It was another glorious Autumn day for golf at BGC yesterday in our Senior Teams Challenge match against a great bunch of Wantima golfers. The course just gets better and better as we recover from all the rain we’ve had. Also, the new TifEagle greens on holes 19, 20 and 21 played really well with a good true roll. The bunkers are also starting to play much better with proper explosion shots possible from a lot of greenside positions.

After two away wins to open our season we relished the chance to host Wantima on our home track and some excellent golf resulted in a 4/2 win to Brisbane. I can’t remember a season when we started with three wins.

And now to the individual match reports:

1. After a late call up this week Ian Burgess didn’t disappoint in his match up against Wantima number one player Darryl Hynes. Ian was never really out of any hole and proved what a great match player he is with a 4/3 win

2. Peter Lansom has been sick all week and offered to stand down for this match – I wouldn’t let him. In his match against Rob Perrin Peter took a little while to get going and fought hard but unfortunately went down 3/2. Peter has a habit of bringing the best out in his opponents however and this match was no exception with Rob being two under par at the turn

3. Mr ‘lay low’ Mark Davis was up against a very steady opponent in Ian Boughey. Mark struck the ball well but unfortunately not quite well enough and went down 2/1

4. Peter Martin had been playing a lot of golf and so over a week ago he decided to hang up his clubs and refresh his mind and body. This worked a treat and he struck the ball extremely well all day (actually only a bit more than half the day I suppose) for a convincing 7/6 win.  Great result Marto, particularly given that he had to give his opponent, Klane Tomlin, two shots in the new handicapping format for the 4th singles match

5. In the first 4bbb we had experienced campaigner Craig James paired up with Richard Peacock (a proven match player) against the two Rons – Van Veen and Watson. Even though the ‘Rons’ were very steady with one receiving five handicap strokes from Craig, BGC proved far too good for a big 6/5 win.  The icing on the cake in this match was Craig’s tee shot on the last hole of the match (hole 21) finishing a couple of feet from the hole and a gimme birdie

6. The final match paired Geoff Crozier up with BGC captain Rob Brown against the Wantima captain in Baden Eland and Jim Barber.  It had the promise of being an interesting match as both Croz and Baden are very long drivers of the ball with the other two way back in the rearview mirror. BGC three putted each of the first three greens to remain square.  Often this would be disastrous because in this format if you don’t take your chances you usually get buried. Fortunately this was not to be with Croz playing some good golf when needed and Browny being up the middle and keeping the pressure on.  BGC was dormie four and eventually ran out 2/1 winners after a couple of wobbles at the end.

The Wantima team had at least two nice things to say about BGC. The first was the after game refreshments. I couldn’t stay long so didn’t get to taste everything on offer but the Arancini balls, duck in pastry and scallops in a delicious sauce served in shells were the best ever food items at the after game sit down that I have ever had, both in the choice of food and standard of cooking and presentation. Truly outstanding.  Wantima were impressed and are planning to give that feedback to their club. The second thing that Wantima noted favourably was the work that we are doing and plans we have for the course – the green resurfacing, general course work and course master plan (as in the fact that we’ve actually got one!). So, to Gillian Hirst and her team, as well as Marcus Hartup and his team, thank you so much and keep up the outstanding work.