I am delighted to announce that all three of our Pennant teams were successful in their finals today. All four divisional finals were played at Korumburra today in good weather for golfing.

Our Div 2 team took on Wonthaggi and struggled early. At the half way mark we were behind in most of the 7 matches, and even after 15 holes things did not look good. A 5-2 or 4-3 loss looked a likely result. However, to their great credit our guys dug deep to level the match 3-each and with Captain Tom Sorrell and his opponent on the 18th hole, Tom only needed to halve the hole for him to win and for the team to win 4-3. Tom’s opponent fought hard to the finish and was on the front edge of the green for 2 on the par 5 18th, while Tom’s second shot missed the green left and ran down the hill some 20 metres. A brilliant chip saw Tom recover to about 1.5 metres for the pin. His opponent 2 -putted and Tom calmly tapped in the putt to square the hole and for his team to win 4-3! Well done to all involved, it was a great effort.

Div 3 played Meeniyan, and strong performances from Peter Dowling, Brendan Simon, Bryan Sword and Ben Ferrari-Mela saw us win 4-3 also. Brendan went through the entire season undefeated, winning all 6 round matches he played in and his final match. A tremendous achievement!

Div 4 played Wonthaggi, and another close encounter ensued. At the completion of 18 holes, we had 3 wins in the bag from the 5 matches decided at that point, with 2 matches going to extra holes. Bryan McCorkell squared the 19th with his opponent, while Dan Poynton cracked his tee  shot to within half a metre on the downhill par 3 10th hole. Dan calmly tapped in his birdie put to clinch the win! Having seen this happen, Bryan and his opponent called it quits and headed for the bar!

Our guys may well have created Club history today. Bruce Hutton, a member of our div 2 team this year and pennant player at our Club for the past 45 years, cannot recall us winning 3 pennants in a single year. He can recall 2 pennants several times, but never 3. Each player who played pennant for us this year, not just those that played today,  can be justifiably proud of this achievement! It was a great team effort.

I was absolutely delighted to observe the good sportsmanship our players showed and the good-natured way the games were played right throughout the season and today. It bought great credit to yourselves and our club.

On behalf those who played today I would also like to thank those people who supported our players, some even caddying for them. The players really appreciated your support.

As well as congratulating all players, I would particularly like to thank the captains, Tom  Sorrell, Chris Indian and Andy Bassett/Colin Bear, who worked hard behind the scenes to ensure that we were able to field 3 teams each week. Also the excellent on-course leadership set high standards that your teams followed.

Peter Waters

Men’s Captain