The morning was cold, calm and crystal clear, until one neared Liverpool golf course to find it invisible to the naked eye.
Shrouded in a fore-boding veil of fog designed to frighten and panic Revesby golfers, it would soon invoke our hidden worst primal fears: our nightmares, our vulnerabilities, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our loss of identity, our fear of death and dismemberment, and lastly, our fear of the dreaded Bradmans 🙁
In other words, the course had all the ingredients of a good horror movie!
Thirty one (31) adrenalin-junkie Revesby players were attracted today to the diabolical Liverpool Golf Course, a course designed to shock and terrify, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time.
Opened in 1971 by Sir Roden Cutler, the long and gently undulating course is well protected by fairway-straddling trees and numerous sand bunkers around each green. The most striking features are the seven artificial lakes that bring water into play on fourteen holes (mayday, mayday, SOS, SOS) and the soul-destroying slick, medium-large, undulating greens 🙁
Play started at 7:00am from the long white tees on the 10th hole. With prefer-on-frost-covered-fairways only the local rule, the early groups quickly adapted to the fog and freezing temperatures by topping their tee shots low and short.
The low-rising Sun quickly broke through the fog, only to blind players hitting to the 10th green.
As play progressed, players soon realised they were getting taller by an inch or two, only to realise they had ice cubes growing on the spikes of their golf shoes. Virtual putting was all the rage as most players had fingers too numb to feel the putter grip. Even the irons needed de-frosting equipment from all the ice building up on the club-face 🙁
The first nine holes took its toll on many, and even though conditions got relatively warmer, many still were unable to find their golf swing and rhythm on the last nine holes.
With the game over, many players blew a sigh of relief, knowing they would soon be in the comfort of the warm clubhouse with a life-restoring drink in hand.
As expected, a shocking finale was experienced by most Revesby characters, who subsequently turned into supernatural apparitions, vampires, demented madmen, devils, ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, demons, zombies, evil spirits, werewolves, freaks or Donald Trump 🙁
A few were saved from the horror spectacle:
The Outright winner was Steve White with a score of 33 points. ( No image available)
Another new member to strike his first win with the club. Those new golf shoes he got mid-round at Bankstown a month ago to replace his flip-flops certainly saved him from frost-bite. A finger-numbing good win 🙂
The A Grade winner Adam Giltinan with a score of 32 points.
A slugger with the driver, putted well today but was unable to take advantage of his length from the tee when approaching the greens. Could have won today but rather unusually, fell away on the back nine. Nevertheless, a gilt-edged reward 🙂
The B Grade winner was Mark McDonald with a score of 29 points.
Holy Toledo Batman, last week he was Mr. Freeze with the Bradmans and today he’s the Riddler with the win. Maybe his use of hand-warmers and, I don’t believe it, foot-warmers, may have snapped him out of his long form cold-snap. Is this the turning point or is it like the riddle “What is always on its way BUT never arrives?”
It was indeed an enigmatic win 🙂
The C Grade winner was Alan Tricker with a score of 28 points.
Another popular winner to the man with a mighty handicap. Alan was shocked with the result and felt it had cost him dearly. Seeking clarification, his playing partner, Mick McCarney, stated:
“The bitch is whingeing because he’s losing a shot for winning C Grade” 🙂
An over-reaction perhaps, I don’t think going from 44 to 43 handicap is a deal-breaker.
It was a good trucking win 🙂
The Guzzler winner was Frank Saify with a score of 31 points (count-back).
This is his fourth Guzzlers for the year, the last two in successive weeks.
Why all the good fortune of late?
I suspect retiring from work a couple of weeks ago had a hand in it 🙂
A-BRADMAN
B-BRADMAN
C-BRADMAN
The Bradman scores today were a mixture of very bad with not-so-bad scores:
Gary Buckley is in the abyss of a form slump with 19 points and has buckley’s chance of getting out of it 🙁
Brian Craven must have been focussed on his 4BBB matchplay today when he amassed 25 points – either way, the Raven couldn’t fly in the early morning fog and ended up losing his matchplay and collecting the Bradmans – a double whammy 🙁
Gary McMahon’s lower than low score of 15 points only proves the Secretary’s pen is mightier than his golf sword – mind you it doesn’t help when you have 10 wipes on the day 🙁
Lowlights of the Day:
1. Already mentioned previously, but its worth repeating, Gary McMahon had a record-breaking ten (10) wipes in his stableford score today. He got 15 points on the remaining eight holes – not a bad effort 🙁
2. Did you feel like you played like a goat on some holes today?
Well, I can attest to witnessing a player looking like a goat on one hole.
Playing the par4 1st hole (our tenth hole today), John Varrica blocked his drive to the top of the right-hand hill, adjacent to the driving range.
Directing his buggy up the hill, John found the ball still in play and managed to chip it back down the hill onto the fairway. Almost losing control of his buggy whilst descending down the steep slope, John addressed his ball and immediately shanked the ball back up to the top of the hill (again).
John again ascended the hill (this time leaving his buggy down the bottom) and miraculously chipped the ball to four feet from the hole and sank the putt for an easy bogey five.
Irrespective of the score, he still traversed the hole like a goat 🙂
3. Greg Jones four-putted the par3 14th hole and stated his brother-in-law, Gary McMahon, also four-putted.
What can I say, the Law is thicker than blood 🙁
4. AIR SWING ALERT
Seems to be like the flu at the moment, a real epidemic.
The master air mover, Mark McDonald, had another one, this time on the par3 18th (our ninth hole).
Hitting his tee shot just behind the left-hand bunker adjacent to the green, Mark was faced with a delicate chip shot with his sand wedge.
Mark executed the chip shot like a gymnast off a trampoline, the sand wedge hit the ground behind and bounced over the ball.
Asked what happened with the next shot, Mark stated he holed out, that is, it went into the bunker 🙁
The scribe did not ask what happened next, it was safe to assume he wiped the hole 🙁
5. The 4BBB matchplays can be tough affairs, with players asked to play shots from dastardly positions for the sake of the team.
With the match on the line, Ken Harris elected to play out of a water hazard on the left side of the par4 5th hole. The mud splattered all over his trousers, he looked like he had the measles from the waist down.
Unfortunately for Ken and his partner, Matt Campbell, they were four down with four to go. A fight back got the team to 2 down with two holes to go, but alas, the Jedi Master, Shane “Yoda” Thorn, grabbed a birdie 4 on the par5 8th to win the match for his partner, Phil White, by 3&1.
6. The par3 4th hole with the lake in front and the Georges River behind, can be quite daunting, particularly when the tee is 150 metres away.
The 4BBB team of Brian Craven and Paul Dawkins made a real mess of it when they both put three balls into the lake. Both elected to pick up and concede the hole to their opponents, Terry Coleman and Frank Saify.
The writing was on the wall, as Terry and Frank ran out clear winners by 3&2.
Results on the day:
The answer to the riddle is tomorrow (because tomorrow becomes today when it arrives).
Individual results on the day:
Outright Winner: Steve White [14] 33 pts
A Grade Winner: Adam Giltinan [15] 32 pts
B Grade Winner: Mark McDonald [19] 29 pts
C Grade Winner: Alan Tricker [44] 28 pts
GUZZLER’s CUP: Frank Saify [15] 31 pts c/b
BRADMANS:
A Grade: Gary Buckley [12] 19 pts
B Grade: Brian Craven [19] 25 pts
C Grade: Gary McMahon [24] 15 pts
Nearest To Pins:
M.McDonald(4), M.Campbell(6), G.Lattouf(14), S.White(18)
Drive & Pitch:
A.Giltinan(1)
MATCHPLAY RESULTS – 3rd Round:
Shane Thorn/Phil White def Matt Campbell/Ken Harris 3&1
Terry Coleman/Frank Saify def Brian Craven/Paul Dawkins 3&2
