The ribbing began on the 1st tee at Castletown Golf Club, but Dandara’s Managing Director Austin McGuire -shown above- responded by striping it down the middle, clipping it close and strutting off with a birdie. Nett birdies on the 5th and 6th, a par on the 8th, plus three vital points over the final two holes showed McGuire dutifully dovetailed to help build a winning score.
McGuire’s playing partner in the pairs betterball competition on Saturday was Andy Dent who had an extraordinary round, contributing 33 of their winning 47 points over just 12 holes. Apart from two birdies and four nett birdies,

Dent -shown above- landed a nett eagle on the 7th and an even more impressive nett hole-in-one albatross five-pointer on the par-four 14th.
Two teams were initially tied in second on 45 points. Husband and wife pairing Stephen and Linda Fisk warmed up with 20 outward points. They made up for a disappointing nil-pointer on the 9th by covering the back-nine in six-under-par for 25 points. Linda’s nett eagle on the 11th having been equalled by Stephen’s efforts on the 15th.

William Laughlin with his younger brother David did it the other way round, their two four-pointers purloined early on. Out in seven-under-gross they amassed 25 points, but a mere two-under-par inward leg only translated to 20 points. Consequently, this left the Laughlins in third place.

There were more family connections in fourth place. Andi Howland and his father Chris combined to collect 44 points from their eight-under-par round. Six of their eleven nett birdies were carded on the back-nine and this was enough to consign Gary Ashe and Peter Easthope to fifth place as their 44 points was evenly apportioned.

Once again PJ Vermeulen powered his way to a box of balls. His back-tees drive had to travel 76 yards before it passed the point from which those off the yellow tees had hit. Never-the-less Vermeulen launched the longest drive on the 7th which of course he went on to birdie.

Chris Till continued his habit of edging out the president by replacing his name to win nearest-the-pin (NTP) on the 8th, last week it occurred on the 16th. Jeff Magee made his mark on the 13th, and the aforementioned Dent duly augmented his club-house credit with his pin-seeker on the 16th.

Having been postponed three times now, it is hoped that course and weather conditions will be favourable for the Steve Keegan Memorial medal to take place on Saturday.

Finally, congratulations to Robin Dawson, captain of Peel GC for his highly successful and novel campaign to raise funds for IOM Anti Cancer Association. It was a pleasure to participate in the Peel v Rest of the Island Inter-Club Captains Trophy on Friday (16th October). For the record, Peel won 10.5 points to 9.5 and the winning pair with a nett 60 betterball total was Dan Williams and Chris Till from Castletown GC. Chris had to dash off before the presentation, so Dan stepped up to receive the prize from Peel’s captain.
MALCOLM LAMBERT