Men’s Golf Column for week ending 27/03/2016

By Brad Grant

As watering on the course has been held back in order to prepare the course for the upcoming winter the greens are becoming a touch firmer and faster. This, along with the warm, benign conditions has seen the low markers starting to put in some outstanding scores.

The stand-out for the week came on Saturday when Steven McMahon, playing off a handicap of six shot a blistering two under par 69 resulting in 44 Stableford points. His nearest rival in Division 1 was Peter Baddeley (18) who would have thought his excellent 42 points had a show only to be disappointed.  Division 2 saw Beau Purcell (25) take the honours with 40 points ahead of Neil Walker (21) on 39 points.

A great bunker shot by Dean!

The Thursday Stableford competition provided a platform for the up and coming teenage Ollie Shaw (9) to display his prowess by shooting 41 points.  Shaw’s score elevated him to the lead in Division 1 beating off Damien Ryan (14) on 39 points. To win Division 2 required some career best golf. This was provided by Nick Jones (23) and Ian Clark (35) both posting enviable 43 point scores.  Jones took out the prize on a count-back.  It was good to see Bryan “Goldfinger” Curtis stage a come-back to once again take out the Gold Course with 43 points.

Speaking of good scores, Mansfield Golf Club trainee professional David Hurle (3) hit the sweet spot on Tuesday with an impressive 69 strokes to return a score of +5 in the Par competition.  Sam Sandhu (23) returned a good score of +3 to come second.

Pro-Pin winners for the week were Chris Leaman, Peter Dolling and David Hurle.  All the nearest the pin prizes were spread around with no multiple winners for the week.

As Jason Day wins his second WGC Match Play Championship and once again becomes the World Number 1, the players in the Semi-Finalists in the J.D.Neely Singles Match Play trophy have one week to go to have their matches completed. The same applies to the Grand Finalists in the J.Nolan 4-Ball Match Play Trophy. Good luck to all the finalists.

The Easter break saw large numbers of visitors to the club, especially on Saturday and Sunday where an almost endless procession of golfers continuously hit off the first tee. The number of carts roaming the course looked like scenes from the movie “The Italian Job”. It was pleasing to see so many visitors having a good time at the course in great conditions and weather.

The new Mansfield Golf Club web site will be unveiled in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that.