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AFTER Bryce Whicker won the Driscoll Summer Cup, which wrapped up at the Mount Gambier Golf Club in January, he said his chipping still needed a lot of work.
At that point his handicap had come down from 26 to 14 in the approximately 18 months he had been playing competitively.
He said if he could improve that one area of his game he was confident he could reach his goal of making A Grade – for handicaps of 12 or below – within a few weeks.
Fast forward to last Saturday and he has certainly achieved both goals.
Playing off a handicap of 11, Whicker claimed victory in the A Grade stableford competition with 40 points, one clear of a quartet of players on 39.
It was pretty clear which part of his game contributed most to the win – his chipping.
“I certainly didn’t hit many greens in regulation,” he said.
“But I chipped very well.
“Most times I was close enough to one putt … I only had 24 putts for the round.”
After starting with a par for two points on the first hole, he stumbled on the second with a double bogey for just one more.
Things went from bad to worse with a poor drive on the par-four third hole, but he recovered in stunning fashion by hitting a three-wood to about six feet from 185m out.
Draining that birdie added four points to the tally and after making pars on the next two holes he had moved to a solid 12 points after five.
His only wipe of the day came on the par-three sixth hole when he found bunker trouble, but after making two more pars on the seventh and eighth, plus a bogey on the ninth, he started the back nine with 19 points in the bag.
That increased to 24 with a par on the 10th and bogey on 11, before a sequence of four pars had him in a winning position with 35 points after 15 holes.
“On each of those holes (12, 13, 14 and 15) I chipped and one-putted to make par,” Whicker said.
“I’m using a gap wedge to chip with now and if I’m within 30 or 40 metres of the green I’m confident I can get it close (to the hole).”
While he only scored one point on each of the 16th and 18th after bogeys, one more three-point par on the 17th, again after getting it close from about 60m out, was enough to seal the win.
Runner-up in A Grade was seven-handicapper Nick Black who signed for 39 points after an excellent 76 off the stick.
The B Grade division was won by Ian Ritter with 39 points, one clear of Gary Robinson.
The honours in C Grade went to David Pike who also finished with 39 points, two ahead of Mitchell Broome.
Meanwhile Thursday’s stableford competition was also played in perfect conditions, with 88 players teeing it up.
It was the low markers who did best, with five of the top six finishers playing off single-figure handicaps.
Leading the way was Nic Clayton who shot 75 off the stick to finish with 40 points from his seven handicap.
Starting with an eagle-three on the first hole, Clayton had 35 off the stick on the front nine, following that with 40 on the way home to finish three over the card.
Interestingly he was five over on the four par-threes.
Ross Bond finished the day in second place with 39 points, while Shane Brook and Nick Moretti shot the best rounds of the day with two-over par 74s.
