LSW Masters

With the dire tee time booking situation in Hong Kong at the moment, we had 22 members and 6 guests competing for the LSW trophy and the best guest competition. A bit surprising that we could not fill all 32 slots but the limit of 4 games per player at KSC and the HKCC champs on the same day probably meant that some players who would have otherwise joined were not able to play.

The humidity early on followed by heat proved to be quite challenging and our birthday boy Martin Clinch decided to revert to the café for some cold beers and was soon followed by Justin Davies, who felt he had to entertain him. Amazingly, this did not mean that their team came last in the team comp but more of that later.

Our six guests did well and quite a few of them scored better than their hosts and the committee members they were playing with, which is of course totally unacceptable. A rule change will be required in the near future.

It was good to see Justin and Randy back on course after not having played since early in the year. Randy had not shaved since D. Trump last spoke a sentence without a lie in it and with his sunglasses and hat, he looked like a band member of ZZ Top.

Amazingly, our guest Grant Horsfield who played in the same team as Randy has some resemblance with Frank Beard of the very same band. Both played well with Grant clinching the best guest prize on a net 78 and 34 stableford points and Randy winning the Back 9.

The team competition – ‘Net Birdies or Better’ was won by Andre, Kosuke, Jonny and Brad with a very good 57 points (3 points per net birdie) well ahead of the 7^th placed keenest team consisting of Nigel, Christiaan, Brad and Roger on 22 points. For the record, the sixth placed team with Martin and Justin scored 28 points. Happy winners of Snell golf balls sponsored by Justin & St James’s Place at the top of the table and delighted winners of less useful Grundig Car Electronics sponsored by JP, at the bottom.

Roger decided to go for it after Clinchy dropped out and won the Keenest golfer Prize as well, narrowly beating Kuch. He will now have to buy another car with his two fabulous sets of mobile phone car chargers.

One match was played in the match play competition between JP and Notker and Notker got the better of JP, beating him on the last hole with 1 up.

Excellent to see that we have additional serious contenders for the lowest gross prize, with one of our new members, Hilly Dannaoui, scoring a very good 80 gross. 

Happy camper of the day was Peter Boothby, winning 2 two’s, sharp shooter, one NTP and finishing as runner up in the stableford competition. 

The winner of the day, albeit in a camouflage shirt for which he got fined, was Brad Jacques, narrowly beating Peter Boothby on countback and on a very good 37 points. A slight hiccup resulting from a discrepancy between the paper scorecard and GolfGenius was quickly resolved thanks to GolfGenius and just like  Georgia, the recount did not result in a change of winners. 

Rumour has it that a 4 ball stayed behind into the early hours to celebrate Martin’s birthday. Martin, you are a super star and a well deserved winner of the shot of the day, 82!

On the Order of Merit side, the committee has decided that only the best 6 scores will count this year, given that we could not play all events throughout the season. Before our last match, there are now about 8 players still in contention.

Our next and last event of the year will take us to the Old Course in Fanling on December 11th, where we will play the LSWGS Championship. Invites will be out shortly, and I am hoping for a full field and no late cancellations.

Best
Lorenz