9 August 2024
Report courtesy of Rob Manton
Feedback received from some readers following last week’s report (no names, but they are highly regarded within the judicial system), who most would describe as intellectually affluent, indicated it was a demanding read requiring levels of concentration with which they are unfamiliar. For those readers, this week’s report will be brief.
We lost 4-2 and are now playing for pride. I trust your feedback this week will be more positive.
For those able to consume more than a single paragraph please feel free (but not compelled) to read on.
At the commencement of proceedings, the overall standings in this six match series saw both GGC and The Grange equal on 2 1/2 wins with KGC and ourselves on 1 1/2. A win would see us draw level with our opponents with a shot at playing off for the silverware at season’s end.
This was a home match. One would think that a home match affords a degree of favouritism. Sadly, our elite Senior Interclub team have been taking too many lessons from our Simpson Cup lads and ignoring the brilliant performances of our Sanderson Cup ladies when playing at home.
We lined up with Tim Pozza Jnr at 1, Eddie Bell at 2, Tim Astley at 3, Greg Chappell at 4, the Great Man Cherry at 5 and Leigh Carpenter at 6. Not our strongest lineup but one that we believed would get the job done at home. (Take it professionally men, not personally!!).
We began solidly enough with most players finding the 1st fairway with the exception of Astley who decided early on that lift, clean and replace was for lesser golfers and the true mettle of a player was to miss the fairway at every opportunity and by as wide a margin as possible.
The benchmark three hole combat indicator outlined in last week’s apparently complex report saw the lads square in four matches and down in the remaining two – alert but not alarmed at this point. The alarm arrived after the 7th hole which saw us down in five matches with only Tim Pozza slightly in the ascendancy – not out of touch but hardly in the box seat; panic was a ways off yet.
The 8th and 9th holes saw little to raise expectations and at the turn Tim (the one who dislikes lift, clean and replace) was 4 dn, Carps and Eddie were 2 dn, Chappell and the Doc were 1 dn and Tim P had moved to 3 up against arguably the best senior golfer in the state.
The next four holes saw enough of a shift that the doomsday clock had moved back from alarm to alert with Australia’s former test cricket Captain easing to a 1 up lead and the Great Man pulling back to square. While Carps, Eddie and Tim (of the lift, clean and replace is for snowflakes variety) were still down, the hope was that the other Tim would at least retain his lead – nope, he lost 10, 11 and 12 to be square. Arguably on life support but there was still a pulse.
In what can only be described as a comeback of brobdingnagian (who knew there was such a word) proportions GC closed his match out at the 16th hole with a 4 & 2 win. For those keeping score Greg had won five of his last seven holes from the 10th to level the overall match score following Carps’s loss (forever known as Carps’s capitulation) 5 & 3. Tim, of the ‘no one told me lift, clean and replace was in play’ variety was last seen looking for his ball in the rough on 17 while playing the 15th and finally succumbed 5 & 3 but the Doc, Eddie and the other Tim were still alive.
On 16, Doc, ‘you’ll never see me left of this green’, Cherry slightly overplayed his hand on his tee shot coming up short right (y’all know the spot), and took three more to get on the green, losing the hole and falling to 1 dn playing 17. Eddie came to the 16th 1 dn. Flushing his tee shot, Eddie found the green some 20 feet from the pin. Two putts later Eddie walked off with a five (you’ll work it out) and headed down the 17th 2 dn.
The doomsday clock had moved to panic as Doc succumbed 2 & 1 and Eddie finally lost by the same margin.
The other Tim came to the 18th with a 1 up lead. While the overall match was lost, the chance to beat the previously undefeated GGC number 1 player (he also plays Simpson Cup so he’s no slouch) would be an admirable finale to an otherwise disappointing day. Tim found the fairway with his tee shot and the green with his second while his opponent’s second shot found that annoying patch of rough left of the green (where it is rumoured Neil Tamlyn once lost two new Titleist golf balls while putting on the practice green) from where he took five while Tim calmly two putted for his four and a 2 up win. Three matches for three wins for TP this season. This week we take on our former Cargie rivals at The Grange (West Course).
