Representative golf has begun for 2025, with the first round of the Yarra Courses Senior Pennant kicking off last Friday.
Please see the Team Captain’s report below from PD Downey.
Greetings players, caddies and friends of Yarra Courses Senior Pennant. It’s great to be back on the tools again for another season of what I like to call the Yarra Courses Legends Tour.
Round one saw us venture out to Yering Meadows to play Eastern where conditions were perfect apart from the fairways which had not seen water since before Christmas. A broken and unrepaired pump saw the fairways somewhat difficult to navigate with pinpoint accuracy required off the tee to keep the ball in play.
Eastern fielded a strong team consisting of a large majority of Yering Members who jumped ship and joined their neighbours during the off-season. That “home ground” advantage saw us struggle against a team who understood the nuances of the course we were playing. Results were as follows:
- John Vidovic won 3/2
- Rob Mallard won 3/2
- Bryan Harper won 8/6
- George Zhang lost 4/3
- Graeme Harris lost 1 down
- Michael Wood lost 5/4
- Cam MacSween lost 6/5
- Travis Cox lost 1 down
- Pd & Steve Pryor lost 6/5
Special mentions to Bryan Harper – himself a former Yering member – who played injured – Harps conducted a master class of how to play the course. John Vidovic who along with yours truly, Paul (subtitles) Thaw, John (I’ll never play pennant again) Mansfield and Marcel (world’s greatest photographer) Aucar ventured to the King Island Pro Am with our resident pro – Ashley (the penetrator) Hall for a pre-season training session. For Vido to bounce back after 4 rounds of tough conditions was a truly remarkable effort. Robbie Mallard, who like a good red just keeps improving with age and finally our debutante Travis Cox, recovered from a nervous start to take the match down 18 and watch mother nature deny him the winning birdie putt on 18 after being down for the majority of his match. And finally, to Ernie Mensforth who has put his hand up yet again to manage our squad. With the rub of the green going Travis’s and Graeme’s way, the result could have been 5/4 to us as opposed to 6/3 to Eastern. But that’s golf, isn’t it?
This Friday we venture to Latrobe to play Yering at noon. It will be interesting to see the team they select with the majority of last years players now at Eastern. Clubs go through transition periods within the senior ranks and results last Friday showed there might just be a change of the guard this year with perennial cellar dwellers Eastern & Gardiners Run both winning, Heritage and Latrobe halving the contest and Kew beating The ‘Burg with a long putt on 18.
Our team for round 2 sees some experience return with Brett Ryan and Gary Seymour both being available. Work commitments this year for quite a few squad members is proving a hurdle in team selection but we will keep showing up each week and having a crack at making our fifth final in succession.
This week’s team is as follows:
- John Vidovic
- Bryan Harper
- George Zhang
- Brett Ryan
- Michael Wood
- Gary Seymour
- Travis Cox
- Cam MacSween
- Paul Downey
- Steve Pryor
See you all around the club during the week and hopefully at Latrobe on Friday. Thanks to those members who ventured out to support and caddy for us at Yering. And a big shout out to Men’s Pennant player Josh Monk who provided some much-needed support on the fairways during our contest. Pennant Golf is one big family at GA – get involved and have some fun.
Captain PD
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