Tales From Travels
No speeding tickets this week ( or none that I know of !! ) and thanks to Kallum for his feedback from last week regarding the driving capabilities of police dog handlers, and of the statistics of the efficacy of the dishing out of speeding tickets.
In Kalgoorlie this week which is in the heart of the Goldfields and home of the superpit. The superpit is one helluva big hole in the ground. Really really big. On a tour we were told that in the history of the superpit, so far over 63 million ounces of gold has been extracted. And there's twice as much still left in the ground that they know of. At US$ 5,000 per ounce, you do the maths on the value of all of that.
Kalgoorlie also has a golf course at one end of the Nullarbor Golf Course. We've been over that before. But the Kalgoorlie Golf Course is a fair dinkum golf course as they say in these parts and home to the Western Australia PGA Championship.
Here's me on the 8th green on Saturday when the family played the front nine holes. For the record this was a 163 metre par 3 with a decent wind helping and from an elevated tee position. A well-struck 6 iron covered the pin all the way landing 6 feet short and within the nearest the pin marker shown to the left. Not that I was in the Saturday competition. I missed the birdie putt but walked away with a solid 3.
As you can see the clouds are in the way of the sun. This was the back end of Tropical Cyclone Narelle which had wreaked havoc across a fair bit of Australia. Starting near to Queensland it worked a path across the top end then wrapped around the coast of W A before heading inland. We got the very last of the rain.
Playing the full 18 tomorrow. Went to the pro shop, introduced myself and asked if there was a mid-week social group I could join. "Sure" they said" "Thursday". They asked if I had some Australian golf number to which I said no I've got a New Zealand number. "Not the same" they said. "I thought that was the point of the World Handicap System, my index is 7.2". "Oh no" they said, "Can't trust that, Suppose you say 7.2 but you're actually more like a 1 or a 2 and clean up". "No worries" I said, "I'll just play golf if that's OK". So I'm just playing golf in case I'm a scratch golfer - who knew !!
Meanwhile At Balmacewen
First of all congratulations to those who earned some decent coin in the Club Championships Finals this weekend. Don't like to single people out as a few did well but special mention to Lloyd who has gone back to back in the Intermediates. It's often said this is the hardest division to win but I'm picking knocking over Ben Patston in the big boy division is no picnic either. Nevertheless, great effort by Lloyd and who knows if 2027 will bring the 3peat. Sorry not to have any photos but one did appear in the club newsletter.
Golf this Wednesday was 1st April, which of course is April Fool's day, which normally doesn't feature much in golfing circles. While this occurred this week on the Wagglers day and despite asking for members to turn up in a baudy top, nobody really rose to the occasion, even Bolty showed up in boring shoes and clothes.
The ODT had an article on the front page, where the world-renowned albatross colony was to be relocated to Tunnel Beach, as they had discovered rare minerals under Tairoa Head. This would be a boom for Dunedin and like the mine in Tarras would create many jobs for the locals. However speaking to James Smith of ODT on the practice green before our start time, he had been fielding many calls from irate customers who didn't think that the albatross would adjust to Tunnel Beach. Is it better to be closer to town and will the birds adjust ? Apparently many like the Woke Waggler and Farmer Mackay were in two minds, do we look after the precious birds or do we "dig baby dig".
Anyway let's get back to the golf, where we had a neat 28 players turn up for Wednesday golf after the late cancellation of a couple of guys for genuine reasons. The weather was fine and calm and so we all teed off with expectations of some hot scoring. Fairway Phil appointed Lloyd as the money man and the first six holes saw an exceptional score with team Mahmoud, Sandy, Sonny Hyndman and Farmer Adam taking the money with 34 points, which is close to a maximum score.
The second and third sets of six holes saw a solid performance from team Walter, Morgan, as well as Richard and Phil Ellis, who won both tranches in scores of 45 and 47 points respectively. A pretty consistent team effort, where they walked away with a healthy purse. As Neil Barnes of Taranaki said "Mate it's great. At the end of the day, my back's frickin' sore from carrying all the coin we're making."
There were a few highlights in this group, including a 5 pointer from Richard Ellis ( of Basil Fawlty fame) who had a birdie on the 18th hole with a firm 8 foot putt to close the deal. Let's also recognise the efforts of Eddie who after scoring 39 on first 9 holes had a solid final 9 holes shooting 37 to give him a 76 gross score, which was one shot outside his age. ( It's only a matter of time .... ). He and his partner Phil Ellis did combine well to take out the haggle from Morgan and Basil Fawlty on the 7th hole, the beer was sweet.
This seemed to correlate with another group in front of us where Pownall and The Nugget bullied their opponents Parsons and Cameron to win the haggle.
I also did get a report from the third group off the 10th tee, including Todd, Harvie, Broughton and Bolt, where a close match was in play and going up the 18th hole the statement was made by Bolty: " that we have halved all the holes so far". In response to Bolty one of the members said "what is the match score ?" so this name will be left in closed cabinet. Duh !!
The Blue Jacket was won by Eddie Walter who had 41 points, from a fast finishing Kallum Croudis on 40 points, then Brent Pownall and Phil Ellis on 39 points. Eddie joins Mahmoud and Geoff as multiple Blue Jacket winners in 2026. A big shout-out to Derek Todd who shot another low score of 71 parring the course following on from his previous solid golf. In shooting 71 Derek had 16 pars, a single bogey on hole 5 and a birdie to offset that on 7. He parred every hole on the back 9.
It has to be said the John Marsh has the coined the nick name of Bookend for having the lowest and highest score for consecutive weeks. I did check with John on his score today and it appears that following my lowest score of 26 points last week that I ( Eddie ) am now the current bookend champion.
The Swingers trophy was won by Murray Edgar who had 2 birdies for the day.
The raffle was won by Sonny Hyndman with number 25. Not Sandy who had won the previous three raffles. I did the maths. If there are 25 players in the field each week, the chance of winning the raffle three times in a row is 1 in 15,625 or once every 300 years !!
We had a birthday song for Mahmoud Nikou who has just turned 63 years of age. Thank you for your generous contribution of whisky and food, very much appreciated by all the group.
The majority view for next week is that due to Balmacewen being out of action that we will play at Chisholm Links. Bolty will be in charge of proceedings. There were a number of people interested in Friday Skins, so we will tee of at around 2.30pm at Balmacewen, bring your own drinks and coins. And remember the balls are in the bag where the Blue Jacket is kept.
That seems to be all the gossip at this stage.
