PSC Bunker Boys Golf
Monday, January 6th
Plutaluang North & West
Stableford
1st Daryl Vernon (20) 40 points
2nd Les Humphrey (26) 33 points
3rd Scott McCormack (32) 32 points
4th Tony Berry (14) 32 points
Near pins, Roland Davidson, Neil Jones, Sam Gershom, Andy Gray.
A decent turnout of nineteen assembled at Woody’s Bar and made their way to Plutaluang for the first game of the week where we were allocated the North & West nines. The course as expected was extremely dry but nevertheless played ok. Some had an issue with the coarse buffalo grass but otherwise, the course was fine, in particular, the greens were very good.
As it was busy with another society also playing, there were a few delays here and there but nothing too dramatic. There was a short delay on the opening tee and both par threes on the front nine, otherwise, all went smoothly.
Birthday boy Daryl Vernon had another of those days we are becoming accustomed to seeing from him, blowing the rest of the field away with a score of forty-points, seven ahead of his nearest rival. Les Humphrey is becoming a regular in the winner’s circle now, putting paid to the notion that one flight only is a disadvantage to higher handicap players. Three out of four in the winning group had twenty plus handicaps. Scott McCormack made his debut at the top table taking third place with thirty-two edging out Tony Berry in his first game of this trip.
Wednesday, January 8th
Greenwood B & C
Medal
1st Andy Gray (27) Net 68
2nd Patrick Kelly (2) Net 69
3rd Michael Brett (17) Net 70
4th Kevin LeBar (11) Net 71
5th Geoff Cox (15) Net 73
6th Phil Mashiter (4) Net 73
Near pins Les Humphrey, Patrick Kelly, & Peter Kelly.
Wednesday started off bad and went downhill from there. After Jimmy had worked out the transport and teams, two late arrivals screwed everything up and worse still left us short of transport. After a frantic call to Daryl Vernon who wasn’t going to play today, Daryl was good enough to fill in so all twenty-five managed to get to the course.
We were allocated B & C nines and after the first group teed off on B1 the marshal decided to split us up and put half our group off on C1, so we had a problem with near pin markers on the C course and had to improvise. Finally, back at Woody’s at the presentation, one player’s card was ignored for some reason so the winning places were not correct. After a quick recount, all was finally resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Despite being very dry the course was good, the greens had recently been sanded and a few players had an issue with their speed, otherwise, all was ok and in the end, a very keen contest ensued with good scores returned.
Andy Gray, complete with his new Wilson clubs and dodgy handicap, took first place with a net sixty-eight points. A steward’s inquiry was held in regard to his handicap and it was decided to cut him to eighteen.
One or two misjudgments of distance resulting in wrong club selection prevented Patrick Kelly from taking first as he had some extra strokes to play. He may have had poor advice from his caddie.
Third went to Michael Brett on seventy, another who had a chance to win but made two crucial mistakes on the closing two holes resulting in bogeys. Kevin LeBar took fourth with seventy-one while Phil Mashiter and Geoff Cox both finished on seventy-three.
Near pins were dominated by the Kelly clan with Patrick and Peter taking one each. Les Humphrey took the third, one remained unclaimed.
Friday, January 10th
King Naga
Stableford
1st Andy Gray (26) 36 points
2nd Kevin LeBar (11) 35 points
3rd Tony Berry (14) 34 points
Near pins Jimmy Carr X 2, & Tony Berry X 2.
Treasure Hill
1st John Hughes (21) 32 points
2nd Ross Schiffke (18) 31 points
3rd Colin Greig (11) 31 points
Near pins Eddie Kelly, Geoff Williams, Murray Greig & Patrick Kelly.
Friday was a day to remember for the Bunker Boys or maybe forget depending on your point of view. Either way, some salutary lessons need to be learned from the whole debacle. The biggest group of the year (twenty-six) made their way to Pattavia for our regular booking. On arrival, we found a large group of golfers waiting in the bag drop area. When we went to check-in we were told that there were no caddies or carts and we couldn’t play without caddies. It seems the management disregarded all its normal bookings and handed over the course to a bunch of one-off blowins to run a private competition leaving all their regular patrons stranded. Very shabby treatment indeed and not something that would engender any loyalty.
What ensured was total chaos with some of our group going to Treasure Hill to wait an hour to play while the remainder went from Pattavia to Pattana, on to Treasure Hill and finally to King Naga. In the end, everyone got a game in so I guess that was some consolation. The net result was to highlight the lack of leadership on the day or any semblance of a coordinated plan to resolve our issue. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have resolved the problem before leaving the bar and prevented people from running around like headless chooks in search of a game.
A split round ensued with fourteen at Treasure Hill and twelve at King Naga where believe it or not a massive storm hit on the closing holes that produced flash flooding. The visit to King Naga had the benefit of showing the course in much better shape than expected although that’s a relative statement, so maybe we may visit there again, particularly as it would have benefited greatly from the torrential rain.
The better scores were also returned by the group at King Naga.
