The Leongatha Golf Club Men’s Pennant teams are sponsored by:

Division 4 Final @ Korumburra GC – Lost 3-4 Vs Meeniyan GC

Match Report by Captain: Andy Bassett

On Sunday 17th May the LGC Div 4 Pennant Team played the Meeniyan Golf Club team in the final.  In beautiful weather and on the soggy but otherwise picturesque Korumburra Course the Team went down 3-4 in a close encounter.

Our core players of Mark Boler, Mark Anderson and Peter Jaspers again performed well winning tight matches, Mark Boler going through the season undefeated which is a mighty effort.  Our two juniors Tim Boler and Ryan (Rock) Thomas met seasoned opponents and unfortunately went down 3&2 whilst our number one player Gary Peters also went down 4&2.

As Captain I didn’t have the stamina to complete a revival in the back nine and finished with a 4&3 loss.  I’m sure we all rue some of the shot making and missed puts that we later mulled over at the post mortem. Not to forget Ian Barlow, Fred Debont and Barry Stevens who also played games which got us to the final.

Overall we had a great season with four players who had never experienced senior pennant golf and none of us had played finals before.  We are mightily encouraged by the quality of our two juniors. We all learnt some lessons about golf and in particular, pennant golf & match play.  I encourage more of you to consider engaging in pennant next year.

Last but not least many thanks to Pennant Coordinator Dan Poynton and our coach John Payne for their support and programmed lessons each week which made a difference on most occassions when the chips were down.  It was great to see our supporters at the final today and it does make a difference knowing you have the support of the Club you are representing. It was just a pity we couldn’t drag one more win over the line today….but wait for next year…we’ll be back.

Results:

• Gary Peters Lost 4&2
• Peter Jaspers Won 4&2
• Andy Bassett Lost 4&3
• Ryan Thomas Lost 3&2
• Mark Anderson Won 5&4
• Mark Boler Won 6&5
• Tim Boler Lost 3&2

Season Summary

Well another pennant season has been run & won.  Huge congratulations to our Division 4 side for making the final, and to come so close to bringing home the pennant & shield.  They were almost undefeated, but unfortunately suffered losses in the last round of the season and the final.  A tough way to complete a really positive season.

This season saw our club field sides in all 4 divisions of the South Gippsland District Golf Association pennant competition.  A huge thank you goes out to all the guys that committed to the season to play, particularly those who played out of position week in week out in Div 1 & 2.  We had a total of 40 members play at least one pennant match which is a great thing for our club, and we had many who committed to the whole season which is even better!

The pennant competition is a really important one for the district and is something that I am committed to reviving a bit of energy about throughout our club.  Whilst we didn’t see success in Div 1 or 2, we were highly competitive and when we lost it was very close with most weeks being 3-4 losses having had matches finish on the 17th, 18th or 19th hole – these matches could have gone either way.  Our Division 3 side were in it up to their eyeballs until the last round where unfortunately our guys needed to rely on results falling our way to make the final – it didn’t quite happen for us.

Our weekly practice sessions were a huge success, many thanks goes to John for his tireless commitment to helping out our sides.  I think its evident that they make a difference, the Div 4 side each week had the most participants at practice, and interestingly… made the final!  Hopefully this will set the example for other teams next season.  We will continue to make this as accessible as possible to fit with peoples work commitments.

My sincere thanks to the team captains – Div 1: Peter Rayson, Div 2: Bruce Hutton, Div 3: Chris Indian & Div 4: Andy Bassett.  Its been great to have you guys as sounding boards throughout the season.

As per last year I’ve been keeping a tally & recording the scores to decide our player of the year.  It gives me great pleasure, and its probably no surprise given this player’s results throughout the year:

The Leongatha Golf Club, Pennant Player of the Year is Mark Boler.

Congratulations Mark.

Please click here for the full results table & the rules of how the results were calculated.

Thanks again to everyone, and we look forward to a more successful season next in 2016.  It was pleasing to hear on the weekend that the SGDGA will be asking for feedback from the clubs as to the structure of the pennant competition going forward.  Our club will be asking for feedback from the pennant players – this can be given to your team captain, and then we’ll call a short meeting of the team captains, myself & our club captain to formulate our club response.

Happy hitting, I look forward to seeing you all out on the course.

Dan Poynton
Pennant Coordinator