The Tropical Golf Group
Tuesday, Feb. 7, Pleasant Valley – Stableford
This is a course you either like or you do not. On this day all the places were taken so that obviously answered the question of where most of our players’ sentiments stand, and besides that we had vouchers to save a few baht.
We had a late tee time and when we got there the course was quite full and we had to tee off on the back nine, and the wind was up. This is a difficult layout to play on a windy day and so we were expecting a hard time, but someone in the pack always plays well. The course was in good condition with clean fairways and greens that played true.
Back at BJ’s in Pattaya we were quickly into the results. In the A Flight, 0 to 18, the winner was Richard Kubicki with 39 points ahead of Tony Berry in second with 37. In third was Mashi Kaneta with 34 points and fourth was Peter Barry with 33.
The B Flight winner was Nigel Perry with 39 points ahead of Graham Buckingham with 34 in second. Taking third was Torsten Bischoff with 33 points and in fourth was Carole Kubicki with 32.
The best front nine went to Brian Parish with 20 points and John Davis was best on the back nine with 18 points.
Near Pins: Torsten Bischoff, Peter Hynard, Richard Kubicki, John Marritt.
Long Putts: Torsten Bischoff, Landis Brooks.
Friday, Feb. 10, Bangpakong – Stableford
Once again the Tropical Golfers made the slightly longer trip up north, this time to visit Bangpakong. With good company, twenty six golfers headed out to this usually pristine course expecting good scores.
The Bangpakong course is fairly wide open and any ball in the fairway is assured a good lie. There are fewer trees than most any course in the area, but also enough water to catch people not hitting at least fairly straight. It is a popular course with the players because it’s a “feel good” course where people usually shoot good scores. On this day that was true – and how! The tropical golfers must have set some sort of record for total points on a golf day. If you didn’t get 40+ points in either flight, your job was to sit and applaud.
On a day of dozens of great scores, Landis Brooks (c/h 10) took advantage of his skill and the easy layout to earn 42 points off his enviable handicap and take the A Flight (0-18) plaudits. Just a point back was Bob Britton (18) with 41 points, followed by John Davis (14) with 40 on count back over other 40 pointers. Wow!
In B-Flight (19+), Dennis Eagar (19) tied the best score of the day with 42 points. Torsten Bischoff (30) and Daryl Evans (24) tied at 40 points for the next two places so all six winners had at least forty points. Some course. Some golfers!
The best front and back nine score were recorded by Eddie Kost and Don Carmody respectively.
Near Pins: Landis Brooks (2), Brian Gabe (2), John Davis, Dave Cooper.
Long Putts: Landis Brooks, Eddie Kost.
