The Day
One of the many attractions of Senayan National is its central location, a location so convenient for many, and pretty much all of us were to enjoy a short and relatively macet free journey to the course, the only exceptions being those who failed to take into account “Walking Day” on Thamrin/Sudirman. Learning is a journey and not an event of course 🙂
An on-time start, great weather, a course in excellent condition (though a few of the greens were a little bumpy after a hard weekend of play – and all of them rather tricky), cute bilingual caddies (metres AND yards) and reasonably priced beer, at least if you bought them in front of the pro-shop, all made for an excellent day.
The consensus of Tee Set members is certainly that Senayan is a great venue for our Monthly Medal and your committee are working hard on extending the arrangement from its current end in July 2014.
Senayan’s opening shot in the process can mildly be described as avaricious but we have hopes that negotiation will bring their aspirations back down to earth. Tee Set’s principle leverage is that we fill their bloody course and bar/restaurant nicely on a Sunday afternoon, an afternoon when both would otherwise be nearly empty as far as we can see and chief negotiator on this occasion, Mike Garwood, has used the force of this simple logic to get negotiations back on track.
Just two Newcomers to report this week, Arne Rahnel and Daniel Tanjung, a warm Tee Set welcome to them both. Daniel came all the way from Kebon Jeruk to join the event and, if we are not mistaken, becomes our first member from Jakarta Barat.
Plenty of Welcome Backs on the other hand with Steve Harper leading the field at a very significant 54 weeks since last playing with us while Amanda Laverick came in second with a still very significant 26 weeks; and even remembered that she owed us 50,000 from all that time ago – and paid up. Well done Amanda.
In joint 3rd place came Dawn Rae, Harry Hill and James Young all at 26 weeks, with James so embarrassed at such a prolonged absence that he made a significant donation to Tee Set funds! Really was no need James – but much appreciated 🙂
We have had a run on Tee Set shirts with 4 more sold today and stocks are now exhausted on all but the smallest sizes and we are considering doing a limited run for those looking for the larger sizes.
Drop us a line if you would like a Tee Set shirt or corner the Vice President of Quite a Lot of Things in one of his rare moments of free time.
The Play
Despite the mental turmoil of the contract extension, Mike Garwood was to enjoy a splendid day’s golf and garnered 42 points to win the Stableford based Monthly Medal, pipping James Ross for the VDoor voucher worth 500,000 roops, though James was to take no little consolation in his Slaney’s Meat voucher for the same amount by winning Low Net.
1st Birdie shared by Sam Westen (yes, he’s back after a relative break of exactly one week – he leads the attendance table with 19 rounds this year) and Koen Verhayen for striking on their second holes as played, however, Pieter Groen disputed the call after the money had gone out – it turned out he had a birdie on his first hole played which happened to be hole #10.
The lesson here is fill in all the boxes on your custom designed Tee Set score card which makes it so much easier for Brenda’s to get the results right. And the number you record for 1st eagle, 1st birdie, 1st sandy and 1st par >=30 is the hole number as played and NOT necessarily the hole number which may very well be different – as clearly noted on the weekly Tee Set scorecard but not the Monthly Medal scorecard as we ran out of space 😦
Sam boosted his day’s earnings further by whacking the ball 311 yards on the Long Drive hole. Most of he rest of us were quite happy to get to Sam’s long drive marker in two shots 😦
Nearest to the pin went to Erik Milfors with a shot to within a little less than. A great effort on such a viciously slopping green.
James shifting sand, quite a lot of it …… in the second of three attempts to escape from this bunker 😦
Low Putts shared by Mel Meeds and Xandy Cuneo with a relatively high 29 putts which tells you something about the trickiness of Senayan’s greens. Mel got the Cecelia’s Cafe voucher and Xandy the 6 Santi’s Premium Pies. 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 220 centigrade, Xandy.
1st par >= 30 handicap to Davin Kort in only his second venture out on grass – and his first ever par. Well done, Davin – but don’t give up the day job just yet.
1st Sandy to Harry Hill was not the toughest decision your committee had to make all day as he had not one, but three of them. Where your scribe comes from that counts as showing off. Anyway Harry was so happy that he decided to eat his prize money.
Most Improved of 10 shots went to all of Clyde Wickiser, Ric Wymer and Noemi Roos. In a moment tinged with conflict of interest challenges, the Vice President of Lots of Things decided to give 100,000 to each of them.
Clyde is by the way our longest-serving active Tee Set player with 30 years of participation. With each passing year of golf he dreams of the elusive Nirwana, shooting his age off the stick though, with his handicap now blowing out above 20, his dream could remain just that. A dream.
Fuller player by player details here while more photos of the day are on our photo website.
Cash Grant
The Tee Set e-mail inbox had the good fortune to receive an e-mail this morning from the World Bank.
Good day, I represent the World Bank Group. Your email address was submitted by the google search directory qualifying you for a cash grant. For comprehensive details send a reply with subject “Cash Grant”. CONGRATULATIONS!
Mr. Wei Li (Representative), World Bank Group, weili08@mit.edu
We were a little sceptical at first but with the “World Bank” and the “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” involved and Google having “submitted” the list of those qualified surely establishes its bona fides beyond all reasonable doubt – and we are in!!
No doubt Nathan will confirm the bona fides.
Next Up:
A little bit of a treat as, due to some other factors coming into the equation, we will be playing the lovely Permata Sentul next Sunday rather than Pangkalan Jati – which means that the Presidential BBQ is delayed a little, to just when will be advised later.
Inexplicably, it is almost a year since we played this really nice course with arguably the cutest caddies in Jakarta. We will certainly be there again once more in the second half of the year. A Tee Time of 11am off 1 and 10 and attractive green fees, including shared cart, of 700,000 roops – and a pitcher of beer thrown in for each flight. Another no brainer.
If you find all that irresistible then sign up here.
See yah at Permata Sentul!!! … Tee Set
Our next challenge is the Jagorawi New Course located in the stunning jungle setting of the Cikeas River Valley. Construction of the first Jagorawi course started in the same year that construction of the first Jalan Tol completed in 1979 and the course, uniquely, benefits from what is almost its own private Tol exit!
Great value green fees of just 580,000 roops including shared cart and cute caddy makes Rancamaya a “no brainer” if we ever saw one. Get there early and enjoy brunch and a chat with your mates on Rancamaya’s iconic terrace with its magnificent views towards Salak.
Secretary Brenda was away on family duties this week so Keith Miller stepped up to the plate and did a great job logging all the results although sadly he certainly doesn’t brush up anywhere near as well as our lovely Secretary – hurry back Brenda, we miss you.
Tee Set 
