Thursday, 11th March – Pleasant Valley

Gerard Pierson, Blacky & Andre Van Dyk

Due to an injured thumb The Admiral was unable to take his place in the field so we were left with 34 golfers ready to take on the somewhat challenging and ever improving Pleasant Valley. We should have had a field of 35 but our dear friend Kevin Dinan had a brain freeze and drove out to Rayong Country Club instead. Leaving myself to “steer the ship” we departed Café Kronborg right on time at 0815 and arrived at the course 50 minutes later. It was good to see the colourful Mr Walter Baechli back with us after his month or so of serious cycling and John Swanson and Jerry Garcia were also welcomed back into the fold. The Admiral’s absence meant we were a threesome in the first group and we teed off 25 minutes ahead of schedule at 0935 in perfect conditions, not too hot but with a fairly stiff breeze. The course was as usual looking a treat and the greens were excellent but I am compelled to make some negative comments regarding the caddies at this course. At least half of the field made comment afterwards that their caddies were nowhere near up to the standard that is expected. At least one of them had never even walked this or any other golf course previously so obviously did not have a clue and some others were merely there for the purpose of pulling the bags. I understand that they have to start somewhere but surely the course management can do what other courses do and have a proper training programme for new caddies. Our threesome “scorched” around the course in three hours & forty-five minutes which included just one stop for drinks as the weather was perfect as previously mentioned. The group following us was a whopping one hour and ten minutes behind us at the finish. It was a fairly eventful day all round what with Kevin’s mix up, Mick O’Connor putting his scorecard in the caddy evaluation box and our French friends in the last group leaving the nearest the pin marker on the 13th green. Many thanks to the course Starter who kindly drove out and retrieved it for us.

We decided to have just two flights with each going down to fifth place, A Flight for 0 to 17 and B Flight for handicaps 18 and over. Of course nearest the pin rewards on the four par threes and longest first putts on the ninth & eighteenth greens.

A Flight was well won by Frenchman Gerard Pierson with Peter Bye one point behind in second place. A count back saw myself finishing third from veteran Don Richardson in fourth place. The consistent Richard Kubicki ended up fifth. Aussie Andre Van Dyk did it again by winning the B Flight from the in form other half of the Kubicki golfing machine, Carole. A count back saw Kris Helgasson finish third with John Vegeberg in fourth spot. A count back saw another Frenchman, Joseph Bensoussan finish fifth with Graham Buckingham just missing out. The “Compass Hat” was presented by Stu Rifkin to Paul Avery who lost on a count back to Stu. Good luck to Paul as he is returning to Oz this weekend.

Results for Pleasant Valley:

A Flight
1st – Gerard Pierson (6) – 37 points
2nd – Peter Bye (12) – 36 points
3rd – Peter Blackburn (14) – 35 points
4th – Don Richardson (10) – 35 points
5th – Richard Kubicki (11) – 34 points

B Flight
1st – Andre Van Dyk (19) – 39 points
2nd – Carole Kubicki (27) – 37 points
3rd – Kris Helgasson (19) – 34 points
4th – John Vegeberg (21) – 34 points
5th – Joseph Bensoussan (19) – 33 points

NTP’s

5th – Stu Rifkin
8th – Peter Blackburn
13th – Niels Hansen
17th – Patrice Bardy

Long Putts   
9th – John Swanson
18th – Kris Helgasson