The weather being fine with gentle breezes and the course in sensational condition set up a riviting afternoon of matchplay golf at Brisbane GC. Not only did we beat Indooroopilly 5/1 but we completed the matches before dark! We got our revenge for yesterday’s Claiming Cup loss at IGC. What this means is that we are now in outright second place in our group and have a really good chance of making the finals for the first time in over nine years. The only team that can knock us out of second place is Indooroopilly and to do that they need to beat Gailes at Gailes next week (something that hasn’t happened in living memory) and for us to lose at Redland Bay.

Now to the individual match reports:

• Stephen Deane played the marquee match against former BGC member Gary Brodie. There was never much in the match all day, with Deano mostly keeping his nose in front. He finally took control of the match towards the end for a very well deserved 3/2 win against his long time rival
• Ian Burgess was matched up against a very good player in Welshman Phil Bodman, a perennial good guy.  Phil was up early but Ian came back to square the match after nine holes. Unfortunately around that time, Phil tweaked his back which limited his ability to make good ball contact.  By the 13th hole Ian was three up at which point Phil, who was in obvious discomfort, chose to concede the match
• In the match of the day, Phil Lynem was up against monster hitter Mitch Palm.  Phil wasn’t sure which end of the club was which during the first five holes by which point he was four down. He then discovered his swing and decided to play golf.  He went on a bender from the 7th by birdying that hole with a 15 foot putt followed by a par on eight and then birdies on 9, 10 and 11. The birdie on nine was a special. Palm had knocked his drive so far over the hill that all he had in for two was a wedge! Phil was short of the green for two but knocked his third in close which gave him a solid birdie.  Palm put his wedge through the green and he wasn’t able to get up and down so lost the hole.  To rub salt into the wound, Phil chipped into the hole over the pot for another birdie on 10. By birdying 11 from 6 feet he had made up all the ground he’d lost earlier and was one up! The match continued to the 16th where, after two monster hits, Palm was within a metre of the green. He won this hole to go one down. Phil was lucky to halve the 17th after Palm missed a short putt for the win and then Phil’s drive on 18 put him in an awkward lie left of the fairway. He lost this hole for the match to finish square – a fitting result for a ding dong battle all day
• Peter Lansom at number four drove the ball beautifully all afternoon, but his shot of the day came on the 7th where he put his short iron to one foot short of the hole.  I was standing behind the green and thought it had a good chance of going in. Peter was in the lead all day and eventually his opponent wilted under the pressure on the 17th hole, where his drive found the water left, to gift the match 3/1 to BGC. Another memorable shot of Peter’s came on the 14th where he drove it into his favourite bunker on the right and from there played his mid iron beautifully to 12 feet pin high
• The first of the 4BBB matches saw Craig James and Clark Anderson take on low marker Sam Christie and Ernie Druve (who got 6 shots!). Christie is a sweet swinger who, at age 70 or so, hits a beautiful ball so effortlessly.  There was never much in the match all day with our guys heading up the last with a one hole lead. All other matches had finished at this stage so we were all gathered around the green hopeful of a BGC win. This was not to be as Christie made a very good par under pressure and both Clark and Craig just missed their par putts from close range – an all square result
• Peter Martin and Geoff Holding (coming back to golf after hurting his shoulder picking up a 400kg motor bike off his mate’s broken leg!) gave three and five shots to their opponents in the final 4BBB match. Marto was out of sorts during the first four holes but Geoff was holding things together well. Marto then discovered his game to win the difficult 5th with a very solid par. From there the BGC boys played very good and supportive 4BBB matchplay golf to win the match 4/3.  The highlight of this match was on the 9th. Both Geoff and Marto hit very good drives to the top of the hill on the right hand side (not quite Mitch Palmish) to put their opponents under the pump. Geoff, playing first knocked his wood half way up the hill towards the green.  This gave Marto the chance to have a go.  He took out his three wood and smacked a well controlled low draw that scampered around the left hand bunker and up the hill just missing the hole and finishing 8 feet passed the pin – a wonderful shot to witness! As it turned out Marto didn’t even need to putt for his eagle as the opponents conceded the hole.