Monday, July 4th
Royal Lakeside Golf Club
1st Michael Brett (15) 39 points
2nd Les Cobban (7) 37 points
3rd Niall Glover (12) 37 points
Near pins Bill Richardson, Gary Smith, & Jimmy Carr.
We start a new week of good courses with possibly the best, Royal Lakeside. We have known for years this course is always in tip-top condition as it was again today. As usual, being close to the coast the onshore breeze was blowing sometimes quite hard making for tricky conditions, nevertheless, scoring was very good with just about everybody returning a decent card. Despite the significance of the day for our American cousins, July 4th, we didn’t have a single representative from that neck of the woods, we needed Raleigh Gosney to do a flying visit to fly the flag, where was Kevin, and I don’t mean Kevin from “Home Alone”.
The first nine holes were completed in very good time; however, we ran up against three groups of locals, all in five-balls so as you might expect there was a delay on every hole on the back nine, which took forty-five minutes longer to complete than the front nine. One of the great mysteries of Thai golf is why they seem incapable of playing in anything other than a five-ball.
Les Cobban set out in grand style and knocked in puts from everywhere looking like he was going to blow everybody away, however, he slowed down a bit on the back nine, still doing enough to edge out Niall Glover into third place on countback, both tied on thirty-seven points. Michael Brett took first with thirty-nine points. Jimmy Carr, Bill Richardson, and Gary Smith all got near pins with one going to the delinquent fund.
Wednesday, July 6th
Pattaya Country Club.
1st Alan Sullivan (11) 42 points
2nd Jay Babin (21) 40 points
3rd Geoff Atwell (23) 38 points
4th Kevin LeBar (16) 38 points
Near pins Kevin LeBar, Gary Smith, Niall Glover, & Michael Brett.
A short trip to Pattaya Country Club for our midweek game where we had a very decent field of eighteen. As we got to the course it looked crowded and a long round looked in prospect, however, at our appointed tee time all ahead of us were moving along at a decent pace so we encountered no delays. The course was fine as usual, if one was critical, they might find the greens a bit bumpy.
For some reason, we are having a lot of very good scores lately as was the case again today. Alan Sullivan produced a superb round of forty-two points to take first place off an eleven handicap, a round that included three birdies. Pattaya Country Club seems to be a favourite course for Jay Babin where he never returns a low score, today his forty points were only good enough for second place. Returning from a sojourn to the UK the Sherwood Forest bandit Geoff Atwell showing no rustiness from a month off took third with thirty-eight points beating Kevin LeBar into fourth on countback. Nobody knows how Kevin got his normally twelve handicap up to sixteen, perhaps a 4th of July present from the handicapper. All the near pins were taken with one each going to Gary Smith, Niall Glover, Kevin LeBar, and Michael Brett.
Friday, July 8th
St Andrews
1st Bengt Engstrom (13) 39 points
2nd Les Cobban (7) 38 points
3rd Kob Glover (19) 37 points
Near pins Niall Glover, Les Cobban, & Kob Glover X 2.
A short trip out to Barcelona Valley for today’s game at St Andrew’s where we were able to enjoy millionaire golf once again with the course virtually to ourselves. The tees and fairways were in nice condition, unfortunately, some of the greens have been lost and require some serious maintenance to bring them back to the standard we have come to expect. A nice day for golf with moderate temperatures, no threat of rain, and very little wind to speak of.
The standard of golf was again good with lots of birdies, one group had at least six, but no eagles. Les Cobban went one better than his thirty-seven on Monday to take second place, Kob Glover took third with thirty-seven points as well as two near pins, but the winner with an excellent thirty-nine points was Bengt Engstrom. The two remaining near pins went to Niall Glover & Les Cobban. With forty-two and two thirty-nine-point winning scores, it was indeed a very good week at the Bunker Boys, let’s hope the trend continues
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