AFTER missing a month of golf with a health issue, Leigh McCracken made up for lost time in Saturday’s par competition at the Mount Gambier Golf Club.
Playing off a 15 handicap on a tough course set up for the club championships the following day, he signed for a +5, two clear of Wayne Elliott.
Starting on the 10th hole, McCracken was quickly into top gear, making pars on 10, 11 and 12 to move to +3 after just three holes.
A bogey on the par 4 13th kept him at that score, but after another par on the 14th he was on +4 and wondering whether his first win in two years was on the way.
He quickly had a reality check, dropping back to +3 after a pick-up on the 15th, but managed another bogey on the par 3 16th to stay on that score.
Every golfer knows good luck can be elusive out on the course and McCracken was fortunate enough to have some come his way on the tough par 4 17th.
Still well short of the green after two shots, he bladed his approach shot, only to see it run up just past the bunkers and curl around to within a foot of the hole for a tap-in par.
That moved him to +4 where he stayed for another four holes before dropping a shot on the fourth.
He quickly regained that and more with pars on the sixth and seventh to move to +5 and managed to stay on that number after dropping a shot on the eight, but making it up with another par to close his round on the ninth.
His score of +5 saw him take out the B Grade competition by three shots from playing partner Tim MacLean.
Elliott’s score of +3 was the best in A Grade and only hiccups on the last hole of each nine cost him an even better result.
Playing off a seven handicap, Elliott parred the first eight holes to move to +2, but slipped back to +1 after a bogey on the ninth.
Normal service was quickly resumed however and he got to +4 after pars on the 10th, 11th and 13th, not to mention a birdie on the par-four 12th which had him at even par off the stick with five holes to play.
He was still at +4 on the 18th tee, but another bogey to finish the back nine dropped him to +3 which was still good enough to finish one shot ahead of Darren Harding in the A Grade competition.
C Grade was taken out by Peter Jones who signed for a +1, beating Lyndsay Copeman on a count-back.
Meanwhile teenager Joel Bryant took full advantage of the school holidays to play in Thursday’s stableford competition and finished on top of the leaderboard with an impressive 44 points.
The 16-year-old won the club’s Saturday par competition back in February with a +7 off a 26 handicap.
On Thursday he was down to 21 and played to that on the front nine with a regulation 18 points.
But the youngster made light work of the back nine, shooting 39 off the stick to add 26 points to his total, finishing four clear of Graham Thomas.
To emphasise how well Bryant played, just four other players in the 89-strong field managed to beat their handicap on the day.
