Photo depicts Simon Mitchell on the tee of the brand new 13th hole. An hour later he was signing for a lamentable 87 (+21 over par) including a grotesque 9 on the 16th.
Video evidences a slight under clubbing by my good self on the aforementioned tee
It’s April and that means only one thing for the Stonehaven Golf Club faithful; the commencement of a new golfing season. The winter mats are gone, bunkers back in play and the course returned to its full length.
The new campaign was ushered in by the first Innes Medal of the season but that brought with it another ‘first’, the debut in a competitive fixture of the new 13th hole. This initiative has been in the making for a couple of years and it was a fine sight indeed to find members pitting their wits against it with a card in their hand for the first time. It’s an apparently innocuous short par 3 but in reality bares very sharp teeth. To prove the point, my fear of the hole found me taking the trouble to duff my tee shot twenty yards into the hay before fluffing the subsequent recovery shot, eventually taking three blows to reach a green that lay only 119 yards from the tee. To make matters worse, my playing partner (Simon Mitchell) videoed the farrago whilst the third member of our group (Grant Smith) struggled unsuccessfully to stifle his mirth, attempting to disguise his giggles but failing miserably. The video has since been shared with our golfing Whatsapp group so is now an episode I’ll never live down.
The conditions belonged to a winter’s day in January rather than the opening weekend of Spring. Significant winds accompanied the 5 degree temperatures, the only saving grace being the lack of precipitation, unless you went out late. The soaking of the stragglers over the closing holes didn’t affect the result mind you, these guys are usually just out for a bit of fresh air after an Olympic length long-lie and rarely trouble the business end of the leaderboard. It’s kind of them to make up the numbers but victory speeches have no need for their rehearsal.
It was a tough day for golf, four layers being the order of the day and the wind hurling the ball in unintended directions. All the more commendable then were the scores from this week’s divisional winners, congratulations to Stuart Paul, Richard Gove & Scott Crabb on winning their individual sections.
Division 1 (48 competitors)
Stuart Paul 65
Colin Athur 65
Iain Brattey 66
No Returns 1
Division 2 (27 competitors)
Richard Gove 64
Duncan Livingstone 66
Rudi Taylor 67
No Returns 4
Division 3 (10 competitors)
Scott Crabb 66
Konrad Lister 68
Gordon McHardy 69
No returns 3