Jens Munk Trophy / Champions Cup

Our return to golfing after the long drought saw 30 members take on the New Course on May 11^th. To mark the occasion, we had two birthday boys, namely Jonny and JP who kindly treated us to a round of drinks after the match in return for not asking about their age.

It was nice to see Malko, Ryan and YB back on the course who had not had a chance to play with LSW for a while, and they all played well.

The course was in excellent condition, even though it provided us with a few surprises. Vance suggested to play lift – clean – place (after the start of the match!) which would indicate that he had neither read the notes to players your match secretary had sent out, nor had he remembered that we have not had rain for about 3 months. Big fine, Vance. With the cart paths still under construction, our two longest drive holes were somewhat shortened – the 9^th to a 109 yards Par 4 Index 1. A welcome boost to the scores and with the longest drive moved to 10. Ian Gardener informed us that cart paths will be in use from June onwards, which should provide a welcome relief in summer.

6 matches were played with mostly close results and Stephen, Tom, Mark, Nigel, Dave and Lorenz advancing to the next round. Nick Gikas decided to go for a little kip about halfway round handing the match to Tom who just about managed to win the remaining holes.

Back in action after about an hour or so, Nick resumed play, theoretically scoring sufficient points (22) to secure a place ahead of the keenest golfer, Andre, who won NTP on 13, interestingly the same score he finished up with in the end: 13. Not only was Andre’s scoring, well, a little off course (excuse the pun) but he also ran out of balls on the last hole and one of his team mates gave one to him to secure the team result. Luckily, the rules of golf saved him as well as the ‘excellent’ team result of 59:
Decision 5 – 1/5 covers ‘Whether Player May Borrow Balls from Another Player’, addressing this question:

Q. “During a stipulated round, a player runs out of balls. May he borrow one or more balls from another player?”

A. Yes. Rule 4-4a prohibits a player from borrowing a club from another player playing on the course but the Rules do not prevent a player from borrowing other items of equipment (balls, towels, gloves, tees, etc.) from another player or an outside agency.

As for the overall result and order of Merit, for Nick the refreshing nap unfortunately resulted in a disqualification and we should all thank him for not running off with the 2’s purse. For the benefit of doubt, we will assume that Andre handed the ball back to his teammate after the match as the rules clearly state ‘borrow’. He also confirmed to me that he did not lose the borrowed ball on the last hole.

A little further down in the draw, Team 8, consisting of Jukka, Mark Hall and Raaj took their team number very seriously, all scoring 88 Gross. Raaj in particular was struggling to keep up with his teammates, barely rescuing the score with a double bogey on the 18^th.

The statisticians amongst us will be pleased to learn that in 6 out of 10 teams, two players managed to get the same stableford scores on the front nine. Other than that, fine scoring overall, the median being 30 stableford points.

6 players managed to shoot 2’s with Malko shooting an Eagle on the Index 1 9^th and 5 players managed a sharpshooter score of 17 on the Par 3s. Enough winnings to buy a bar of soap each, JP tells me he is still looking for a shower buddy.

JP also managed to finish the round with 22 putts which won him the shot of the day, although it eludes me why he voted against the putting competition in the members survey. (Disclaimer, that is a rumor only).

The cha-cha-cha team competition was won by Ryan, JP and Malko, all scoring over 30 points for an excellent 81 overall. Malko, in fine form, shot a 69 Gross which, unfortunately, was also a 69 Net and secured him the Best Gross Prize. In case anyone wants Malko on the team next time, your Match Secretary is open to offers.

Both the Jens Munk Trophy and the Champion Cup were hotly contested with Nigel winning the Jens Munk trophy and Stephen winning the Champion Cup on count back with a very good back 9. Well done to both of you.

Lastly, and on a more serious note, socks need to be worn in the members bar. Just kidding.
Scorecards: Out of 8 scorecards, 6 only got a D, either because they were illegible or because the Course Handicap was not on them. You all know what prizes are awarded, so we need for every player the gross front nine and back nine (for countback) the stableford front and back nine and of course the result of the team event on one scorecard of the team. The majority of you already manage to do that. As for the others, I will offer an online course on June 31^st in case you are interested.

A big thank you goes to the HK Golf Club and Ian Gardener, in particular for letting us play on the first day they opened up to guests after the long break and for letting us use the members bar.

Lorenz