Blair Conquers Carbrook

Fifteen people arrived at Carbrook on US independence day to play the only event of the year at this venue. The field included new member Grahame Howard, and visitor Dave Carr. The course started us off the tenth, so the sponsor held a stroke/stableford hybrid event with stroke contested first on the 10-18 half. Because of the order of play, the sponsor moved the longest drive from the usual 13th to the later 6th.

The course was a bit wet underfoot, but the weather remained dry all day. The start was quite foggy, but as usual for such things, once the sun gained enough strength to burn it off, it revealed a glorious winters day.

Par in this format is a score of 18, and that’s all it took for our winner Blair George. Just one behind him was our host and sponsor Phil Dacey, taking the runner-up prize on this his home deck.

Pin shots went with the 11th to our sponsor, 14th to our winner, 2nd to our newest member and 7th to Allan Gillam. The fairway for the longest drive ended up seeming narrower than all expected, with Eric Brunovs the best of the minority that could stay on it.

Next game is in two week’s time on July 18 at Nudgee. Tee off is 7:04, and we’ll all find out what permutation of the course we’ll be playing when we get there.

Gavin ends George’s Drought

Thirteen players arrived at Gailes for this best-ball stroke competition. One of the sponsors is in Melbourne, while the other sat out the contest due to an injury, leaving six teams competing. Weather was clear but cold, with it only really warming up at the half-way mark. We set off from the tenth tee, so the longest drive was moved to the 16th. Sometimes member and host Troy van der Haar paired up with the non-competing sponsor to lead the field, and rapidly disappeared into the distance.

Winning the day was the team of Gavin Muir and captain George Young, returning a 69. Gavin hasn’t played many games with us this year, so he made it worth his while today. George attends every game, but hadn’t won since the father’s day game last year, which was also a team event.

At only one stroke back from them, was Tony Armbruster and Phil Dacey claiming the runner-up with 70, which is how close Phil came to winning three events on a row. I heard that the game was mostly over before he and Tony even realised they were playing as a team, so I wonder if a bit more coordination may have saved them a stroke or two?

Phil Dacey is used to walking away with more than a mere runner-up, so he also bagged the longest drive on 16, plus the pin shots on 3, 6 and 17. It was only Ricky Ong’s shot on 12 that prevented Phil sweeping the lot.

The treasurer had some panic, when he realised he’d left the treasury bag on the footpath at his home. He was quite relieved to find upon returning that one of this neighbours had rescued it and placed it against his door.

Next game is next Sunday July 4, US Independence Day. That’s an amended 6:30 am tee-off at Carbrook, and since it’s Phil Dacey’s trophy, we can try to get a bit back from him.