Blair Eventually Found at Gailes

Only ten people arrive at Gailes for this warm, pre-summer morning. The sponsor of the day decided to play stroke, but with one hole of the player’s choice to be eliminated, selected at the end of the round. The hole would also be removed from the player’s handicap, which would be reduced by the strokes on that hole derived from the index.

Gailes had just recently cored all their greens, and coated them with a generous layer of sand. Unlike on Tuesday when the Solomons played there, the coating of sand had been washed away, so the putting had recovered some pace from then.

Winning the day with a final net score of 63 was Blair George. When the field was sent off, the count of players as incorrectly nine, with Blair being the one that wasn’t counted. He regained everyone’s notice with his golf – par for Gailes in this format is between 68 and 70, so this is at least five under his handicap, dependent on the par of the hole he removed.

Runner up was a whole six further back with secretary Mick van Bemmel getting 69. He removed a par four, so played to his handicap, with the course par being 69 for him. He also picked up the longest drive and a pin shot to make it a worthwhile day for him.

Two pin shots went to sponsor George Young with the other going to host Troy van der Haar.

Next game is in two weeks at Gailes’ neighbor Wolston Park, teeing off 6:30 on December 1, the first day of summer. This club hasn’t played at Wolston Park since 28 April 2013, so we’ll see how it’s weathered the years since then.

 

Oxley Supergroup Delivers the Goods

Thirteen people arrived at Oxley after some of us drove through some light rain to get there. After this weekend, all the greens were to be cored and scarified, so we dodged that problem. We were told to not rush around the front-nine, as we’d run into traffic at the turn. That indeed happened, as we were stuck behind a four-ball ambrose group. They were travelling at such a pace that by the 11th hole, our two middle groups joined into a group of six that still had no trouble keeping up.

Our sponsor selected the hybrid Stroke/Stableford scoring system, which would have a par of 17 on this layout. Seems you needed to be two strokes better than that, as both placegetters got 15, with a countback edging Mike Brennan ahead of special guest star Steve Gifkins. Both place-getters were in the six-man super-group which had time to truly embrace the essence of social golf. Our runner-up also took the longest drive and one of the pin shots, with the others going to Scott Porter and George Young. The long 13th went unclaimed again.

Next game is in two week’s time at Gailes on November 17. The 6:28 tee-off will allow a little more sleep-time.