St Leonards Golf

The forecast for our first game of 2026 was for rain.

We were spared the complication of liquid sunshine. Ol’ Sol came out at times but it was mainly overcast with extremely humid conditions. We were scheduled to hit off at 8.30 and started on time. We had 14 golfers, all at the course well before tee time, thank you, players.

As the Paparazzi shots show, the North Ryde dams were extremely low and in need of a good drop of rain. I thought the fairways and greens were in excellent condition, given how hot and dry things have been over the last month. The greens were particularly good, with a number of tricky pin positions.

Mr Handicapper advises there were a couple of scorecard errors, same group, same hole. David Plowes and Mark Messenger scored themselves 6/2 on the par 5 17th. Both had ‘double headers’. It should have been 6/3. So, their scores were 36 and 37 respectively, putting Mark into a tie for 3rd place. He would have lost it on a count back. The changes had no impact on the prizes.

There were some exceptionally good scores, with several players scoring to their handicap or better. Bubba’s pre-tee prediction that Phil Liddell would take out the A grade long drive was proven correct.

• The individual Stableford was won by Peter Dwyer with 40 points, followed by Phil Wells on 38 with Andrew Fox’s 37 netting him third.

• The doubles was won by Andrew Fox and yours truly on 47 points. Second were Phil Wells and Peter Robinson with 45. Speaking of Mr Fox, Bubba points out to me that Andrew’s scintillating back-9 score of 27 included four 4-pointers was quite the turnaround from his front-9.

• Bubba also points out that as doubles partners, Andrew and I scored 29 on the back-9, a better than 3-point average per hole!

• Also worth mentioning - according to Bubba - is that I took out all four A grade NTPs, a feat he doesn’t recall ever previously occurring.

No wonder I enjoyed our new year’s game! I think others did, too. A good course, good golf and great company. Some of the chat in the clubhouse included Robbo and Messo looking at developing nicknames for all players, to be published in the 2026 Backspin.

They call it golf because all the other four-letter words were taken! – Lee Trevino

Handicaps