Covid is certainly taking its toll on the golf and the numbers we are able to put out recently for only 13 of us were booked in to play la Manga and, due to Tom (Moose) Burke getting lost, only 12 ended up playing!
The course itself was in good condition but was let down by the greens for they weren’t the best we have seen at La Manga. However, they are due to be hollow-tined very soon and as such, courses don’t tend to bother bout cutting and rolling in the week or so leading up to the Hollow-tining.
Back at the pub, we had a shock with the results and then another shock when we had to leave for the Spanish had decided that Covid will only hit those that drink in pubs which have no kitchen. You can’t make this crap up, can you?
Anyway, Barney did his usual and sold a full card and, the jammy sod only had the bloody cheek to choose the correct dart players name and win the 20€!
We had 4 par 4 NTP’s and one NTP in3 on the Par 5 18th. Only 3 NTP’s on the Par 3’s were taken and a sleeve of Srixon’s went to Brian Kiernan, Mick Phelan and Barney McAffrey. The NTP in 3 went to Steve Higgins who just pipped long hitter Daz Hancock whose SECOND shot hit the greenside bunker, pin high and clipped his 3rd shot to some 4-5 feet.
There were no Two’s recorded, so 26€ will be carried onto the next game, which will be (hopefully) Roda on the 8th of September.
Onto the main prizes and in the Silver division only 3 scores were recorded, mainly due to two cards not being handed in and Gabi, therefore, was the Close But No Cigar ‘winner’ in Silver with 24 points Brian Kiernan kept up his reasonable form and, once again, stepped up to the podium to claim the Runners-Up prize with 29 points. Just one point ahead of him was, once again, the Captain, Ernie Wilson with 30 points.
In the Gold Division, the scores were better and the CBNC ‘award’ went to (I am really smiling as I type this), went to JJ McGettigan with 31 points. The Runner-up in Gold was 6 handicapper Daz Hancock with 32 points and the clear winner in Gold was Steve Higgins with 37 points.
37 points would, normally, be enough to win at La Manga, however, an absolutely outstanding 41 points from Barney took the Overall winners purse. His 41 points also saw his handicap come down from 13 to 11!
Two people were in contention for the Happy Golfer and it was the happy Gabi that stepped up to accept the bottle of wine from the Captain.
Future competitions: These are hanging in the air right now. We have already cancelled the next two weeks at Vistabella and Altorreal due to lack of numbers. This is, naturally, due to holidays being cancelled, silly quarantine rules in the UK and Ireland when arriving back from Spain and, in a small way, the incessant heat.
The next competition is at Roda on the 8th of September and we do appear to be ‘getting back to normal’ in the bookings. On the 15th we are off to La Finca and unless you emailed to say you were playing, your name has been removed. If you are playing, please do check that your name is down.
