Hugh O'Donnell, Blacky & Stu Rifkin

Stu Rifkin Goes from Penthouse To Outhouse!

Stu
MondaMonday, 15th March – Pattana, B & C – Stableford

Welcome back to Dave Neal from Birmingham, UK and greetings to 6 handicapper Michael Winterburn from Vancouver, Canada. Numbers were once again down as is to be expected at this time of year and 29 of us assembled at Café Kronborg in readiness for the trip to Pattana. The Admiral’s thumb was still painful so he decided to rest it for the week and resume next Monday. Having departed spot on 0815 we arrived at the classy Pattana 50 minutes later and as usual went through the arduous process of once more having each of our PSC membership cards photocopied as we paid our green fees. If someone could please explain why this process is necessary it would be greatly appreciated. The course did not appear to be overly busy and our first group was able to tee off 20 minutes ahead of schedule at 0940. The golf course was as usual in great shape although the greens were at times inconsistent where speed is concerned but other than that it was a pleasure to play this fine course. Playing off the yellow tees shortened the holes somewhat and that was fairly obvious as the scorecards came in afterwards, particularly in A Flight. It was rather hot with little wind so several stops for drinks were necessary but we managed to complete our round in four and a half hours.

The smaller field reduced us to two flights, A Flight for 0 to 17 and B Flight for handicaps of 18 and above. Rewards were on offer for nearest the pins on the four par threes.

Aussie Stu Rifkin took out the A Flight with a whopping 43 points from the colorful Walter Baechli who also had a great score of 41 points. Canadian Michael Winterburn finished in third place and fourth & fifth places were decided by a count back with yours truly just edging out Brian Gabe. Veteran Hugh O’Donnell was victorious in the B Flight over Frenchman Joseph Bensoussan with Jan Lovgreen in third spot. A three way count back resulted in Graham Buckingham just missing out to John Dahlseng who finished fourth and Mike Winfield fifth. Stu Rifkin’s recruitment drive resulted in many new members into the “Compass Club” and the hat was awarded to Dave Neal on a count back from Carole Kubicki.

NTP’s
B3 – Robert Christensen
B7 – Graham Buckingham
C2 – John Dahlseng
C7 – Mike Allidi

Another year has passed and we have just six weeks until the Ray Rogers Memorial Birthday Four Person Scramble scheduled for Thursday, 6th May at Plutaluang South & North layouts with a green fee of just 400 baht. Presentation of prizes and food to be back at Ray’s house around the

pool afterwards. The sign up sheet goes up on the board at Café Kronborg on 20th April with the entry fee of 500 baht per person to be placed in the box at sign up.