Rob putts from everywhere for the Winter Cup

Mandurah - Winter Cup - Stableford

This week was the Winter Cup played at the Mandurah Country Club. Its one of the best courses we play and the new club rooms and facility are some of the best around. The event was sponsored by Andrew McCarthy who was unable to attend. However the numbers were our highest so far with 28 (2 visitors Darryl and Ray).

There were a few early slow movers as some chose to stay down that way over the previous two days and play some of the courses like The Cut.

Two Match plays were also played with Norm just getting over Trev one up and Leigh the same over Phil. I had the pleasure of watching that game which was tense at times, as when one made a mistake, the other did the same thing, which included but not limited to, topping the ball just past the ladies tee. That wasn’t important though it was good game and some great banter along the way.

I also had the pleasure of watching the winner today which was called before the game by Basil. It was an extraordinary or extra ordinary depending on your point of view. Whatever it was, it was great course management. He basically hit a driver off the tee about 130m followed by the little chipper and maybe two putts of 130m each onto the green for another two putts. He asked where the 100m marker was and putted the ball up to it, and then putted it from there onto the green. If there was a 3 club world champ it would be Rob!

I made a comp out of it but was hit was some back luck, a ball sat 1/3 over the hole and wouldn’t drop for a birdie, another hit a branch and came backwards 20 m into the lake. Then on the final Par 5, I said to Rob if he gets an 8 and I get birdie I win. Sure enough he is on for 6 and I have a 1.5 meter putt for birdie. He missed and settles for an 8 for 1. My putt is about to drop in, I say “ Yes” but the putt says “ no “. It takes a deviation about 10 cm against the slope of the gree , it was just unbelievable. Rob wins on a count back, great win, good fun and fantastic management. I will get over it as soon as I get over the count back loss to Norm in 2008.

In other news there were some card errors based on the indexes which saw Pete Fitzpatrick move up the list and take out 3rd place. In short, the card had indexes up to 54 instead of the usual 18, so a handicap of 19 didn’t necessarily mean you had two shots on index 1. There was a 19 somewhere else on the card. It caught many people out but (un)fortunately not Rob as his adjusted score came out the same!

Group 7 report by Mike Patton

Dave Ovel, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Matt Gibson and myself had the misfortune to play in front of the other social group on the course. The two groups behind us were both three balls and although we felt like we were really slow, we did get around in about 4 hours 30, which although not great wasn't worthy of the icy stares and late round approach and verbal rebuke.

Jamie started off on a tear, parring the first three holes to collect a quick 9 points, however, things soured from there and he was only able to get 12 points on the remaining 15 holes to take out NAGA.

Dave had been out the night before and as we say up north, "His eyes looked like two piss holes in the snow". However, he managed his game well early, turning on 17 points, but his liver eventually restored bloodstream normalcy and his game went south, coming in with 10 points.

Matt's round was the mirror opposite of Jamie's, lots of wipes in the first few holes, but then he put on a ball striking clinic from about hole 5 on. However, the putter was not so kind and both he and I just couldn't seem to get a true roll on the greens. Best example of this was a long 12m bomb that I dropped on the 15th hole. The ball wandered left and right across the green like a drunk stumbling down an uneven footpath in oversized shoes. I literally laughed out loud in disbelief when it fell in.

I spent most of the day in the trees again, (thanks for noticing Tony :) ), generally slowing down the whole group. Had some good scramble pars, but couldn't get the putts to drop and then threw in some shocking shots resulting in 4 wipes to finish solidly mid pack.

Photos courtesy of Robin Dalby