Hooper overcomes The Cut

The Cut - Stableford

This week was 'The Cut', undoubtably one of the most scenic courses the club plays on. The webmaster received an unprecedented number of photos. But it's anything but easy as any ball more that a meter off the short stuff is reload city. It's a course for controlling your game and not letting the odd inevitable wipe spoil your day.

Steve Hooper was all class today coming in with a fine 37. The new clubs are working well. I played with Mitch today and he was going along a few shots over his handicap until back to back birdies on the back nine vaulted him up the leaderboard. His left miss on the approach to the final hole resulting in an unfortunate wipe that had him miss out on the top step today. Last step on the podium was last years winner Robin Dalby, who always seems to pull out his best games in the Mandurah region.

In my group, Mike Newman was looking the good early turning on 18 with some fine ball striking. But things soured on the back nine with a combination of bad luck and the driver straying past that meter off the fairway.

After a decent first hole from our group things turned ugly on the second tee. With three of us looking for 4 balls in the scrub 20 meters in front of the first tee. The two ball behind us asked to play through, but we declined saying that there were 4 four balls ahead. Fortunately, our pace of play picked up and it didn't affect their games too badly as one of them got a hole in one on the 13th.

Leigh was looking pretty comfortable for NAGA with only 6 points on the front nine. But I decided to deny him that honour by wiping 7 holes on the back nine to come in with 4 points on the back to match his 18 points and seize NAGA on a count back/forward. I lost 15 balls on the day and ended up playing the back nine with 10 beat up balls that I intended to hit at the range.