By Ron Hottes
The V.V.V’s: The Monday girls did not formally play during the Christmas/New Year period. The Club expects them to be back, with healthy numbers from next week.
Wednesday 8 January, Stroke and M. McGrann bag-day qualifier:
The first qualifier for 2025 is that promising young man, Ross Machar, who took home the top B-Grade voucher with a superb Nett 67. The runner-up in this Grade was Ross’s mate, Laurie Doyle, as he posted a Nett 67 also, to lose in a tight countback. In A-grade, Liam Kay won by scoring a fine Nett 68. The evergreen Paul Kennedy was close up behind Liam, posting a Nett 69. The ball rundown, in both grades, reached down to Nett 71 only. NTP winners on this day were as follows: Allan ‘Old Man River’ Hubbard (3rd), Rob Ferguson (5th), P.K. (9th), Alan Johnson (12th) and Shane ‘Bomber’ Campbell (15th).
Twilight: Reporting on one Twilight round was missed, but in the most recent round, Paul Osbourne proved impossible to beat with a solid 21 points over the Back Nine. The runner-up to Ossie was Glen Patrick, posting a 20-point result.
The three NTPs went home with Steven Barnes (12th), Dazza Ward (14th) and Peter Fox (15th) (We are now past the halfway point of this Twilight season, heading rapidly to the iconic Shootout in April).
Saturday 11 January, Canadian Foursomes Stroke:
This rarely-played comp is a fun, paired event, so the winning combinations always are the twosome that mesh the best on the day. Clearly the father/son combo of Lee and Brendan-Creedy meshed brilliantly together for the full 18 holes to return a stunning Nett 67.5. A little birdie tells me that Junior was the strength in that win. The runner-up pairing consisted of Roger Mataele and Sammy Dennis, another proven combo over many Club events. Their result of 67.62 only failed to take top prize by a hair’s breadth of .12 (I bet that result gave the retiring Captain a nightmare to work out). There was no ball rundown. Among the NTP winners was a double win to Merilyn McDonald (3rd and 12th). This multi-talented lady is the first female golfer to achieve this feat in living memory (Apologies to the President if she has done that in her long and illustrious career). The three other NTP winners were Noel Cross (5th), Sam Dennis (9th) and Kevin Smith (15th). Great to have you back on the course, Kevin.
