Lead changes at Emerald golf

By Dennis Fuller
EMERALD Golf Club held its annual meeting before hostilities last Saturday to see out the incumbent leaders and greet the new.
Graeme White has been replaced as club captain by Ross Martin and Peter Stevens has been replaced by Jeff Marsh. Both White and Stevens had stepped down so it could all be seen as a peaceful, bloodless coup.
When the game got under way in the four-man ambrose, the shotgun start spread floggers to all points of the compass. By the time all was finished it was clear that a team from Olinda Golf Club had won, repaying Emerald, which won most of the King of the Mountain sections.
The winning team included T. Elenius, D. Whitelaw, M. Muller and R. Mathews and their score was nett 51.75. In second place was the Emerald team of I. Scott, B. McCoy, B. Thompson and M. Litchfield with 53.5 followed by K. Hill, P. Clowes, P. Stevens and C. Whitlock on 53.625.
There were various prizes for nearest-the-pins, longest drives, longest putts and the like, but these results went somewhere west of the 11th hole and east of Eden. There is a theory that the homing pigeon appointed to the task of delivering these results may have fallen foul of the shotgun start; a theory unproven by the end of the day’s festivities, but considered quite plausible.
The ladies’ comp was called off because the temperature had soared over 25 degrees. I have been informed by the ladies that there has been a stated intention indicating the extension of that number to at least 26 this year.
On Wednesday the golf comp of the Obviously Frail Golfers was a five-club event in the stroke format. Eighty-two-year-old Kevin Miller (33) found the course to his liking and won with a nett 67 from Mark Lothian (13) on 68. Lothian mastered the greens to win the putting comp with 28 putts.
Next Saturday the competition is for the February VGL medal and the new president has promised that he will bring his ‘A’ game to prove that he will lead from the front.