Pattaya Sports Club Links Golf Society
Thursday, Feb. 11
Bangpra
Stableford
When standing on the first tee this day at Bangpra, Mark On realized that he was in the same group as Michael Blumhagen and was itching for redemption.
Two weeks ago, at Khao Kheow, both scored 39 points with Michael winning on countback, so the challenge was on between these two long hitting, low handicap golfers.
Mark On scored an excellent 38 points but, once again, Michael Blumhagen had the better of him by just the one point to take his second win in two weeks. It is a friendly rivalry that could prove interesting in the near future.
We had 19 starters after one late withdrawal and were given the go ahead to start about twenty minutes early.
As the early groups came in it looked like a day for some fairly dismal scoring, with tales of woe and how hard the course was playing.
Then Bill Copeland, coming to join us for a break away from the Siam courses, as he does sometimes, made things look a little better as he took the clubhouse lead with 35 points.
The last group arrived and the aforementioned duo swamped Bill and the rest in an exciting finish.
Peter Lacey rounded out the podium with 34 points.
Near Pins: Bill Copeland, Mike Ehlert, Tommy Marshall, Peter Allan
Winners at Bangpra
1st Place – Michael Blumhagen (9) – 39 pts
2nd Place – Mark On (11) – 38 pts
3rd Place – Bill Copeland (13) – 35 pts
4th Place – Peter Lacey (12) – 34 pts
Best Front Nine (non winners) – Karl Flood – 16 pts
Best Back Nine (non winners) – Steve Moxey – 18 pts
The pollution that was around during the drive to the course almost disappeared as a good breeze helped to blow it away. The sky was a nice blue and, although the breeze dropped away at times, conditions were still comfortable.
This course has not dried out as we had expected, so the fairways are looking and playing nicely. The well-known quick paced greens lived up to their reputation and managed to catch the unwary on downhill putts, and a couple of uphill putts.
We were ready to settle in for a long ride home on that frontage road with all the roadworks, but were pleasantly surprised as there were no real hold ups, and we made good time back to Links Bar where we found Maurice Roberts, fresh out of quarantine, waiting for us.
We had a special price of 1200 baht all-in which made a usually pleasurable day at Bangpra even more so.
