PARKES GOLF

PETER BRISTOL

On Saturday our members and guests played for the time honoured Coops Boys sponsored trophy in the Stoney Creek style format event.

Coops Boys were the support show to Cooper Thomson as he held court at the course every Saturday afternoon.

Father Troy Thomson, David Stevenson, Brendan Simpson, Rob Cheney, Peter Magill and Michael Dellaca have Coops memory front and centre in sponsoring of this event and his antics will ever remain in the memory as fun to watch and be part of.

There were 78 players in the unique Ambrose format where 1 to 3 scores are counted on the hole depending on if you took the lowest or highest handicapper, with all 3 players having to equally hit 6 drives.

The winning combination was the team comprising Leonie Stevenson, Kaye Jones and Cath Kelly who rolled in with a 95 point haul.

They had 3 points up their sleeves when the final count was in but were semi confident after all had contributed strongly in the outcome.

Kaye was her deadly self around the greens, Leone was finding the centre of the fairways and Cath, as usual, was offering with the left handers view of the course.

The runner up team of Wayne Tucker, Lindsay Elliott and Ian Ward thought they were in with a chance after playing early and compiling a solid 92 score.

These guys are used to playing together and the combination was obvious as they all scored well.

Next team in 3rd place were Kris Smith, Colleen Staples and Jill Crisp with 91 points.

Again, these players gelled well on the day and were just shy of the major prize on the day.

The Nearest The Pins winners were – Bridgestone Mining 1st Mick Smith at 265cm, Griffins Leading Edge by John Green at 220cm, Parkes Ready Mixed Concrete 9th by Garry Phipps at 171cm, the Westlime 11th by Leone Stevenson at 80cm, the Gulf Western Oil 17th by Lindsay Elliott at 48cm.

The lucrative money hole was won by Leone Stevenson at 80cm.

Ball winners were Stephen and Michael Riley, Tony Jackson 90, John Fowler, Michael Lynch, John Pearce 87, Zac Kelly, Jack Matthews, Mick Kelly 84.

Next weekend the members will contest a 2 ball Multiplayer event.

VETERANS GOLF

By JOHN DWYER

Forbes' Barry Parker defied the testing conditions with a round of 41 points to win last week's twin-towns golf competition played at Parkes.

The Parkes greens were cored only days earlier and officials did consider using the "two-put" rule because of the unevenness of the putting surface, however the decision was made to play as normal and the high scoring was a revelation.

In a field of 31 players, 14 scored par or better in a performance that ranked the best for many years.

Runner-up on a count-back was Don McKeowen from Forbes who got the nod over team mate Ted Morgan, both posting 40 points.

In the twin-towns shield Forbes continued its domination defeating Parkes by 235 points to 223.

Parkes dominated the nearest-to-pins with Phil Bishop and Ian Ward winning A and B grade respectively on the fourth hole and Richard Hamilton the B grade winner on the 11th. Stuart French from Forbes won the A grade.

The encouragement award was won by Greg Diener from Peak Hill.

Parkes vets also played for the annual Mick Dunne memorial trophy and this was won by club stalwart Rob Lea who had a good day scoring 39 points. Mick was a former treasurer and a popular member of the Parkes veterans.

Given the hot scoring on the day the ball sweep went to 37 points with the winners as follows: 40 points - Ted Morgan and Don McKeowen (F); 39 - Rob Lea (P) and Steve Edwards (F); 38 - Lindsay Elliott and John Fowler (P) and Bruce Chandler (F); 37 - Kim Herbert (F) and Kevin Watts (Kew Country Club).

This week it's back to Forbes with registrations taken from 9.15am for a 10 o'clock shot-gun start.