The Day

Our first special event of the year, a “couples” scramble for Valentine’s Day. This was restored to our calendar this year after a break of almost 20 years, and was a huge success all round. So most of the focus will be on the day and the “couples”, with some loose notes about the play.

First of all a big thanks to James and Lili “Let your Love Flow” Bristow for doing just that and organising an outstanding event. Thank you, Jane Finnie, for staying up the night before to bake cupcakes for the goody bags – Jane, we had photos of you in the madness of the day but none of them did you justice, so we will wait. On the contrary, we did capture Ric at his glamourous best below and, to you and Lis, our appreciation as always for liaising with the venue and reaching out to long lost friends to join, including from other societies. A big thanks to Bags for donating Prosecco for the winners, even though he could not make the event. The team at Sawangan were amazing, making us so welcome (we love you too) and even washing our cars while we played. Finally to the 42 players who got into the spirit of the event, of course the ladies were the stars, but also thanks to TBS and the other uncoupled lads who were left over to play with each other.

Sawangan was the site of the first Tee Set event over 37 years ago. We last played there for our 30th birthday scramble, and yesterday may be the last time we play there. I think many of us felt that was a shame. The course was a picture (thanks Bill), the greens were true, and the guys got a buzz out of playing off the red tees for a change. Whatever happens, we have very fond memories of our Valentine’s Day visit.

A big welcome back to Iris and Louis, who last played at Sawangan 12 years go and to Phil and Ika, who organise the R&A society. They kindly hosted some of our players at their Monthly Medal on Saturday and it is always great to see them at Tee Set, featured here in action, and later in the winners’ circle.

It was great to have DOGS supremos, JB, Sarah, Rod and the little terrier himself, Craig, join with us, although we claim him as ours too. One of the highlights of the day was when we realised the prize mugs were printed with the Tee Set logo but the text “DOGS Valentine’s Day’. Horrfying to Lili and James but hilarious to all of us and a further sign of the closeness of the societies, particularly during this tough time for everyone. JB pictured here with what will no doubt become a collector’s item in years to come. Our big joint event is of course the Rancamaya weekend, usually held in June, but it was great to play together and share a few quiet ones.

Lots of ladies from the JAWS group too, and a few of the lads.

Many more photos here.

The Play

And now for the play. A suitably complicated scoring system was introduced, combining percentages of handicaps, adding to give “couples” an advantage, adding further based on beers consumed, taking the square root of the derivative of the median (no, that bit’s not true) …. and this is what we got!

Congratulations to the winning couple, Rosie and Sam. We can now reveal that this pairing was weeks in clandestine preparation, and Sami, who chose not to play without his preferred partner, can now discover the cause of his rejection. There were several name changes to this pair along the way, none of which can be published, either too crass or too corny. Sam was clearly nervous on arrival to the course and asked long-time confidante, Cucu, for some tips over a pre-match manicure. Rosie arrived with her eye clearly on the prize, overheard telling Sam on the first tee box to take an iron and place the ball in the middle of the fairway: “Course management, Sam, course management” she repeated three times. She was right to emphasise this too. By the end of the first nine, Sam had sprayed his drives like a Jackson Pollock and was worried he would not meet his quota of six drives. As it turned out, he reached his quota on the 18th, driving the green to set up an eagle putt. According to their playing partners, Rosie was the mature skipper that guided this young sailor and steadied the ship, but both players putted superbly, narrowing missing that eagle on the last.

We sent James and Takahashi-san to the bar, rather than award them runners-up. They were good with that. The runners up were an actual couple, Phil and Ika. Rav and TBS are not a real couple either, so were also sent to the bar, along with a bottle of gin awarded for Grossest, sorry Lowest Gross. Of coure, awarding the guys a bottle was a strategic move, because we knew from previous form that they would share it with the rest of us. Regular winners, Rika and Matt, took third place, and may have done even better but they had no beer discounts to improve their score. Matt asked if he could get Rika putting for him every week. After pictured above exploring his feminine side, Ric is pictured here perhaps overcompensating, as Lis carries the case of Ric’s favourite drop, Anker beer, for fourth place.

Thanks to Bill for leading the presentations, pictured below with Kayla, Adrian(a) and Richard, who slipped on one of his wife’s outfits just before tee off.

Next Up: Sunday 21 February 2021, Riverside, 11.45am, 880k with carts

Our round this week co-incides with the opening of the Jakarta Interleague Competition, which this year includes for the first time teams from DOGS and JAWS. After 6 weeks of eclectic rounds, the cunning DOGS honed their skills and put potential players’ feet to the fire on this tricky Greg Norman designed course, and the mystics in JAWS will no doubt claim some sort of weird spiritual affinity with the Shark. However, according to our own Captain Sam, Tee Set is in it to win it this year. He is crafting a winning combination of singles and pairs and may tap you on the shoulder with a call to duty. Those not so tapped, will enjoy a pressure free round, perhaps playing your first round of Tee Set matchplay. In line with Interleague rules, men will play off the white tees. Always a good day out at Riverside with great staff, an open air clubhouse and excellent facilities. Sign up here.