IPGC Golf from The Haven
Monday, June 5, Pattavia – Stableford
CSS 75 NC
1st Markku Tynell (20) 29pts
2nd Murray Edwards (20) 29pts
3rd Tomas Nilsson (12) 29pts
4th Hal Hart (18) 29pts
5th John Carlin (18) 28pts
6th Andrew Purdie (7) 28pts
The rainy season appears to have left for a while but has still left most of the courses in the area quite wet and still requiring a local ‘lift and place’ in the fairways rule to facilitate a reasonable round. The state of the greens is also another matter with again most of them playing fairly slow due to the understandable lack of mowing.
Monday’s course was particularly affected and saw the CSS for the day go out to 75 and become non-counting, with the best score of the day being seven over handicap and requiring a four-way count back to determine the winner.
That winner was Markku Tynell whose 12 points from the back six was enough to see off Murray Edwards into second place after he could garner just 11 following their 17 points from the back nine.
Tomas Nilsson then claimed third place as he took six from the last three to Hal Hart’s 4 after they had spilt the nine at 14 and the six at 9 apiece.
Joh Carlin was involved with Andrew Purdie in the last count back of the day for fifth and sixth places, winning with a better 18 to 12 after Andrew had a bit of a slippage following a good start.
There were no 2s in either of the divisions.
Wednesday, June 7, Pattana A & B
(yellow tees) – Stableford
CSS 73
1st Andrew Purdie (7) 39pts
2nd Ray Smallwood (25) 38pts
3rd John Carlin (18) 37pts
4th Mark Cooper (11) 36pts
5th Larry Gibb (21) 32pts
6th Kevin Blake (7) 31pts
Another wet course but playing very well, with the fairways immaculate and the greens very good, meant the CSS for the day went down a shot as the group played both of the par sixes with a total par 74 (approximately 6600 yards from the yellow tees).
Andrew Purdie took full advantage of his prodigious power to complete the course in three under handicap to win by one from Ray Smallwood who had his best round since commencing his golf with the group and but for a blank on the last hole could well have been the winner.
John Carlin has been very consistent over his last fifteen rounds, only playing outside his buffer zone twice and on this occasion went one under handicap to take third place without any zeros on the card.
Mark Cooper played steadily to handicap in fourth place and well ahead of Larry Gibb and Kevin Blake in in fifth and sixth places.
Once again there were no 2s in the first or second divisions although many of the second division’s hopefuls had been attending group putting lessons. Unfortunately these had been arranged in the LK Metro area where there were too few opportunities for correct and unhindered alignment practice.
Friday, June 2, Pattaya C.C. – Stableford
CSS 72
1st John Carlin (18) 38pts
2nd John Tallett (26) 35pts
3rd Tomas Nilsson (12) 34pts
4th Kevin Blake (7) 34pts
5th Hal Hart (18) 32pts
6th Andrew Purdie (7) 30pts
The closest course that the group play was also suffering a bit from the recent weather but was still in reasonable shape, although the greens were a bit too patchy for the lower handicappers to score over.
After a very good showing in the previous event, John Carlin went even better on this occasion with a two under handicap return that earned him a cut down to 17 for the following week’s competitions and another day without a zero on the card.
John Tallett also had a good day and but for a couple of mishaps could well have run out the winner but had to settle for second place in the end.
Tomas Nilsson won a count back for third over Kevin Blake with a better 21 to 18 after they both did a lot better through the back-nine, having got a better understanding of the green speeds.
Hal Hart then took fifth a couple ahead of a more subdued Andrew Purdie in sixth place.
Very surprisingly for the fifth time in a row, even though there were a few single figure handicappers in the group, there were no 2s in the first division but equally surprisingly there were two in the second division to clean out the multi-rollover pot that had been running for three weeks. After so much effort and expenditure had been spent by some of the contenders on putting lessons and videos it was almost a travesty that they were both chip-ins achieved by players in the same group; the first by John Carlin on the 5th hole from very near the green, that but for hitting the middle of the flagstick at tremendous speed would have needed another chip, but then luckily immediately disappeared from sight, and the second by Markku Tynell, whose chip from the left rough on the 12th took a huge borrow before dropping in with almost the last rotation.
