The Outback Bar Golf Society
The Outback set off for its regular tour to Chiang Mai on June 12 with 15 golfing lads, another fellow not playing, and about 8 ladies joining their partners. All flights were arranged through U-tapao which made it a comfortable journey.
We changed the format into much more of a fun tour rather than the too strict “play by the book” rules of individual stableford based on slope ratings etc. We appointed 4 team captains and from day 1 the team captain could pick his playing team for the day, one person at a time. Two stableford scores counted from each team to determine the winners for the day. Next day, captains selected their players again, but they weren’t allowed to pick someone they chose the previous day. On the third day the captains still picked the teams but there was also a captains’ team where all the captains played together.
It was great fun, great banter, and a very good way for everyone to meet everyone else and get to know one another. To keep it really interesting, handicaps were adjusted for the future rounds as follows: Winner’s handicap was cut by 2, second by 1, last place gained 2 shots and second last received 1.
For those that wanted, we also played the Alpine course on the last day before flying out. What a challenging course that was for most of us!
Results are as follows:
Summit Green Valley – Day 1
1st Andy Butts 37pts
2nd John Low 35pts
3rd Lloyd Landrie 34pts
Andre Coetzee guided his team to victory today on a nice course which, while not the best around, still had a lot of very worthwhile holes.
Mae Jo Golf Club – Day 2
1st John Low 35pts
2nd Ed Turner 32pts
3rd Sel Wegner 31pts
We played at Mae Jo on day 2, a challenging course among the fruit trees and although the rain was belting down we had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Andre Coetzee was again the winning skipper, this time by virtue of picking John Low’s card to fill in the missing slot in his team.
Bruce Mcadam and Neil Smith each scored a ‘2’.
Chiang Mai
Highlands – Day 3
1st Andy Butts 40pts
2nd Geoff Christie 40pts
3rd Bruce Mcadam 38pts
Day 3 was played at Highlands – in my opinion the best course in Chiang Mai with a great layout and it really feels like a champion course. The winning captain today was Ed Turner while Drew Robertson, Geoff Christie and Andre Coetzee each scored a ‘2’.
In the overall results it came very close in the end, with Sel Wegner finishing third with 101 points, John Low second with 102, but Andy Butts did it again by clinching the top spot for this tour with 103 points. Well done all!
