14 Oct 2016

2016: Away Day Shield Alenda (12.10.)

Venue: Alenda Golf, 12 October 2016

Today we went to Alenda Golf for one of the Bill Williams Away Day Shield competitions.  We had a good turnout of 35 members and 5 guests and the format was Individual Stableford.  We had our umbrellas and rain gear ready as the forecast was for rain but we were in luck as the rain did not arrive at Alenda until we finished prize giving and were setting off for home.
Alenda has a slightly lower slope to Bonalba so our playing handicaps were cut by one or two shots and looking at the results this was well justified as there were some excellent scores at the top and in fact half of all players came in with 30 points and more.  Quite a few of us were disappointed though, or should be say frustrated, as we kept narrowly missing a number of putts.  Opinions differed as to the reason why. Was it the condition of the greens? Did we have problems reading the greens or was it simply that our putting stokes were on this occasion not up to standard?
Analysing the scores hole by hole shows that the two holes with the most “blobs” were holes 1 and 7 with 9 NR each.  Hole 1, a long par 5, with a stoke index of 4 is always testing as you have to be “in full flow” right from the start. Hole 7 turned out to be a tricky par 4 for us although the official rating is 16.

Before prize giving, the Captain reminded everyone again that in order to attend the Captains Dinner it is necessary to buy the tickets as she needs everyone to pay up front in order to pay the hotel.

Summarising the results:
The guest prize went to Thea van Spellen who scored a very good 35 points playing off 19 handicap.

Nearest the pin:
Hole 3      Rob Ritchie
Hole 5      Jim Hurley
Hole 13    John Rigby
Hole 16    James Burnet

There were four twos today. They came from Nino Andres, Dennis Pyman and John Rigby, all on hole 13 and from James Burnet on hole 16.

The main competition results were as follows:
5th place with 35 points off 7 hcp – Greta Biersteker
4th place with 36 points off 18 hcp – Elwyn Price
3rd place with 37 points off 23 hcp – Marie-Jo Lesot
2nd place with 38 points off 18 hcp – John Rigby
1st place with 38 points off 20 hcp – Jim Hurley beating John on the back 9.