Pennant Corner

Please see the reports for Women’s, Seniors, Youth and Men below.

Upcoming Pennant rounds

• Friday Women’s Pennant – 21st March: Vs Kooringal at Cheltenham GC – 8.50 am

• Women’s Pennant – 23rd March: Vs Box Hill at Patterson River GC – 8.00 am

• Senior Men’s YC Pennant – 21st March: Vs Heidelburg at Rosanna GC – 11.15 am

• Youth Pennant – 23rd March: Vs Kooringal at Heidelburg GC – 8.20 am

• Men’s Pennant – 23rd March: Vs Eastwood at Heidelburg GC – 11.15 am

Friday Women’s Pennant

Please see the Friday Women’s Teams Captain’s report below from Fi Bunting.

Friday Pennant March 14

The season finally got underway with our team venturing down the Peninsula Link to Centenary Park in the dark only to have a thick fog roll in right on the 8.00am tee time. Play finally got underway with players having to contend with very slow greens covered in duck droppings. Despite these hazards the team performed remarkably well with some amazing results. With 2 Pennant debutantes and 5 experienced players, it proved to be a great mix.

There were many highlights during the day culminating in a 6-1 win against Rossdale. Deb Guilmartin drove spectacularly all day reaching greens for 2 on 5 occasions resulting in 2 birdies winning 4/3. Vanessa Cariss played great steady golf all day with an impressive 6/4 win. A fantastic shot onto the green on her final hole gave her a short putt for the win.

Lucy Dawson playing her first Pennant match completely overwhelmed her opponent winning 7/6 – welcome to Pennant, Lucy!

Fi Bunting battled hard all day with a tough win 2 up on 18 after a good shot in and 1 putt. Anne Minter was ahead all day despite her opponent sinking several long putts, a great 6/4 win. Sue Poole had a tough day fighting hard but eventually going down 2/1 on 17th.

Meg Toose, our second debutante, had a wonderful day playing fabulous golf winning 7/5!

Thank you to Lisa Cochrane for supporting the team as the Emergency. It was a great team effort with wonderful support from our caddies. A strong start to our season.

Competition results can be found here.

Sunday Women’s Pennant

Please see the Sunday Women’s Teams Captain’s report below from Fi Bunting.

Sunday Pennant March 16

The Sunday team headed out to The Eastern Golf Club full of excitement for our first match. Although it was dark, we were hopeful of playing our match before the forecasted rains – alas this was not to be. The team played in horrendous conditions with rain, rain and then heavy rain, wind and cold!

A 4.5 – 2.5 win made our team of “drowned rats” probably feel alot drier than the Rosanna girls.

What a fantastic team effort from players, caddies, Team Manager (Barb) and Emergency Sue. 

Some highlights included Deb Guilmartin’s chip onto the 4th on her way to a 3/2 win. Vanessa Cariss played beautifully for a 5/4 win against a very experienced opponent.

Lucy Dawson continued her successful Pennant debut season with a great approach shot to the 13th, winning 3/2. Fi Bunting battled all day in a very tight match winning the 9th with a fantastic approach shot but eventually succumbing on the 18th 1 down.

Anne Minter crushed her opponent early, going 4 up after 6 holes. Her opponent had the upper hand on the 7th until Anne put her third shot to gimee distance, pressuring her opponent into 3 putting. A

perfectly played par 3 then had Anne 6 up at the turn. She closed out her match 5/4.

Annelie De Villiers fought hard all day, putting strongly particularly on the 9th green. A halved match in really tough conditions. Meg Toose battled to get her game going in the rain against a steady opponent. A beautiful bunker shot on13th out of very wet sand was a highlight. 4/3 loss in only her second Pennant match.

Rosanna have always been a tough opponent for us, so it was a very satisfying win to get our season underway. Well done everyone – hopefully all have dried out by now.

Competition results can be found here.

Senior Men’s Pennant

Please see the Senior Teams Captain’s report below from PD Downey.

It’s not the despair, it’s the hope.

It’s what drives players, caddies, supporters and managers when all seems lost.

This time last week we only had 6 available players out of a squad of 17 for our grand final rematch against archrivals Kew. The loser’s season would be over, and the winner would still be in the hunt for a place in the final. Hope was fading and despair was circling.

Phone calls, emails, text messages and divine intervention saw us finally find 10 competitors to represent Green Acres in our grand final replay against Kew. With 2 players being cajoled out of retirement (again) in Rodney Andersen and Travis Cox along with bar recruits in Serge Sabbadini and Jerry Yin we ventured out to Eastern with hope and not despair.

Inspired by the heroics of the Mighty Tigers the evening before, an all-new 4BALL combination of Serge and Jerry stood on the first tee at Eastern with hope. Jerry with the aid of an interpreter (and an Eastern member) and Serge were playing against a very experienced Kew pair in Paul Cranage and Michael Pickering. Michael was playing his 100th game of YCSP and had an entourage in attendance to celebrate and support the occasion.

Serge and Jerry were playing their first games of YCSP and the fact their opponent was teeing up for the 100th time meant sweet you know what. Serge birdied the 1st to go 1UP and Jerry parred the tough 2nd to go 2UP. It was game on, and these two legends went on to win 6&5 and inspire the rest of the team to dig deep and try and win 4 more contests. There was hope but it was not until the 18th hole for this monumental contest to play out its ending.

Brett Ryan again gave us a much-needed win on the 17th hole. 3 more contests were needed for an unlikely victory. George Zhang, Graeme Harris, Rodney Andersen and yours truly all stood on 18 knowing we had to win the hole to keep our season alive. No pressure. I had celebrated a famous Tiger victory the night before (a little too enthusiastically) and was running on empty giving up a 3-hole lead with 4 to play. Graeme, Rodney and George had been in a dog fight all day and heroics on the 17th meant we had one hole to play for a famous victory. And a win for the ages it was with 3 wins and a half on the imposing 414 metre Par 4 that plays much longer with the second shot up hill all the way. As Captain I could not be prouder of the 10 lads that represented our great club on Friday.

There was no despair but there was hope.

For the record we won 5.5/3.5 and play Heidelberg at Rosanna next week in another must win scenario. The Burg lost on Friday and their finals aspirations are finished. Rosanna also lost to The Heritage and find themselves requiring results to go their way to play in the final. If we win our next two contests against The Burg and The Heritage, we will finish on top of the ladder. But before we think about that we need to focus on beating The Burg. They are a proud mob and would love nothing more than beating us and ending our finals aspirations as well.

YCSP will be held at Rosanna this Friday with the following contests taking place:

· Latrobe V Gardiners Run

· Kew V The Heritage

· Latrobe V Eastern

· Heidelberg V Green Acres

Thanks to all the caddies who made the long trek out to Eastern and to the live audience on our What’s App group. You all make a huge difference in the performance of our squad.

And finally, a special mention to our manager Ernie Mensforth. He would have travelled 100kms in his cart going from contest to contest keeping us informed on what was required. I could tell from his body language that this win meant more than most. And I’m pretty sure that goes for all of us.

It’s not the despair, it’s the hope.

We see the return of some quality players for our next contest including the much-anticipated return of Paul “The God of Thunder” Thaw to the starting line-up. Leaving out our 4BALL heroes in Serge and Jerry was a tough call after their herculean win but they are now very much part of our squad moving forward and I hope they enjoyed the competitiveness and comraderies that YCSP brings to the table.

The team for next Friday is as follows:

1. John Vidovic

2. George Zhang

3. Paul Thaw

4. Bryan Harper

5. Robbie Mallard

6. Travis Cox

7. Graeme Harris

8. Gary Seymour

9. Paul Downey

10. Steve Pryor

Emergency – Cam MacSween

See you all at Rosanna next Friday. We tee off at 11.15AM.

Competition results can be found here.

Capt Pd

Youth Pennant

Please see the Youths Team Manager report below from Greg O’Brien.

The third round of Youth Pennant kicked off on Sunday 16^th March at Kooringal Golf Club – Altona, playing against Northern.

In tough weather conditions, it was rainy and windy throughout the day and arriving at the course at 6.30 proved to be of no benefit, when it was still dark at 7.20!  (Note to self…)

As well as great golf, many questions arose that enabled learning opportunities throughout the day.  (Answers at the end!)

1. Is it OK for a player to remove a loose branch (not attached) from a tree, if it affects their swing?

2. Is it wise for the player check with their opponent, that they intend to remove the loose impediment, before removing it?

3. If play continues, is it OK to complain about the branch, after another dispute arises?

4. In Match-play, is the player allowed to finish off the hole with a second putt?

5. If a player hits out of turn, by hitting the 2^nd putt, do they forfeit the hole? or…

6. Should the opponent ask the player to re-mark their ball and re-take the putt?

7. If a player self-determines that a hole has been forfeited by their opponent, should they just pick up their ball – without finishing putting – and walk to the Tee?

8. If a player picks up their ball, do they win, half or lose the hole – as judged by the Match referee at the end of the round?

9. Is a parent allowed to intervene in the match and speak to both players, if they are not a caddy?

10. If the above happened on one hole of one match, is this a good reason to take a refresher course on the rules?

If any of the above made you think, perhaps click on the link below to complete a refresher on the rules.

The R&A rules of golf

In a close finish, we went down 3/2.  The individual results can be found below. It was also great that Joel Dichiera was a caddy for the team.

ANSWERS

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No

4. No

5. No

6. Yes

7. No

8. Lose the hole – (sorry, not a yes/no)

9. No

10. Yes – click on the link above!

This week we are playing Kooringal.  I cant wait!

Competition results can be found here.

Men’s Pennant

Please see the Men’s Team Captain report below from Jack Allan.

On Sunday, the Men’s pennant team played against the top side in Sandhurst in some of the rainiest conditions you can get without the day being cancelled. At number 7, Lewis Reid got the team off to a flying start, 4 up through 4 and ultimately winning 5/4. He was followed out by Tom Allan who unfortunately couldn’t get the putts to drop early on, losing to his opponent 3&2.

Will Bate was next out and he continued his impressive run this season with a big 4&3 win over his opponent to give us another point early on. With no caddie for the front 9 the rain was too hard for Charlie Sartori to tackle on his own, as he couldn’t recover from his early deficit, eventually going down 4&2. Barney Greaves followed Charlie out and made light work of his opponent yet again, cruising his way through to a 5&3 win with some impressive golf.

With 3 wins on the board and 2 losses it came down to Nick Shortis and I to secure one final point for the team, we both trailed by 1 hole heading into the back 9, but neither could recover the lead, with Nick losing 3&2 and Myself 2&1 – Resulting in a 4-3 loss on the day.

With 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss, we sit 4th on the ladder and are still in a good position to make finals. With the 3 teams ahead of us being the ones we have already played, if we keep winning games, we are every chance at getting into finals this year. We start by playing Eastwood this weekend at Heidelberg.

Another thanks to all the caddies and spectators who made it out in the miserable conditions on Sunday. 

Competition results can be found here.