Don Beesley (2012). A number of previous winners including Garry Burgess (2021), Glen Pope (2013 & 2020), Lyn Malone (2011) and Brett Fordham (2014) were not able to tee it up because of injury, illness or prior commitments. 

We also welcomed back Goochie after a long absence. Not yet a winner of the converted trophy but his day will come and it can't be too far off.

Despite the diminished field hundreds of spectators lined the fairway to get a good view of the first group to tee off.

The change of forecast for the days play from a mild 29 degrees to a hot and humid 35 degrees combined with some late withdrawals resulted in some very complex reshuffling of the field with many opted for carts instead of walking. You have to admire the the patience of our tee time administrator, Shelly for dealing with it all in a calm and methodical way.

I'll leave it to you to decide which is more complex - mad scientists attempt to calculate time and money or Shelly tee time rearrangement.

As usual there was much activity and pre tee time chatter amongst the field

"Spots of Bover"

After a drought of Spots of Bover over the past couple of weeks the flood gates opened and restored the average. Following are just some of the many tricky situations the field found themselves in. The first of the day was Goochie on the tee box at the first who made several unsuccessful attempts to tee his ball up, not a great start to a round.

Glen taking on a grass tree again

Lynley executing a perfect backhand shot by the grass tree on the 7th

Paul B with an awkward bunker stance on the 8th

Paul B with a tricky ball position on the 13th

Not to be outdone Gardy came up with an unorthodox shot on the 8th using his driver from 15 metres off the green to run the ball up to be within a metre of the hole..

For those that have recently purchased new equipment only to be left wondering why it performed so well at Drummond Golf's simulator only to let you down dismally on the course, the following diagram, may provide an explanation.

The Results

The Winners & Losers

In first place with a sensational round, despite the tussle with the grass tree was Glen Kelly with 78 off the stick for a net score of 67. Glen for the benefit of the uniformed then explained with great modesty how "The cream rise to the top", and hence his convincing win. Let's see what Round 2 brings.

In second place on countback from Roland was Lynley with a net score of 73 and commiserations to Don, also on 73 but relegated to 4th on countback. All very solid rounds

Peter took out the lollies but didn't seem to displeased with that, better than nothin.

The Novelties

Longest putt - Greg

NTP in 2 on the 6th - Greg (in the hole)

NTP in 3 on the 14th - Lynley

NTP on the 18th - Karl

Longest drive on the 17th - Andrea (her favourite hole on the Tuart)

Golden Hole - Club

Birdies

Andea on the 17th following on from the longest drive

Gardy on the 5th and the 17th

Mark W on the 12th

Barry on the 7th

Greg on the 6th from a chip in. Never looked in doubt

Penalties

Surprising very little money raised in the expletives category this week as the usual suspects were on their best behavior. Regardless a healthy amount was raised for the club. With tempers kept in check there was also no club abuse.

Victorian Open

The Australian PGA Victorian Open Championship is currently being played at the 13 Mile Beach course and our club is represented by our all abilities champion and member, Garry Burgess who is putting in a solid performance despite only recently returning from injury. We all wish Garry well in the final days play today.

Sick & Injured

Out thoughts and best wishes go out to all those who are not well or injured and are no doubt chomping at the bit to get back out on the course again.

Lyn, we all hope your treatment is progressing well. Popey, hopefully that back is getting better and the acupuncture is helping. Gerry (Hawkeye), great the hear that the surgery went well but sorry to hear about your current battle with influenza A 

and Brett there's not much you can do following your shoulder surgery but wait it out.

From the Captains Desk

Andrea has locked everyone’s handicaps today (Saturday) for the Old Course next week as we have a 2 week comp.

Therefore please play your own card (stroke) next week for the daily comp and I will make any adjustments to those scores (if required) for the purposes of the summer cup.

Round 2 of The Summer Cup

Round 2 will be played on the Old Course with a first tee off time of 7.56 which is reasonably civilised - even Stephanie can be on time for this one.

The forecast for next Saturday is 34 degrees so those requiring carts please let Shelly know well in advance.