PSC Golf from The Outback Golf Bar
Monday, Dec. 14, Burapha – Stableford
Div A (0-16)
1st Steve Plant (14) 40pts
2nd John Cunningham (9) 39pts
3rd Peter C Nixon (12) 37pts
Div B (17+)
1st Ivan Plunkett (25) 40pts
2nd Sugar Ray Handford (19) 36pts
3rd James Little (20) 35pts
Back on the A&B course from the white tees and we thought that scoring would be the same as the last few games on these nines, but on this cooler day only 5 players played better than handicap. What was even more surprising was that there were no ‘2’’s at all!
Kim Danboise (right) with Sugar Ray Handford.
With two divisions being contested, Jimmy Little came in third with 35 points in the B division, one behind Sugar Ray in second while Ivan Plunkett topped the flight with a great 40 points.
In the A division, Peter Nixon scored well to extend his lead in the order of merit series and finished third with 37 points. John Cunningham had a really good round and finished second with 39 points, but that wasn’t good enough to unseat Steve Plant who scored a brilliant 40 points off his playing handicap of 14.
Wednesday, Dec. 16, Bangpra – Stableford
1st Geoff Stimpson (10) 37pts
2nd Peter C Nixon (14) 35pts
3rd Kerry Rothman (16) 34pts
With Bangpra not taking bookings between 9 am and 11am, it meant we were off to an early start which was quite nice actually. Teeing off in cool weather, we had perfect conditions with a cool breeze and low humidity levels.
Bangpra’s greens were razor sharp and fast, which posed a real challenge to some of us amateur guys with only a single player beating handicap. Geoff Stimpson and Sven Lund did hit great tee shots on the par-3 17th, to set them up for great birdies and the honours for the ‘2’s club.
In the position standings with only one division being contested, Choppa came good and made it to third spot with his 34 points. Peter Nixon, playing from the difficult blue tees in exchange for a couple of shots based on the slope and course index, did very well and scored 35 points from his revised 14 handicap. Even better, Geoff Stimpson had a really good and steady back nine collecting a crucial birdie on the 206yds par-3 17th hole which helped him to finish on 37 points off his blue tee adjusted handicap of 10. Some impressive shooting there Geoff!
Friday, Dec. 18, Green Valley – Stableford
Div A (0-14)
1st Kim Danboise (14) 36pts
2nd Barry Copestake (14) 36pts
3rd Geoff Stimpson (6) 36pts
4th Tom Byrne (14) 35pts
Div B: [15 up]
1st Andrew Makara (24) 39pts
2nd Stefan Hoge (19) 36pts
3rd Sugar Ray Handford (17) 34pts
4th Eddy Beilby (17) 32pts
With us changing the date for our year end event to the 23rd, it meant that we had to hurriedly restore our usual tee slots and were lucky enough to eventually get 6 tee times confirmed at Green Valley, and another couple on Silky Oak for those who we couldn’t fit in at the former.
I guess the huge surprise on the day was that not a single person in a field of 6 full groups made a ‘2’. We did hear numerous stories, from the likes of Sugar Ray, that shaved the hole on the par 3’s etc., but not a single ‘2’ on the scorecards.
So with two divisions being in effect, Eddy Beilby somehow made it into the prizes with 32 points in the B division to secure fourth place. Sugar made it to a lucky third place with 34 while on 36 points in second place was Stephan Hoge, playing right on handicap. The winner of the B Flight was Andy Makara with a brilliant 39 points. Andy’s handicap should finally start coming down as he has been in great form recently but somehow always manages to dodge the knife!
In the A division scores were generally quite a bit higher, and with 35 points Tom Byrne filled fourth place while 1st, 2nd and 3rd were all determined by count back, with Kim Danboise, Barry Copestake and Geoff Stimpson all tied on 36 points. On count back, Geoff came third, Barry second and Kim took the win (his lessons are obviously starting to pay off for him.)
The win also meant that Kim closed the gap on Peter Nixon by 2 shots, and it will be really good to see these two guys fight it out for the Order of Merit trophy on the last day.
