By David Waters
Eastwood Golf Club hosted this years’ final and the Golf gods heard our calls for ministrations as we had no wind or rain, only damp feet.
Several weeks of preparation were undone in the darkness of the early morning start.
Miners’ lamps, torches and flood lights were asked for to no avail.
The hundred and twenty golfers meandered in all directions not always finding their allocated tees, even with such chaos the games got underway.
Groups of four hit off as twos and threes and steady progress was made with only a few holdups.
The mix of green and gold group members achieved the social interaction desired as they don’t
normally play together.
The Stableford team challenge ran in conjunction with the match play event and the team challenge saw three individuals score to their handicap.
Lionel Richard 49 and Angelo Gugleilmi 37 from Heritage green and Gary Dunkinson, 36 from Yering Meadows.
Two others scored 35 points, with the rest rans.
Eastwood gold with 254 points won the team challenge over Heritage green with 252 points.
They also had a dig at their green team who had 233 points, which was not good enough.
Yering Meadows teams scored in 240’s, Churchill/Waverley teams were in the 232’s, Box Hill and Eastern gold 220’s and the last three had 209.
Many good tee shots were undone by disastrous bunker play.
Three putting was on display frequently as shown by the multitude of individual scores between 28 and 31.
The match play final was interesting and unusual.
It was played between Box Hill green and Heritage gold, these teams were clearly the best in their groups and were very evenly matched.
After 18 holes each team had three wins and two halves.
The fightback by Brian Eddison to square with Ron Sankey in the last two holes had Ron shaking his head in disbelief.
A similar feeling by Wayne Reddaway when Colin Looker came back from 3 down to tie on the last.
With time constraints on presentations, and preparation time for players the unusual decision was taken to call the result a tie.
Both team managers agreed to the unusual decision as can be seen in the presentation photo.
Another season of great camaraderie and sportsmanship has concluded with friends made and tales told.
Lunch and drinks consumed, the catering and bar staff contributed to the enjoyment of the day.
Team managers from each club did a great job ensuring the season was a success.
Congratulations to all winners.
Happy golfing and good health till we meet again.
