The Tropical Golf Group
Tuesday, April 25, Pattana – Stableford
If you play golf and you have not played this course you really must go there and have a knock around. There are three nines here, surprisingly the A, B & C nines and on this day, as the B Course was not being used, we played the C & A in that order. Not a bad selection, as if you start on the B nine you have a very difficult drive between two water hazards and usually the ball heads straight for the water.
This is trip into a little higher level of living as this has to be, in my opinion, the best clubhouse around, and during your visit you are well pampered. And why not? We go here at least once a month and all the players look forward to this visit. And the rate is usually good.
We teed-off on C1 and the first thing we noticed was how hot and still it was. This did not last as slowly the wind rose until at the end it was quite strong. The course was in very good condition and nearly empty, except for the five-ball ahead, which as luck would have it we only caught up with on the 17th hole. Someone up there loves us.
Arriving early back at BJ’s in Pattaya we were soon into the results. There were some good scores and the winner on the day was Landis Brooks with a fine 42 points, just ahead of Derek Brook in second on 41 and Tom Herrington in third with 40 while in fourth was John Davis with 35. Any of the first three could have won on a normal day, but Landis well deserved the win with a gross 77 on a par 73 course.
Near Pins: Landis Brooks, Mashi Kaneta, Dick Warberg, Tom Herrington.
Friday, April 28, Greenwood A & B – Stableford
This was a special double witching day at Tropical Golf – one of those special alignments where the Golfer of the Month award and the Monthly Mug were both up for grabs. The monthly award promised to be an especially interesting race and we had the perfect venue for such a contest, Greenwood Country Club.
The course was in good to excellent condition and we were assigned the A and B nines, playing off the white tees to give some extra length. With all that was at stake you had to be in top form and earn every yard. During the round things got dark and noisy, but all we got was some drizzle for a couple holes.
We played stroke play in the Monthly Mug and Mashi Kaneta (c/h 18) won the event with a fine net 67. Following Mashi was Tom Herrington (18) and Barry Elphick (25), both at a net 70 while last round’s winner Bob Watson (7) was still hitting it straight and finished fourth on net 71.
The Golfer of the Month promised to be an interesting race. Dick Warberg had a four point lead over Landis Brooks but who would win? In the end the winner was none other than Mashi Kaneta as the two leaders stumbled badly and Mashi came up from behind to steal the GOM honors. Ok, he earned it!
Near Pins: Bob Watson, Bob Britton, Walter Baechli.