The Outback Bar Golf Society
Monday, Dec. 12, Suwan G.C. – Stableford
Our week-long golf tour of Kanchanburi got underway with a round at Suwan Golf Course on Monday with a full field of 28 golfers.
While Tawan got everyone organized and ready to tee off I dealt with several issues we had with this golf course’s management. First they doubled the previously quoted price and said the onus was on us to make sure if it was a public holiday or not when booking. Secondly, there was a shortage of buggies and some of our players were basically forced to walk, and thirdly they insisted that 2 of our group who wanted their wives to accompany them around the course had to pay the full whack of an extra THB 4000 each.
On the plus side, this is a good course and was well presented without any complaints from the golfers.
Some really high scores emerged from the two divisions. A fabulous 42 points from Alan Ashton took the honours in B Flight, followed by Bruce McAdam on 37 and Thomas Leuscher with 32.
In the A division, David Lloyd scored 39 points for first place, Maurice Copan 37 points gave him second spot and Murray Hart completed the podium in third with 36.
There was only one ‘2’, by Christopher Barr whose ball skidded across the water on hole 3, hit a rock, then a tree and then a golf buggy to stop an inch in front of the hole. The following nervous putt just scraped in.
Tuesday, Dec. 13, Grand Prix G.C. – Stableford
Our plan to play Grand Prix twice with an “off day” in between worked out really well. Grand Prix was in tremendous shape with incredibly fast greens that must have run close to 11.5, certainly a lot faster than any courses that Pattaya has to offer.
Because of the fast greens it also played a lot tougher for some and the lower handicappers in Division A fared remarkably better than the Division B golfers.
John Langley recovered from a bad day at Suwan and scored a respectable 31 points to take third in the second flight. Jim Connelly took the next step up on the podium with 33 points and finishing first was Stefan Hoge with 34 points.
In Division A, Dennis Scougall scored 36 points for third place, Murray Hart continued his good form and scored 37 for second while Brad Jordison recorded the day’s only ‘2’ and racked up a great 39 points to win the flight.
Thursday, Dec. 15, Grand Prix G.C. – Stableford
Playing Grand Prix the second time in 3 days, the greens seemed remarkably slower today in the cool, overcast conditions. Consequently, the scores overall and especially for the B division came in much better.
David Atkinson got used to his caddy and finished with a good 36 points for third in B Division. Meanwhile Alan Ashton continued his good form from day 1 to score a big 41 points, but the day belonged to Hans-Georg Bufe with an excellent 42 points for the win.
In Division A, Brad Jordison had another good outing with 36 points for third and Dennis Scougall went two better to take second, beaten again by the consistent performance of Murray Hart with the same score of 38 points but a better back-nine.
There were five ‘2’s, coming from Andrew Makara, David Atkinson, Christopher Barr, Ainthira Phisetrit and Hans-Georg Bufe.
Friday, Dec. 16, Nikanti G.C. – Stableford
The last golf day of the tour saw a round at the interesting Nikanti course. Here they essentially have 3 sets of 6 holes, each with two par 3’s, two par 4’s and two par 5’s, and the strange thing is that it works out quite well.
The course plays very short from the white tees (only 5,750 yards) so we decided to let everyone play from the blues today at 6,200 yards. However each player was given the option to move to the white tees for an approximate 3 shot handicap loss.
The same names that were in the lead before today’s game kept coming up in the results again. Hans-Georg Bufe finished third in the B Division with 35 points while Alan Ashton lost out on top spot on count back to Jon Kittilsensneaked, both with 38 points each.
In the A division, Murray Hart’s name came up for the fourth time in the week with his third place here today and 34 points. David Lloyd returned to form with a good 36 points for second place and Dennis Scougall won the flight with an amazing 42 points.
With 6 par 3’s one would have expected a few ‘2’s but all these holes played long off the blue tees and Dennis Scougall was the only player to notch a birdie on them.
So another successful Outback Tour came to an end with all our golfers arriving safely back at the Outback for the presentation on Friday evening. In 5th place overall was Brad Jordison with 134 points, David Lloyd secured 4th place with 137 on the back of his good last round, the most consistent player of the week, Murray Hart, got third with 145 and Dennis Scougall scored 148 to take second. The week however belonged to Alan Ashton, who played excellent golf throughout and finished with 152 for an average of 38 points per round.
