The Day
Halim 2 again offered Tee Setters exactly what we expect from it – cheap and cheerful facilities, winning beer prices, lockers that don’t lock, chaotic starts, long long holes – especially on the par 3s, free enterprise in action at almost every tee box and walking for those who wanted it – together making for a very enjoyable day out.
All in all a very popular venue, not least because getting there is a breeze for most and getting home not too bad either, though we may very well consider going off the white tees in future to mitigate some of that length.
A few unexpected but welcome last minute starters, nicely balanced out some late cry offs to leave us at a healthy 44 Tee Setters on the day.
While there were no Newcomers, Tee Set welcomed back Georges Koller after a creditable 185 weeks (away in Australia) since last playing, Mike and Renny Sperry returned after more than a year and Rod Ritson after a far too long 20 weeks.
Great to see again the enthusiasm, and no little skill, of our youngest new members, Barbora and Daniel, apologies Daniel for hiding your scorecard for a little while there.
These little people are going to sweep all before them at Tee Set if they hang around any length of time. And after that who knows?
The lift, clean and cheat rule was presciently introduced before the start of play as many balls were later to be found in and on a mess on the very damp fairways. With the heart of the rainy season coming up, please note that the rule is now in force until further notice.
The recently appointed Honorary Vice President for Exotic Drinks, James Young, was sorely missed. The heavily spiked Es Buah concoction put together by the SP did not come close to James’ recent offerings. Come back James, all is forgiven!
“Fashion” highlights of the day led from the front from the SP sporting blue checks and the VP for Golf Economics in mint green, ably supported as usual by those twins in orange Evaldo and Dave Shenman, Bushy, and not least the perfectly presented Renny Sperry who introduced a touch of delicately coordinated leather into the Tee Set uniform.
The Play
Anlo celebrated his win as Low Net A Grade sharing Cubans with Joseph d’Cruz while the Mikes, Webb and Harling, celebrated their respective B and C Grade wins a little more prosaically with the remarkably cheap cans of Bintang on offer.
All Grade winners were within a stroke of net par which is unusually high for a field the size we had. Yep, the course was undoubtedly the winner on a day when Simon Reynolds’ 83 off the stick was enough to take Low Gross.
Missed was the award for First Par for handicap >= 30 which is still being resolved – apologies from the Singing President to anyone who though they missed out – he promises to sort it all before next week 🙂
That other Halim tradition of “Skirts Under chandelier” was not to catch all of the day’s cross-dressers but surely Pieter Groen’s spectacular T-shirt more than made up for those missing.
In case you were wondering, the man desperately seeking anonymity was Matt Kaempf so, please, don’t tell anyone.
Matt actually dodged a bullet on Monster Putter as he hit only 39 putts, a number that even our notoriously “pelit” Treasurer has been know to forgive and forget – as we were to do in his absence today.
Leona secured her invariable place in the after match awards, though this time with a very honest and rather stunning 16 to “win” Most Strokes. Still a couple shy of the all time record of 18 strokes recorded on a hole twice previously by two Tee Setters, Tee Setters whose names we will not recall out of human kindness, we are nice chaps here after all. Come back soon Reka and Misa.
More photos of a great day on our gallery here – and more detailed, player by player results here.
Next Up:
Monthly Medal time of course, and the last time for a while at Matoa as we are moving the Medal to the very popular Imperial for the following 6 months – before returning one again to Matoa for a couple of months ahead of this year’s Tee Set Championship, a Championship which will again be at Matoa.
Matoa hardly needs elaboration, very decent bit of grass and recently much improved both on and off the course – and with the excellent facilities for post-play relaxation that is part of the reason we like it as our Championship venue.
A cart only course for us these days with reasonable green fees etc of 700,000 roops for an earlier than usual start of 11am on Sunday. Sign up here to join in the fun and the chance to win a Slaney’s Meat voucher and 6 of Santi’s Premium Pies as well as all the usual glittering cash prizes..
Flights
As you may have seen today, we are trying to pre-cook flights from the registrations. These are done on the basis of well known preferences and supplemented by those expressed in the registration form; after that we try to match people up on the basis of Grade.
There are always no-shows and people turning up not having registered of course, but we cope with that. If you haven’t expressed a preference, or have not registered at all or have registered after 4pm on a Friday then you are very welcome, however, it is wiser not to ask to be inserted into an already arranged group.
On the day, flights are allocated to tee boxes on the basis of order of arrival of the first player in a flight. Arrive early, expect to get away early, arrive late then don’t be surprised if you get away late.
All seems pretty fair to us.
See ya at Matoa! ….. Tee Set
PS Graham McGeady’s iCaddie went walkabout at Pangkalan Jati after he left it on a table there after play on the 14th December. If anyone has any clue to its whereabouts then please drop Graham an e-mail.
PPS The Singing President is organising a very informal mini-competition for those who want to join at Royale Jakarta on Australia Day, 26 January teeing off at 7am. You don’t need to be Australian or a Tee Setter to join, just let Craig know your name and handicap on craig.ewers@aipj.or.id so he can work out a decent price and arrange the booking. The format will be decided between now and then.
PPPS The iconic space shuttle snap was taken by Keith’s caddy – or so he thought – until he realised his caddy had taken 6 selfies instead. Unfortunately Mrs Miller subsequently saved the poor caddy from his 15 minutes by deleting them all 😦
One way to avoid the traffic. arrive by Space Shuttle …
The rate for Riverside has been agreed at 850,000 rupiah for Sunday’s 12:00 midday tee off from tee boxes 1 & 10, a little more than we would have wished for, but still a good price for a great course.
Tom Alcedo and Simon Reynolds won our monthly 
A new record number of Newcomers – a stunning 11 in all, including an entire family package, Mum, Dad, son and daughter, the Gaislers from the Czech Republic. A warm Tee Set welcome to all 11 of them.
George “Pulpy” Bevege was not quite up to his usual standard on a quick return to the country; “quick” as he had promised that his round a few weeks ago was his “last for some time” – but still took Low Putts with 28, on a count back from Joe D’Cruz, a decent total on a course possessed of greens that can only be described as “challenging”.
All in all a very healthy crop of 9 Skirts to keep the Treasurer happy, most notably with single handicapper Simon Reynolds donning the Skirt of Shame for only the second time in 48 attempts:-)
To the left is the final out-turn of our recent poll of Tee Setters favourite courses where you will see Imperial in a very solid #2 position just behind Rancamaya – having secured the vote of fully 60% of the membership.
Lotus Lakes is a stunning but difficult course with early strong winds adding distance to an already long course – and with the Orchid layout which we played as the second 9 being as good as any in these parts.
In general, scores reflected the challenge of a long and challenging course, the one major exception being evergreen Mustafa who shot a 81 (net 69) to win the major prize, demonstrating that a strong short game is just as important on a long course.
