I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to represent Parkes Golf Club in the Central West District Golf Association pennant last Sunday.

Golf is predominantly a contest between the player and the course.

Usually a player is trying to get around the course in the lowest possible number of shots and hope that is good enough to win an event.

The matchplay aspect of pennants means that no matter how badly you play, you only have to be better than your direct opponent. 

What really makes it special is the camaraderie between the five players in a team as well as the four teams representing their home club.

It is really good fun to be in a team environment for what is typically an individual sport.

I was in the Division 2 side which has enjoyed a lot of success in the competition. 

Sitting around afterwards to talk about the respective matches was nearly as much fun as beating my old home town Bathurst 5-0.

Nearly.

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We do not feel it in Australia, but the refugees out of Syria and how the European Union is treating the matter is hitting the area hard. 

Last week, players in a Greek soccer match delayed the game after they performed a spontaneous tribute to the refugees losing their lives trying to reach Greece’s Aegean islands.

The two teams, AEL Larissa and Acharnaikos, who play in the second-tier of Greek football, performed the emotional gesture before last Friday night’s fixture in Larissa.

As the referee got the game underway, all the players from both sides, their coaches, medical staff and match officials sat on the ground as the crowd applauded their actions.

The stadium PA system announced: ‘The administration of AEL, the coaches and the players will observe two minutes of silence just after the start of the match in memory of the hundreds of children who continue to lose their lives every day in the Aegean due to the brutal indifference of the EU and Turkey.

‘The players of AEL will protest by sitting down for two minutes in an effort to drive the authorities to mobilise all those who seem to have been desensitised to the heinous crimes that are being perpetrated in the Aegean.’

The sitdown was sparked by the tragic event that saw 26 migrants drowned off the Greek island of Samos and was well received by the people of Greece.

League leaders AEL Larissa eventually ran out comfortable 2-0 winners.

On one hand it is great these clubs are using their high profile in Greece to bring attention to this important matter, while on the other it is sad they have to.

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A photo of a young boy wearing a plastic bag with blue marker on it to look like Lionel Messi’s Argentina No 10 shirt went viral last week.

Messi, crowned the world’s best player for the fifth time recently, saw the photo and wanted to track down the boy.

After an internet campaign to find the boy, he was identified as Murtaza Ahmadi, aged five, from Afghanistan.

Murtaza is a massive Messi fan and got help from his brother to create the plastic bag shirt.

His family can not afford to get him a Messi shirt and the photo has piqued social media’s interest.

The initial campaign to find him was so someone could send Murtaza a replica shirt.

Now Messi is going to meet him and give him a shirt in person.

Messi earned 26.5 Million Euro last year, but to take the trouble of traveling to the war torn region to give a young boy the day of his life still deserves a very big thumbs up.