Bits And Bobs

Golf was pretty weird yesterday. Not least of all because I looked like the Wicked Witch from the East. For a couple of days I had had an incredibly sore nose. I couldn't touch the tip of it without a lot of pain. Then, of all places, out popped a pimple. And there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Best thing was to let it dry of its own accord.

We have a household rubbish collection due from this Monday. You put old furniture, stoves, fridges and other junk onto the kerbside and the council picks it up. It's a great idea and saves people having to get a trailer and visit the dump. Fairly cost-effective program and better for the environment. People are also less prone to throwing dumping their rubbish in the rivers and other places. I cleaned up the computer room and threw out and old desk that had been used to sit my toolbox and a few other tools and it had kept a few of Yu-Jin's pictures and toys in. We now have a cupboard for games in the living room so it was time to go. As I headed out for golf the next morning the desk had disappeared. Somebody must have had use for it. Then I noticed it in front of the neighbour's place. They had quickly decided that there was no use for it.

Back to the golf. I'd booked to play at Peninsula Golf Course in Maylands. I used to be a member of this club and had a handicap of 18. There used to be no trouble if you didn't hit the fairway and the fairways were probably worse than the rough anyway. Nearly every tree was staked and very young as it had been an airport back in the 1920's. Nowadays this is not the case. The trees have grown quite large, the fairways were like carpet and the rough was unforgiving. Very unforgiving.

My new swing and the ability to land on the fairway after hitting a straight drive was not evident. At least not on the first four holes. I hit the green on the par-3 5th and parred it. Then came a booming straight drive, along the boundary fence, where my second shot landed in the picture below.

I'm a firm believer in "play it where it lies", even on the fairway with preferred lie, but this is bordering on the ridiculous.

Of course I took a drop. It's a man-made obstacle and immovable. Another booming drive on the 7th and pitch to just in front of the green. Chip on and three putts to make a double-bogey. Pretty depressing after creaming it off the tee. Whilst waiting on the 8th tee we saw the Japanese group in front of us fossicking through the reeds.

We had two groups of Japanese golfers in front of us. And they had quite different levels of playing ability. This guy found his ball but then hit it back into the reeds.

They were quite comical really. Although they were a little too slow. On the same hole as the reeds we decided to drive the green. It was a par-4 240m hole but our tee was about 30 metres closer to the green. Shayne put two balls out of bounds and Joe and I sat both of our tee shots next to the green. Joe chipped near the hole and I only had 10-12 metres to the hole. I duffed the chip, chipped on and then three putted for double-bogey. Aaaagh!! Joe proceeded to rib us about "Have you got a birdie yet?" until the par-5 14th which is along the river with the jetboats and jetskis flying about.

Jetskis and powerboats hoon around on the Swan River next to the par-5 14th.

I hit a monster tee shot down the guts just on 250m. Man, did that feel good. A hundred and seventy metres out, downwind too, I took a five iron and lobbed it next to the green. Poor old Joe was in the trees, out of bounds, back into the trees. My ball almost stopped dead and I had about a ten metre chip for eagle. I chipped short, a sin (I know), but then dropped the birdie putt in. You beauty. Joe said it didn't matter because he scored the first birdie. I said that we should see who gets the second birdie then.

Two holes later, on the par-3 16th, I putt my tee shot on the green and then drained the putt for another birdie. Wow, I've never had two birdies in a round before!! We strode to the par-5 18th, I put my drive into the trees, but Shayne hit his down the middle. His second shot was good and his chip went onto the green. Standing over a one foot putt makes him worry and he had a good 12-15 footer which he knocked in for birdie. Amazingly we all scored birdies and totalled four overall. Can you believe that we only hit three pars between us?

Some stats for you:

Mark - 49 (19) + 46 (15) = 95 (34 putts)
Joe - 49 (14) + 56 (17) = 105 (31 putts)
Shayne - 58 (22) + 53 (16) = 111 (38 putts)

Maylands has four par-3 holes, four par-5 holes and 10 par-4 holes.

Par-5 Par-4 Par-3
Mark +6 +16 +2
Joe +11 +16 +6
Shayne +8 +21 +10

What a strange game of golf.

I spent a bit of time over the weekend kept busy with Yu-Jin making battleships and towers out of some blocks that his aunty in Korea bought for him. What a great toy. This is the big battleship that we constructed and somehow it survived the wars that Yu-Jin enjoys playing out so much. Keeps us busy for hours.





It was Chinese New Year yesterday. We had pizza for lunch when I returned from golf but Miky made a really nice rice cake soup, and I hate rice cakes generally, along with some baked salmon. Something a little bit special but not over the top. Good tucker. Apparently you are supposed to give your kids money on New Years Day. I don't know where that idea comes from. Can't say I subscribe to all these new-fangled ideas. My kid gets quite enough pocket money as it is.

Watched the Men's Final at the Australian Open and was saddened to see Marcos Baghdatis go down in four sets to Roger Federer. The dream is over, at least for this year. Drove Miky crazy with flipping the channel during breaks so I could watch the cricket. Women - they say than can concentrate on more than one thing but when we men want to watch two sporting events on different channels concurrently, and manage to do so quite successfully, they can't handle it. I dunno. I'm sure she won't go for two or three TVs in the living room so that I don't have to flick channels.