The Weekend Golf Report

My normal playing partners, Shayne and Joe, weren’t available this weekend. And the weatherman had been predicting 34 degrees and a thunderstorm for Sunday. Early yesterday I checked the forecast and it was only going to be 31 and the thunderstorms would wait until Monday. Time to play golf!

Not having made a booking I was taking a risk by going to the nearest golf course, Collier Park, as it is a very popular course. And there were plenty of vehicles in the car park when I arrived just before quarter past seven. I parked close to the driveway with some trepidation as a wayward shot could hit my car in that position. As I was getting my bag out of the boot a ball lobbed over and bounced around in a tree about five metres from my car and landed right in front of a Merc. Couldn’t happen again I thought so no point in moving my car. Whoever hit it, it was a terrible shot.

The pro shop informed me that they were fully booked until much later in the day but that there were always groups of four where only three turned up. I could have played nine holes at 7:45 but he then looked at the first tee on the Pines and the Lukich party only had three. I raced off to the tee, no warmup possible, and joined Clarkie, Andy and Dimo. A few months back I had a hit with Clarkie and Andy. They’re a good bunch of blokes. Dimo mentioned that he had just joined Mt Lawley Golf Club and it was only $5000. I asked him if he was a stockbroker or a member of the Packer family.

Handicaps:

Clarkie – 11
Dimo – 9
Andy – 18
Hammy – 18 (unofficial, 10 years old)

Andy started off with a flashy par-birdie-par making a mockery of his handicap. I managed to smack my first tee shot down the middle which was a huge surprise. We were playing a stableford comp so scores were kept on handicap. I had a very good front nine and was leading with 19 points after a 44 off the stick.



A short break after the front nine did me in. On the par-5 10th I shanked my tee shot into a tree and it became lodged in the tree. Not something you see every day. I had to take a penalty drop for an unplayable shot. Ended up scoring a 10 and then followed it up with an 8 on the par-4 11th. I visited a total of three bunkers on those two holes. Talk about a good way to ruin your back nine and the whole round. Didn’t get into much trouble for the rest of the round and hit another 33 for the remaining seven holes. Happy with the entire round apart from the 10th and 11th holes. I had two birdie chances where I left one on the lip of the cup and on the 18th I hit a 25 footer to the hole a bit hard and it bounced out – made the par though.

Dimo is a nice golfer to watch. Lovely swing and he can cream a ball. Not bad at putting either. Clarkie was having a very off day and blew up a couple of holes. He’s very straight though. Andy is a very steady golfer who has little trouble getting to the green. Very consistent. I had a great time with these guys.

It was around 34 degrees when we finished just after 12 o’clock and I had had about 2 litres to drink by that time. I visited too many bunkers for my liking and didn’t get out of them too successfully. What a coincidence to bump into a couple of guys that I’ve played with before.

Plenty of the day left to play Trouble with Yu-Jin, do his reading homework from school and watch the rest of the movie-length episode of Prison Break.