Saturday’s results

As our last winter Saturday kicked off on a brilliant day for golf, 92 golfers had the itch to get out and tackle the testing PGC layout for the Parkes Toyota sponsored Stableford event.

Huge thanks to Sean Sloane for again providing the players with great prizes to play for.

Good to see that the high winning scores have remained missing since the partial removal of the preferred lie rule that has been introduced.

This is making for very competitive and entertaining finishes each week.

Rejoined member, Matthew Wright, was out bright and early and posted a very good 37 score.

It was a mixed outward nine with 2 doubles and birdie for a 46 off the stick and only 15 points, but once he’d got to the back nine the rhythm had kicked in and 5 pars later a 40 off the stick and 22 points had him as the clubhouse leader.

Not to be outdone Tyson Spence, Chris Downes and later Micky Thomas all recorded the same mark.

Tyson had a good 18/19 split making for a steady round.

Chris hasn’t been at the pointy end for a while but showed the game is still there with his 43/42 off the stick, including back to back birdies on 16th and 17th.

Micky just remains in good form week in week out with a 75 off the stick including a 2 birdie haul.

Whilst there was a flood of 33 and 34 pointers coming in only Blake Smith managed to shoot his stableford par round with the new sticks starting to fully behave and a 75 off the bat putting him in good stead as the Open approaches.

But we needed something special to get past the leaders and both Peter Magill and Wayne Powter provided that.

With 38 needed they both finished on that total with Peter having a 19/19 split and Wayne a 22/16 split giving Peter the win from the countback system.

Wayne was only 1 over par on the way out with 8 pars and a single bogey but unfortunately, he faded on the way back in with a double on the last inflicting further pain for his 41.

Peter on the other hand had 41 on the outward 9 then came home with a very good 39 for a solid 80 and firming him with the bookies for the B grade title in the Open.

The Nearest The Pins on Saturday were – the Idlerite Tyrepower 1st by Chris Downes at 12m, the Griffins Leading Edge 4th by Rob Rea at 263cm, the Parkes Ready Mixed Concrete 9th by Anita Medcalf at 230cm, the Max Keith Building 11th by Rob Hey 222cm and the Parkes Security Storage 17th by Ian Phipps at 85cm.

The money hole was won by Peter Bristol at 108cm.

Ball winners were – Matthew Wright, Tyson Spence, Chris Downes, Michael Thomas 37, Blake Smith 36, Graeme Buck 35.

The All In competition held the semi-finals with Zac Kelly playing Michael Thomas and David Chambers up against the Baron, Rob Cheney.

In a fitting outcome both events went to the last hole to decide the winners.

Neither David nor Rob played great golf on the outward 9 but David had a 2 hole lead at the turn and then it fluctuated on the back 9 with David winning the crucial 18th.

Zac did play some very good golf in his 2 under round of 70 but having to give Micky 7 strokes made this a cut-throat competition.

It ebbed and flowed and Zac managed to have a 1 hole lead at the turn, that was whittled away and then it went until the 17th where both missed opportunities on the short par 3 leaving the 18th hole as the decider.

Unfortunately, Micky lost control of his 2nd shot and could only manage a par to Zac’s birdie thus giving him the win at the last.

Next Saturday is the Monthly Medal with tee-offs an early morning normal hit-off or a midday shotgun start.

The Telescope Tyres and Batteries Monthly Medal has Parkes Toyota as the day sponsor. Huge thanks to both.