Bunker Boys Golf
Monday, September 27th
Bangpra Golf Club
1st Les Cobban (8) 32 points
2nd Steve Durey (19) 30 points
3rd Jimmy Carr (18) 29 points
Near pins Jimmy Carr & Les Cobban.
Twenty twenty-one has been a particularly difficult year for the Bunker Boys when at times our golf report looked far more like an obituary column than a sports report. Sadly, we start a new week by adding yet another name to the growing list of members who have departed our ranks this year, with the passing of Andy Brady in his native Scotland. Andy, always a delightful gentleman, was possessed of a very thick Scottish brogue and had an ability to make people wet themselves with laughter when he regaled them with some of his jokes and tall tales even if they didn’t always understand what he was saying. He had a very colourful dress sense, in particular, his golf socks were legendary. Because of Covid, Andy hadn’t visited us for a couple of years and his passing came as a shock to all of us. Our condolences go to his family and friends at this difficult time. May he rest in peace.
After a weekend of rain, Monday morning dawned bright and sunny in Pattaya but unfortunately, it was not to last. The day turned out to be quite unpleasant for golf with a couple of stoppages for rain. So, despite nobody in front of us, it took a long time to complete the round. Overall despite the rain, the course was in quite a good condition with only the occasional plugged ball. As expected, the course played long and difficult and as a result, scoring was on the disappointingly low side.
Apart from a few costly hiccups along the way, Les Cobban played a steady round to take first place with thirty-two points. Steve Durey took second with thirty points despite a wipe on the last and Jimmy Carr took third on countback. Jimmy and Les were the only ones to take a near pin with two unclaimed.
Despite very few on the golf course, the club intends to raise their rates to high season prices from next month. Under current conditions, one has to question the wisdom of such a decision. With so many courses already offering better deals now and not increasing their fees in what is normally considered high season the logic is hard to fathom. An example of the different attitude of courses can be seen by Phoenix charging a special rate of seventeen hundred baht all in on Wednesday, resulting in us canceling our booking and rescheduling to St Andrew’s instead at eleven hundred baht all in, not rocket science.
Wednesday, September 29th
St Andrews Golf Club – Yellow tees
1st Jay Babin (23) 45 points
2nd Gerry Cooney (20) 41 points
3rd Geoff Atwell (24) 41 points
Near pins Niall Glover, Gerry Cooney, Kevin LeBar X 2
We were scheduled to play St Andrews on the day the last lockdown started so we missed out and were pleased to return today to take up that booking on the same terms as before, eleven hundred baht all-in which is excellent value for a course of this quality. We were led to believe the course was very wet so elected to play off the yellow tees to appease the shorter hitters. As it turned out the course was in superb condition with only a few plugged balls throughout the round and no reason to play pick, clean, and place as we did.
Some were a little tardy getting to the first tee so a five-ball got out before us and slowed play for the whole round. Unlike Monday when we had a couple of heavy showers, there was no problem with rain today, only heat and humidity with which to contend.
Following Monday’s very modest scoring we had quite the opposite today with some exceptional scores returned. A couple of thirty-nines which any other day would figure on the score sheet didn’t even rate an honorable mention today. A big cut in handicap is in store for Jay Babin, today’s winner with an extraordinary score of forty-five points. Second place and third went to Gerry Cooney and Geoff Atwell in that order on countback. Niall Glover and Gerry Cooney took one near pin each with Kevin LeBar taking two.
Normally the race for the golfer of the month is a closely fought contest but not this month. After a slow start following lockdown, Michael Brett put together a run of good scores to put daylight between himself and the rest of the field and in the end created a new monthly record eclipsing the previous mark set by Robby Watts a couple of years ago.
Friday, October 1st
Pleasant Valley Golf & Country Club
1st Michael Brett (14) 37 points
2nd Kevin LeBar (13) 34 points
3rd Tony Robbins (22) 33 points
Near pins Jimmy Carr, Niall Glover, Jay Babin, & Michael Brett.
The first game of a new month was played at Pleasant Valley off the blue tees, probably the longest distance we have played at this course. Normally a damp course, today the fairways were sodden with big pools of casual water in places and big ruts made by mowers when they would have been better served staying in the sheds. The greens were also not up to their usual standard, a bit brown in places and a bit bumpy. Under the circumstances, it was not the best option to play from the blues.
For some reason, our first group finished way ahead of the second group, possibly because there were two pedestrians in the second group, they also managed to hold up the third group who were all in carts.
Steve Durey looked like carving up the field with twenty-two on the front nine only to hit the wall and fade out of contention completely. Having got two strokes back on his handicap Tony Robbins took third place with thirty-three points on what is possibly his least favourite course. Kevin LeBar went one better to take second whilst Michael Brett got the new month off to a good start with thirty-seven points in first place.
All the near pins were taken with Jay Babin, Niall Glover, Jimmy Carr, and Michael Brett taking one each.
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