Thirty seven members and two guests turned out for round one of the President’s trophy. The 1st tee time was at high noon in warm sunshine and a bit of a breeze which died down as the afternoon slipped by. Serena’s three main characteristics were present for all to try and master – tight fairways, slick greens and……oh, yes, nearly forgot – plenty of very wet water !!

Some recent re-jigging of the stroke indices throws up a couple of rarities in an early par 3 being stroke 1 and a par 5 on the back 9 being stroke 18.

It’s certainly a tricky track but sticking to the 2 words, KEEP LEFT, which are adequate to sum up the day’s course management certainly helped to minimise any unscheduled visits to the water. The only 2 “dry” holes, 11 and 12, do give you a chance to become more acquainted with your golf ball but the 13th is far from the doddle that it appears with the wet stuff once again swallowing up its  fair share, with the exception of Robin Eastman who holed out his second shot for an eagle 2.

Our thanks to the helpful team at La Serena who contributed to an enjoyable day which saw a wide range of scoring with quite a healthy percentage up in the 30’s. The results panned out as follows:

The day’s stableford competition results, by category and in reverse order, were the following: Bronze Category: 4th Marg Birtwistle (32) c/b, 3rd Mick Roscoe (33), 2nd Ken Flaherty (36), and 1st Kyrre Skårsmoen with 39 points winning the President’s Trophy R1 over all on c/b.

Silver Category: 4th Ivan Hanak (31), 3rd Peter Girenas (33) c/b, 2nd Roger Webb (33), 1st Paul Kelsall (35). 

Gold Category: 4th Stuart Greyson (33) c/b, 3rd Paul Guest (38) c/b, 2nd John Osborne (38), and 1st Mark Preston with 39 points.

Nearest the pins on the par 3’s (open to all) went to Norman Cahill (hole 3), Ron (Shakey) Stenhouse (hole 9), Phil de Lacy (hole 15 ) and Roger Web (hole17).

The Abacus was awarded to Norman Bride.

Keep up to date with all SMGS matters by logging on to our website www.smgs.org or simply give Captain Tony Smale a call on 628227687 or Robin Eastman 672900510 to find out more about the society and its weekly golf get-togethers. Next week we will be at La Finca.