Tales From Afar
In Scotland now and have obtained my membership stuff from my new golf club, The Isle of Seil Golf Club.
This is the Pro Shop, Clubhouse, and Office all rolled into one. It's a shed. That's about it really. The course will never hold an Open Championship. The nine holes feature four par 4s and five par 3s. Par 31 for nine holes.
There are rabbits everywhere and the greens are tiny. I've played nine holes three times with two balls so in 54 holes I think I've been on two greens in regulation. I've done a lot of chipping practice.
The course itself is a little bit Belleknowes and a little bit of the old Oreti Sands. I say Belleknowes because a couple of times you play over the top of people. Not that I've seen anybody else on the course. The approach to the third hole plays directly over the top of the ninth green. And the first and third fairways are the same space but play in opposite direction.
On the Wednesday you will play your game, I will meet up with my new friends at 10:00 am. I can advise I played with a 76 year old Englishman and an 86 year old Scotsman so I was the baby. I shot 36 for the par 31 scoring a nice birdie on the 4th. There was no after match function and we played just 9 holes.
It's good to be hitting golf balls again.
This is the second shot to the 3rd green. The pin directly in front of you is the 9th green and the club has conveniently put a big sign in the bank in front of the green - 9th - in other words don't play to this green. The third green is in line with the middle house with the 2 small white chimneys at either end of the roof.
The first tee is just in front of the green shed you can see behind the playing partner furthest in front and the first green is directly behind me.
It's fun !!
Tales From Afar - Springbank Whisky
This is the bottle of 15 year old Springbank whisky which this year's Race To Waitahuna winner will win. We managed to get hold of it in a ballot and there's not a lot of it around. Scotsman Duncan was almost moved to tears advising that even in Scotland it's hard to get your hands on this stuff.
Well this week we visited the Sprinbank distillery at Campbelltown on the Kintyre Peninsula. Surely if you can get your hands on Springbank whisky, this would be the place.
So we went in the shop and had a look around and sure enough there were beanie hats, baseball caps, polo shirts, hip flasks and lots of other stuff but not much whisky. So I had the following conversation with a very nice lady behind the counter.
Me - I live in New Zealand and we managed to get a bottle of Springbank whisky in a ballot but it's so hard to get any more.
Lady - Yes, we don't have much and it's hard to buy it anywhere
Me - But this is the distillery, why is there none in the shop?
Lady - Yes, ( and this is the good bit ..... ) we let a little bit out to the market each day. Each morning when we open the shop we have 10 bottles of 10 year old single malt, and just 4 bottles of 15 year old. The shop opens at 10:00 am and it sells straight away. In fact queues have formed before 9 o clock just to buy the whisky.
So there you have it. The winner of the Race this year will have a very special bottle of 15 year old single malt to enjoy.
Meanwhile In Dunedin ...
We celebrated a 60th birthday for Brent Pownall who took time off work to play with the boys and share foods and whisky afterwards in the 19th. Congratulations Brent and thank you for your generosity.
Big turn out for the Friday Skins match with a turnout of 12 punters, where we had to find a place in the field due to an organized ambrose tournament. Mike to his credit found a way to fit us off the 10th tee, which meant we could get 3 groups onto the course. After 9 holes we assembled in the club rooms and did the normal routine, this time without the 9 David Bloor balls and did it hole by hole.
Despite a grab for money by Farmer MacKay on the 13th hole, it was after 6 jackpotted holes that The Nugget prevailed on Pagoda, where he had a par 3 for 3 points to win the first skin and collect $72. Then on the last hole it was Tony A who had a par and collected the final $27 up for grabs, no doubt now deposited in The Caymans.
Developments occurred over the weekend where we had 6 Waggler related pairs who qualified to play in the Smeaton Cup. The Calcutta auction took place in the club rooms after all matches had been completed and after winning two horses in the auction, the Wagglers managed to purchase 3 horses in the competition. These are Timms/Garden, the McConville brothers and Adam/Grant.
It has to be mentioned that there was a tense match on Saturday between two Waggler pairs being Edgar/Nikou and Croudis/Broughton. According to an independent media report, there was a bit of talk going on by Mahmoud over the rules of golf applied by Croudis/Broughton. In a moment of frustration, it was Special K who waved his finger at Mahmoud and said "Do not tell me about the rules of golf and I will not tell you how to cut a hedge." ( Now now, children !! ) This drew a line in the sand where Kallum and Phil did win this match and advanced to the next stage. They arranged to play the next match against Adam/Grant on Wednesday in our Waggler field as Phil has to have cataract surgery on following day. They won this match 5/4 due largely to Kallum shooting an 81 off a 17 handicap, so sadly one of the Waggler horses is now out of the running.
The usual Wagglers day took place with 27 players in the field, excluding the Smeaton Cup group. The conditions were fine with a moderate south-west wind blowing. The wind did affect the quality of golf with the top score of the day being 39 points and the average at around 31 points, being below the phantom score of 33 points.
We had a couple of visitors for the day being Stu Heaton who is one of our regulars, as well as Rick Meder who has indicated a desire to join the Wagglers as a permanent member. This is fully supported by the brains trust and we will add him to our list if there are no objections. ( Note from afar .... I'm pretty sure Rick would be the second of the Meder family to play with the Wagglers as we have enjoyed his son Baxter's company in the past ).
In the team competition the first six holes was won with a solid score of 31 points by team Mackay/Wickramagedara/Carvel/Ross. They were led by Sandy who scored 39 points and Carvell who scored 37 points. ( Note from afar .... at this point the ATM is now playing with other people's money !! )
The second six holes was also won by the above group with an impressive 43 points and it must be conceded that Jamie and Senaka contributed to the group score with their efforts for the day. ( The ATM pays again !! )
The final six holes saw a close competition between two teams who each scored 44 points. This included the above boringly consistent team again, as well as team Alcock/Cooper/Brown/Nicolson. ( A very sad ATM having to share the spoils no doubt !! )
Note from afar - hasn't Alcock and Brown been a team in the past before - weren't they the first to cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane ? Just sayin'.....
The whisky was flowing today as there were multiple misdemeanours on the challenging McGlashan hole. The first two included Nicolson and Alcock who were both in the above winning group.
The other culprit was Richard Freeman who committed the same deed after one of his team-mates Steady Eddie made comment before he teed off that he had had a double you know what on the previous Saturday. This did enough to distract him on this hole but toughened him up to win the important haggle for the day.
The Blue Jacket was won by Sandy Ross who had an impressive 39 points for the day. It seems like his golf rubbed off onto his cart mate Bruce Carvell who was second on the day with 37 points.
The Swingers trophy was won by Murray Edgar who had 3 birdies, followed by Derek Todd with 2 birdies.
The raffle was won by Murray Cooper with number 12.
We need to acknowledge that Sandy Ross had a very good day being a winner in all the 6 hole team events and the Blue Jacket. Great work Sandy for carrying your team-mates. That's also three and a half legs of the Holy Grail.
And in final news for this week and commenting on some of the slow play allegations levelled by others earlier this week ......
There's a podcast called The Chipping Forecast. It's highly entertaining. Turns out on the DP World Tour now there are penalties being awarded on the run for slow play. Not $ fines but if the match referee determines that a player has taken too long over his shot, he walks up to them and issues a one shot penalty.
And that was another fun week across the golfing world