Please see the Senior Teams Captain’s report below from PD Downey.
Round 2 saw us venture across the river to Latrobe for our contest against a much-improved Yering Meadows. After coming off a loss against Eastern, we needed to make amends and produce a strong result to kick-start our season. And a strong result it was with a 7-2 win against a solid Yering Meadows outfit. Results for the day were as follows:
- John Vidovic – all square
- Bryan Harper won 7/6
- Geroge Zhang won 6/5
- Brett Ryan won 3/1
- Mike Wood lost 3/2
- Gary Seymour won 2/1
- Travis Cox won 3/2
- Cam MacSween won 4/2
- Steve Pryor & Pd – all square
More so than ever, there were some amazing stories to come out of this win, and it never ceases to amaze me how the game of matchplay can produce the very best out of some players. Bryan Harper was 6 under the card when he won his match – one of the greatest performances of not only a Green Acres player but any YCSP player in my 11 seasons playing – well done Harps – please stay injured! John Vidovic was playing against an opponent who had not lost in 2 seasons – an interesting character who does not speak English and, from all reports, could settle our state debt with his loose change. Vido had him covered down 18 being one up but an incredible bunker shot from his opponent saw the match end all square. Geroge Zhang found his mojo after quite the hiatus to show us his best is as good as anyone’s. And the Vet – Steve Pryor – eagled the 18th to square the 4-ball contest that had been very close all day. Cam MacSween dug deep for his win and in horse parlance will be better for the run whilst Brett Ryan and Gary Seymour did what that they generally do – and that is win. It was great to see Gary and Brett back in the team – they added some much-needed matchplay savvy and experience to our line-up.
But the story of the day was with Travis Cox. Not only did Travis experience his maiden win with a hard fought 3/2 victory, but he was also involved in one of the most bizarre incidents ever encountered in YCSP contests and without adding too much mayo – world golf in general. This story is that bizarre that it must be documented so that there is a record on file.
· Travis drives his ball down the left-hand side of the hole and sees it stop in the light rough.
· An opposing team is on the opposite fairway and in the vicinity of where Travis’s ball rested.
· On arrival to that spot Travis could not find his ball and in consultation with his opponent agreed that someone must have hit it in error from the other fairway.
· Travis borrowed his opponent’s cart and travelled 200 metres up the other fairway to ask them to check their ball – Travis plays his balls with “Billy” written on them, so they are not hard to identify.
· They of course denied the infringement until Travis demanded they check for the word “Billy” on the ball. And there was “Billy” sitting on the green. A very embarrassed caddy and player then jumped in Travis’s cart to replace “Billy” from where they hit it.
· Travis watched the caddy place his ball in the agreed position.
· Travis then returned the cart to his opponent and walked back to his ball. The opposition caddy was still lurking in the area still and apologised for his error and showed Travis where he had dropped “Billy”.
· Travis played the ball – made par – and won the hole.
· Then another opposition player appeared on the green and accused Travis of playing the wrong ball. Travis was quite understandably flustered at this stage and explained what had just happened and unless his ball had “Billy” written on it, then it was his ball.
· The opposition was adamant that Travis had hit his ball and demanded to see it.
· Travis picked his “Billy” ball out of the hole to show the angry mob and low and behold “Billy” was not on his ball that the caddy had placed back where the other guy had hit it in error and where Travis played his second from.
Now this is where the story gets interesting and quite bizarre. Travis won the hole with what he thought was his ball based on the facts in play. His opponent agreed his ball was hit in error – his opponent agreed that the caddy placed “Billy” back where it originally laid – his opponent agreed that Travis did hit the ball that the caddy had placed. But somehow “Billy” was not the ball that Travis won the hole with!
Our manager Ernie was on site and believed Travis should still win the hole even though he had played the wrong ball – which in match play is loss of hole. Travis and his opponent agreed that the “fair” thing to call was a halved hole as all facts showed that Travis had hit his ball from where the opposition caddy had placed it after they hit the wrong ball. But that’s not where this story ends..
Standing around the 18th waiting for the other matches to conclude Travis is telling his bizarre story to the squad to see if anyone knew what the rule would be under such strange circumstances when George Zhang piped up and said he found a ball with “Billy” written on it on the back 9 – some 6 holes away from the incident in question. Detective Pd has this theory that would explain this series of bizarre events.
· All 3 balls in question were Titleist 1’s
· Only Travis had “Billy” written on his
· The caddy when travelling back to replace Travis’s original ball picked up another ball in play in the vicinity and placed it in his pocket as a memento
· The caddy then replaced the wrong Titleist ball where “Billy” originally laid
· On the back nine the caddy must have had to replace his players ball again and reached into his pocket only to find “Billy” written on it.
· Realising his error, he then tossed “Billy” into the rough to hide the evidence from 6 holes previous.
· Then George Zhang finds “Billy” and returns it to Travis on the 18th green.
Now, all you rule gurus out there, we would love to know whether the rules of golf cover such incidents. Golf rules are generally black and white and rules 6.3 and 14.2 can be interpreted that in this instance it is loss of hole as the player did not replace the original ball, he allowed the opposition caddy to do so. As you can imagine, play was being held up behind, and Travis had to return the cart to his opponent whilst the caddy replaced his ball. There is no such rule as “the spirit of golf”, but in this instance, a halved hole was a fair outcome unless, of course, there is a rule that covers such a bizarre incident.
Hopefully, you are still with me after reading this tale, and if so, we are off to the Burg next week to play Rosanna at noon. Rosanna beat Eastern 9-0 so we will have to bring our A-game to the Heidelberg slopes and slick greens. With Kew losing to Gardiners Run and the Burg beating Heritage, it is turning out to be an interesting season with every contest/match more even than at any time in YCSP history.
Thanks to all the caddies and supporters who supported us at Latrobe and we’ll see you at Heidelburg next Friday for what no doubt will be a clash of 2 teams that have a bit of history between themselves over the past few years. Our team will be announced early this week.
Cheers
Capt Pd
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