By David Waters
Round 4 was underway at Yering Meadows.
Already halfway through the season.
The jostling for top position is hotting up.
The green division is very even with all teams having wins, the gold division has a standout with Heritage leading the pack, even with a rest day courtesy of their bye.
The Yering management have opted to remove many of their bunkers by filling them in.
The work is ongoing and there are still many protecting the greens.
These remaining bunkers have a good depth of sand and those already filled have been reseeded.
The new areas are yet to produce grass and are ground under repair (GUR).
Several players were lucky to land their balls in the GUR which would have been sand, then availed themselves of a free drop.
The fairways were dry and provided plenty of run, even for miss hit worm burners.
At times the extra meters were of benefit.
At other times the faster movement forward or sideways landed the player in a tougher position than expected.
Only the occasional recovery shot eventuated.
Once on the greens putting became more predictable as the day wore on.
The borrow and slopes were true if the speed was gauged correctly.
Ball rolling speed increased as the day heated up.
True putts continued to hit the bottom of the cup.
True to form the home team scored victories in both divisions.
That’s something all clubs want, and visitors try to upset.
It was especially important as Yering were on the bottom of both divisions.
Yering on the rise!!
After a hard morning golfers finished by 12.30.
Most were glowing all due to the rising temperatures, no more than 30 degrees.
I think we’re getting weak.
The glow subsided in the cool of the clubroom and the liquid refreshments helped speed the process.
The feast supplied by the catering department was greatly appreciated and acknowledged with a very loud round of applause.
No one could claim to be hungry when they left the venue, nor could they be unhappy with the day and organisation.
As usual a high standard of sportsmanship was displayed with plenty of banter.
There was even some heckle during presentations livening an otherwise boring reading of scores.
The results are set out below.
Yering Meadows gold 6 def Eastern gold 2, Eastwood gold 6 def Box Hill gold 2, Churchill/Waverley gold 5 def Gardiners Run gold 3.
Yering Meadows green 5 ½ def Eastern green 2 ½, Churchill/Waverley green 6 ½ def Gardiners Run green2 ½, Eastwood green 4 tied with Box Hill green 4.
The Eastwood green And Box Hill green tie was the first tied match for the season.
Congratulations to the winning players and teams.
More enjoyment at Heritage next Friday.
Until then keep swinging and smiling.
