Monday, November 21
Royal Hills, Blue tees
Day 1
1st Craig Dows (5) 40 points
2nd Paul Smith (1) 38 points
3rd Brendan Hartnett (16) 36 points
4th Kob Glover (20) 35 points
Near pins Paul Smith, Keith Norman, Dave Stockman, & Craig Dows.
For the second time this year, the Bunker Boys made the trip up to Nakon Nayok to play the beautiful Royal Hill Hills course on consecutive days. As is often the case some had a casual drive up on Sunday while others choose to make the trip on Monday with an early departure from Pattaya arriving in time for a mid-day tee time
As always the course was in excellent condition and off the blue tees provided a real test of golfing ability with every hole offering a different challenge. Despite that most rose to the challenge and some excellent scores were returned. In his second week back from Oz and having shown little in that time Craig Dows had an excellent day top scoring with forty points. Paul Smith wasn’t too shabby either taking second place with thirty-eight points off a one handicap. Brendan Hartnett who never seems to be out of the frame took third with thirty-six points while Kob Glover rounded out the scoring with a solid thirty-five points, Peter Bottrell looked like he was going to shine with an opening birdie and twenty-one points on the front nine only to fade out of contention on the back. As expected two on the winner’s list, Paul Smith and Craig Dows got near pins each with the other two going to Dave Stockman and Keith Norman.
Day 2
Royal Hills Golf Club
1st Paul Smith (1) 33 points
2nd Dave Stockman ((5) 32 points
3rd Les Cobban (8) 32 points
Near pins Dave Stockman, Keith Norman, Brendan Hartnett, & Les Cobban.
A more leisurely second day at Royal Hills with everybody on hand for a 10.00 am tee time. The day dawned bright and sunny but with the course surrounded on all sides by mountains there was an eerie stillness in the air and only the sound of birds to be heard. As we entered the clubhouse we found one of the staff busily searching for a snake among the flower beds out front, suffice to say we had no volunteers offering their services in the quest for the elusive reptile, farangs and reptiles don’t mix well.
The Royal Hills course proved to be no easier on the second day, quite the contrary with scores on average well short of the previous day. Paul Smith was top of the leaderboard with thirty-three points and leads the standings after two days of competition. Dave Stockman took second place with thirty-two points and also came within a whisker of an ace on one of the par threes. Les Cobban took third place with thirty-two points and also bagged himself a near pin. The remaining near pins went to Keith Norman and Brendan Hartnett. With one game left of this tour at Lam Lu Ka the race is on the see who can overtake Smithy.
Day 3
Lam Lu Ka. A & B Yellow tees Golf Club
1st Kob Glover (20) 37 points.
2nd Bil Richardson (16) 37 points
3rd Niall Glover (14) 31 points
Near pins Craig Dows, & Mike Smith X 2.
Playing off the yellow tees at over six thousand six hundred yards proved a real handful today at Lam Lu Ka particularly as the fairways were a bit damp and there was no run. Fair to say most enjoyed the day nonetheless although a few were frustrated by the scourge of golf i.e. slow play. One feels too many people watch too much golf on TV and copy what they see there forgetting that they are playing recreational golf and not making a living from the game.
Kob Glover took pride of place today with a fine thirty-seven points beating Bil Richardson on countback. Niall Glover took third also on countback with a modest thirty-one points. Three near pins were taken with Craig Dows getting his usual one and Mike Smith taking two.
Yesterday we wondered if anyone could challenge Smithy for player of the tour and sure enough, someone did with Bil Richardson leapfrogging him into first place with a three-day total of one hundred and two points. Paul did manage to take second place with a hundred points while Mike Smith took third with a ninety-six point total.
Friday, November 25
Silky Oak, White tees
1st Michael Brett (17) 36 points
2nd Gary Smith (9) 35 points
3rd Keith Norman (15) 32 points
4th Niall Glover (13) 32 points
Near pins Gerry Cooney, Niall Glover, Michael Brett, & Keith Norman X 2.
A combination of several players having already played three games this week, some more not in love with the course, and the threat of inclement weather all conspired to keep numbers down for today’s game at Silky Oak. The course was surprisingly wet with mudballs common, casual water in many places, and absolutely no run on the fairways. Wind, which was a bit flukey also, played a part in keeping scores down.
Not only was the golf difficult, but the trip back into Pattaya was also even more difficult with roads chocked with traffic as Pattaya was holding two nights of fireworks, luck had to be on your side not to be tempted to take a shortcut which many did leading to even greater chaos.
After an extremely long period of low scores with the occasional decent nine, today’s winner Michael Brett managed to string together two decent nines to top score with thirty-six points albeit off an embarrassing seventeen handicap. As usual Gary Smith was in the mix and took second place with thirty-five points. A couple were locked on thirty-two points where Keith Norman prevailed over Niall Glover on countback. With five par threes on offer, all were taken going to Michael Brett, Gerry Cooney, Niall Glover, and Keith Norman X 2.
This week we welcomed back to the bunker John Hughes for a prolonged period this time, and Tony Robbins after several months in Australia following a medical procedure, we believe he is optimistic about returning to golf early in the new year.
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