IPGC Pattaya Golf Society at Rabbi’s Elephant Bar
Monday, 24th October was a public holiday so the Pattaya Golf Society took advantage of the very reasonable fees offered by Rayong C.C. to play a stableford event over the course which was in better condition than most could have hoped, and it certainly knocked some more exclusive courses into a cocked hat currently when it comes to course presentation. What? Rayong CC? Even the greens had more pace than has been seen over the past two years. The downside was the lack of golf carts and it cost the group at least four participants.
Competition was quite tight with Peter Seward and Richard Palmer sharing second place with 35 points each, just nudging Ronnie Ramsay into fourth. The winner was Wichai Tananusorn, yet again playing superb sub-par golf in his perpetual quest for zero. He was helped by a birdie ‘2’ on the fifth hole and shared the ‘2’s pot with Masa Takano and Allen Dow after their similar efforts on the sixteenth and twelfth holes. Allen very generously donated his share to the PGS adopted charity, the Fr Ray Foundation Outreach Center.
The Booby Bevy went to Peter Masters for his hero-to-zero performance which heralded his return to work and eight weeks of golf-less purgatory. If the standard of presentation remains as high Rayong C.C. can look forward to more visiting groups from Pattaya through high season.
Ferris returns in fine fettle
With rumours circulating that Mr Len had suffered a “senior moment” in booking Treasure Hill for the Pattaya Golf Society’s Monthly Medal event the members travelled to the course on Wednesday, 26th October, in anticipation of a tough day.
They found the course in good condition with a few bare patches on the fairways but greens which had been recently dressed. Renovation work on some tee boxes also meant that many white tees were on the black tee boxes. But monthly medals are all about golfers applying their skills and grinding out rounds whatever the conditions and this day was no exception as Wichai Tananusorn strove all round to return with the best gross of 83 (net 76) for third place.
In second was new member Stephen Donahue who impressed with net 75. The winner was Jim Ferris who has recently returned to his home group in obvious good form and his score of net 72 was a deserved return for hitting the fairways and finding the pace on the greens.
There were no birdie ‘2’s and ten handicapper Barry Dunn won the “nil-return” count back to take the Booby Bevy on his first competition round with IPGC. Treasure Hill was quite a harsh introduction to be Pattaya golf scene for the Aussie golfer, as well as a few others.
Charity matters with PGS
The Pattaya Golf Society held its latest charity team event at Plutaluang on Friday, 28th October on the West and North nines. The format was pairs stableford combined and a good turnout followed the tradition established this year in an effort to support the excellent work of the Fr. Ray Foundation Outreach Center on Soi Thepprasit.
The course was in fine condition and the warmth of the day matched that of the generosity of the many sponsors. Near pins were sponsored by Rabbi, Tony Thorne, Jean Morel and Peter Ditz whilst Larry Slattery, on his return to Pattaya, generously donated prizes for the next event as well.
Near pins were won by Peter Ditz, Larry Bland and two by Marc Jensen.
In the event proper Masa Takano and Peter Ditz came third with 61 points, a mere point behind the runners-up Marc Jensen and Haru Kato and the fancied pairing of Jim Ferris and Larry Slattery took the honours with 66 points as Jim scored the day’s only sub-par round of 37.
Rabbi and Khun Peung laid on a splendid buffet for the presentation back in Soi Buakhao and Khun Phennipa from the Outreach Center was there to receive the handsome sum raised which pushed the total so far this year to ninety six thousand.
The next charity event is the PGS Annual Scramble which will be held on Friday, 18th November at Pattaya Country Club. Sign-up sheets will be available in the Elephant Bar from the weekend. As always the true winners were the underprivileged kids in Soi Thepprasit whose day was perhaps made better by the warm-hearted golfers at the PGS.
