Camden Lakeside, May 2008
Leaderboard
As part of our build up to Spackler XIII we look back at the very first Spackler event held at Camden Lakeside, Spackler V. Here’s the report by AD. The man loves his exclamation marks.
Camden Lakeside was the lucky recipient of the Carl Spackler Social Groups 5th invitational event and proved to be a most popular venue, as the facilities provided practice range, practice greens and more importantly a half way stop for a sausage banger!!
For the first time in Spackler history we didn’t have the defending Champ in the field, Greeny’s father in-law had been very ill in the last few months and unfortunately he lost his battle, our condolences go out to Greeny and his wife Daina.
I must admit it was most interesting to arrive at Camden to find the majority of players either on the range hitting warm up balls or practice putting, this is not a normal state of affairs for a Spackler event, but shows how seriously the guys are about winning the jacket and having their names on the jacket pocket, some may call this start to an event cheating, but what it probably really shows is that old bones take longer to get into gear then young ones!
Standing on the first ready to go, the only problem we seemed to have was, where were
Duncan and
Timo? Well
Duncan made it in time to play in the 4th group and
Timo made it to tee off with the last group, no warm ups there! The other absentee was
Darryl Tweedale who apparently could not resist the temptation of more beer and a bevy of beautiful girls after the rugby the night before, this didn’t deter a few others with
Merce sighted at The Clock Hotel in the wee hours and
Schmude turning up looking like he’d just finished a bottle of whiskey in the car on the way!!!
Anyway, we were off, with newcomers,
Greg Seisun and
Darren Brownlee taking their chance to hit off before the majority of the gallery had time to get to the tee so they didn’t have to perform in front of the sledging hoards, so the rest of the day turned out like this:
At the turn it was a stacked leader board with
AD and
Ben leading the way with
21 points followed by
Schmude 19 and
Merce 18,
Rudi 16, James and
Paddy both
15and the rest of the field needing big scores to feature or just trying to regain confidence for the next tournament!
A couple of highlights from the front nine include
Deano not scoring a point over the first 4 holes, only to be bettered by
Mike, who didn’t score a point over the first 5 holes,
AD knocking in a bird on the 2nd, and
Ben wasting a big scoring opportunity on the par 3, 9th where he didn’t record a point even though it was a two shot hole for him!
Mike had the highest gross score after nine of 66, while Schmude had the lowest with a
39!
After stopping for a sausage banger after the 9th, it was back to business. Could
Ben and
AD continue their red hot form? Now
Schmude had sobered up would that affect his back 9? Would the short price favourite (
The Swede) be able to conjure up a fight back? Could Mike go even higher? Was
James really seen in the corner with all his wedges pleading with them to let him chip onto a green? Would
Deano try and go for 5 holes without a point on the back to match
Mike? Where is
Darryl Tweedale (hope she was worth it?!)? What the hell is that group in front of us doing?! What was the ratio of kransky to sausage sandwiches for Spackler golfers and what does it sound like when a dove cries??
Another 3 holes down and it looked like this
, Ben flying adding a further
9 points to be clear leader on
30, followed by
Schmude 28,
AD 27, Merce 26, James 23, Paddy 21.Through two more and
Ben still led by two over
AD and
Schmude with
Merce another two back!
With just two left to play and they being index 1 and 3 anything could still eventuate,
Benled by one over
AD.
Schmude looked to have blown his chance by putting a ball into the drink on 16 and only scoring three points over the previous three holes, while
Merce was still in there with a shot. The big news though was
Garrick was two under for the back nine after birdies on 11 and 15.
The two leaders both received two shots on the final two holes, so it would come down to whose game would stand up under the pressure!
On 17, Ben had a 5 for three, while AD three putted his way to 6 for two. Schmude went 4 for three, while Merce was gone having a 5 for two leaving him five off the pace. This left Ben with a 2 point break heading to the last hole. Any points would see him win with AD and Schmude needing big points! Meanwhile Garrick was still two under heading to the last and looking at a remarkable turnaround from his front nine 14-over 50!
What transpired was AD triple bogeyed the last with a three putt for one point, total 41 points, gone! Schmude, needed a birdie or what would be a 3 for 4 points, what he got was a par which gave him 3 points for a total of 41 points, gone! Merce needed an eagle, but didn’t even get close with a triple bogey and no points for a total of 38, gone! Ben did exactly as he had to, any points would do, and he managed a triple bogey for one point, leaving him a clear winner on 43 points!
Oh and what about Garrick you ask, well he just needed par or bogey to stay under the card for the back nine, guess what happened…………triple bogey to finish 2 over for the nine!!! It’s a cruel game!!!
Great work Ben, it was only time before he smashed his handicap and took the jacket, but can he defend it next time????
Some curious stats
Mike sets a record for most holes without scoring a point (5).
Greg Bible had six 7’s in a row (record).
Ben led from the first hole, to record a wire to wire victory!
Garrick won both longest drives, apparently smashing his balls to somewhere around the 300m mark.
Paddy and Timo won a Nearest the Pin each.
We’re also introducing our version of the FedEx Cup, called the Spackler Cup, it’ll be an accumulation of your points over the year, so this year there’ll be four events with your best three included as your points total, it gives you the benefit of dropping out your worst score or doesn’t penalize players who didn’t get the chance to play all four events.
Cheers AD
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