THERE was as much clear distinction between the weather conditions as there was in the scores of the winners and the chasing pack in Saturday’s stableford competition at the the Blue Lake Golf Club.
Just as the morning starters finished their round the weather turned for the worse and that was also represented in the scores, with the majority of good scores recorded by the earlier players.
The top two golfers, who had both teed off by 7.30, were comfortable winners.
Top of the list was Ben Papps, a clear winner with 41 stableford points and back in the clubhouse before the conditions deteriorated.
Papps was off to the perfect start with pars on the first six holes for 16 points, before adding another three-pointer par on the eighth.
Turning with 23 points he was always going to be hard to chase down and it was a more regulation back nine, (18 points) that had him safely in first place.
Jamie Walters was in one of the first groups away and also started with a par on the first for three points.
Follow up pars on the third, fourth and eighth holes took him to 20 points at the halfway mark and he quickly added to his score with another three-pointer on the 11th.
His only hiccup for the round was when he found tree trouble on the 15th hole, but he made up for that with a four-point birdie on the 17th to come in with another 19 points to claim the B Grade win.
Tim Smith claimed the A Grade win with splits of 18 and 19 points, negating a pick up on the sixth hole with a couple of three-point pars on two of the more difficult front nine holes.
He finished with a par on the last to ice the win and grab bragging rights over his father, Stephen. Brett Perryman was off to a slow start, having just 15 points on the front nine, but excelled over the inward journey with birdies on the 12th and 17th, to score eight points through the last three
holes.
Smith senior was just one of a number of players tied on 35 points, his closing 40 off the stick with bookend pars for 19 points holding off Josh Gale.
Fresh from course mowing duty, Colin Tester took out second place in B Grade after a three-way count-back.
Tester finished strongly with pars on the 17th and 18th holes for a 41 off the stick and 21 points over the inward nine.
He needed all those points to take the prize from Beachport Golf Club visitor William Mullan.
Mullan was off to a three-point start but then gave two points back through the middle of his opening nine, but boosted his score with a birdie on the long par 3 14th hole for four points.
Peter Mikelsen can feel hard done by, tying both Tester and Mullan and having 18 points on the back nine which would normally be enough to claim a count-back victory.
C Grade winner Jacob Reed deserves special accolades as he was one of the few late morning starters who battled the worse of the weather and still posted a winning score.
Teeing off just as the rain started did not stop Reed from opening with a par and despite a wipe on the third hole, he still managed a respectable 17 points on the outward nine.
A run of pars through the 14th, 15th and 17th holes earned him nine of his 19 points, enough to take the count-back win from Richard Dean.
Dean had seven points on the card after just two holes with an impressive birdie on the second, then earned another four points with a par on the 14th.
Two wipes and three one-point holes over the back nine hurt his chances of a higher win.
Russell Lingham fought back well from a tardy start having no less than five three-point holes to finish with 35 points.
Trevor Gartside and Barry Humphries claimed the pro shots on the fifth and and 16th holes, while Jake Matthews (B Grade) and Cameron Adams (A) won the nearest to pins.
