Tee Set

The President getting his feet well under the table now after a slow start!!

Despite the absence of both our Pawang Hujan AND the immediate past President of Everything’s lucky black 2011 Tee Set shirt, we were to be graced with a blissfully rain free day at Pangkalan Jati for the first Medal event of the year – and on Australia Day. While some reported a short duration light rain not long after the start, we judge that more likely to have been the spray from the over-enthusiastic opening of cans of Bintang than anything else.

As predicted we were to get the first groups away significantly earlier than the 11:30 we had been allocated and 35 Tee Setters enjoyed perfect conditions, with much in the way of blue skies for most of the round.

Rather slow going on the front 9 but everything eventually sorted itself out and a quick back 9 was the order of the day. The fairways were in pretty good nick though the greens were a little messed up after a busy weekend of golf. Didn’t stop some excellent putting performances as you will see below.

In something of a disturbing development, the Warung  Co-Op on the course was to run out of beer after a couple of hours, however, the clubhouse had plentiful stocks of cold ones to hand.

Many Tee Setters disappeared shortly after prize giving to join Australia day parties and/or watch the Australian Open Men’s Tennis final. The President wishes to express his personal thanks to the English cricket team for losing their final game of the series in Australia on Australia Day, to cap a very fine day of Aussie celebration as you will discover below.

One Newcomer to report in Russ Lecroy, a warm welcome to Russ, we hope you enjoyed your first round with us  – and that you will be back regularly.

The Play

Congratulations to the USA’s very own Bill Lloyd who hit a first ever hole-in-one during the week!

Get your next one at Tee Set, Bill, we should all be delighted to be able to drink to your good fortune 🙂

Slaneys Butchery Low Net Winner Mo Maharam and the V Door Monthly Medal winner George Bevege.

A man who did produce the goods was Aussie (what else on Australia day) George Bevege who rather swept the board with the most Stableford points to win the V Door Monthly Medal, Low Net and a nearly unbelievably low 24 swipes with the flat blade to take Low Putts – good job the rules forbids us from awarding him more than one prize and winner of the Slaneys Butchery Low Net Award was therefore Mo Maharam

One major prize that was to elude George was Low Gross which is of course the near exclusive preserve of young Sam Westen these days, this time with a 73 off the stick and just 1 over par.

Mo also secured 1st Birdie at the very first hole, the same place that Sofree Abdul claimed 1st Sandy while Most Improved went to John Suermondt with an alarming 12 shot numeric decline on his back nine, admittedly from a very large number on the front.

Closest to the pin at less than 3 meters goes to David Shenman while Same Westen his a monster of a drive to hit the 300 meter mark for Longest Drive. Such an extraordinary shot that the rules were relaxed to allow him a second prize award.

Who actually received prizes for all the above is loosely related to the above – and subjected in particular to the “spreading the prizes about” rules that are beyond even the computing talents of James Ross to incorporate into our results spreadsheet.

On the booby prize front, Mark Bekkering hardly deserved the Monkey with a rather low winning 39 putts, while a very pleasing 6 Tee Setters found themselves queueing up to pay their 50,000 for failing to reach the red tee during their round. Jess Kindler planned on leaving early and was most insistent on paying his fine and getting his photo taken before leaving – his reward is this photo which rather makes us wonder why!

Fuller, player by player stats here while more photos of  the day can be found here.

2014 Tee Set Matchplay Championship

Yes, it is that time again, time to register for the 2014 Matchplay Championship, where the format will be the same as for the last couple of years, ie a first round which sorts out the players into two brackets and knock out after that leading to the two bracket winners who play off on Tee Set Championship Day in November.

Rules are the same as the 2013 event with the following exceptions:

1) entry is limited to players who have participated in at least 5 tee set events since January 1 2013 or have been tee set members for at least 3 years and

2) deadlines will be strictly enforced and winners decided by a coin flip at the deadline date.

Those rules are intended to ensure that people dedicated to getting their game completed enter the competition – and that a log jam of matches will not have to played in the last 3 weeks as in 2013.

The competition has an entry fee of just 100,000 roops, due upon registration; please make your payment to our Secretary Brenda next time you play Tee Set.

The draw for the first round will be made after play, and before prize giving, on Sunday 22nd February at Sentul Highlands, when names will be randomly picked out of the hat.

Please register to join the competition here:

2014 Schedule

Our Schedule Meister has been busy setting up the 2014 programme over the past few weeks and the first half year is now pretty much set up. From the schedule, you will see that we continue to go for a rich variety of courses to keep your interest, some new to us like Sentul Highlands but also with many of the old favourites – and all fitting around the backbone of the Monthly Medal at the splendid Senayan. Many thanks to Wina for all that hard work!

Next Sunday

Kedaton, out on the Merak Tol, is our next port of call, a delightful course where water is ubiquitous and really not for you if you have even the mildest hydrophobia. The recent floods had their effect on the course there last  week with a rubber dinghy needed to complete a round.

Hopefully, the abatement in rain intensity we have seen over the last few days will continue and we will execute as planned, however, Kedaton regular Wina is keeping a close eye on things and we will advise if it looks like going pear shaped and need to tell you of a Plan B.

An 11:30 start from two tee boxes, green fees etc including shared cart of 660,000 roops or 550,000 walking – sign up here as usual if you plan on joining in the fun.

See yah Sunday! … Tee Set

So, the first Monthly Medal of the new year, and we are back to our old base at Pangkalan Jati in a one off exercise before moving on to Senayan International for the February and thereafter Medal events.

In a welcome development, the Medal will in future consist of two parts, the V Door Monthly Stableford Medal and the Slaney’s Butchery Net Medal with great prizes from each to spice up our Sundays! We have an extensive list of generous sponsors supporting our activities and it is great to have the V Door and Slaneys Butchery amongst their number.

PJ is of course like a comfortable old pair of slippers, you know they have seen better times, are a little outdated and showing signs of wear but, hell, they are so comfortable and familiar you could never throw them away. Only a wife could do that.

The last time we played in our slippers saw some fine scoring from Sam, Mark Blake and James Ross but the highlight was surely the very rich, Treasurer pleasing, crop of 9 skirts; we captured seven of them for posterity.

Perhaps not unrelated to that rich crop of skirts is the difference in distance between the reds and blues at PJ, something which comes in at a staggering 1,064 metres. Nice one, Ladies.

The tee time we have been give is 11:30 as usual, though with every chance of getting away a little earlier, so don’t cut it too fine, Wina.

Green Fees etc including shared cart are a wallet-lite 565,000 or just 375,000 walking. If you intend playing then, if you haven’t done so already, please register here.

See yah, Sunday!! … Tee Set

PS for those of you who like to play twice at weekends, please know that the DOGs and HOGS are playing Senayan International on Saturday and would welcome your support in a day dedicated to raising money for the HOGS own support of Indonesian kids unfortunate enough to have been born with cleft lip and/or palate. This is a truly life transforming activity and deserves your support. Please register here if you can play.

Tee Set will be holding a similar day in support of the HOGS in March on a date to be confirmed,

A triumph of hope over recent experience …. everyone who started, finished 🙂

With large parts of Jakarta under water it seemed a little heartless to be worrying about whether Pondok Cabe was playable, however, an early call to the starter confirmed all was good to go, though carts were off the menu unfortunately, leading to the withdrawal of one or two veteran Tee Setters.

The general weather conditions were also to put off a number of the registered while floods took out a couple more, though a surprising number of walk-ons nearly balanced them out and 25 Tee setters were to take breakfast in the dry before the the Starter started getting us away nearly an hour early from one tee box. The rain more or less immediately started again for most of us and continued at a level sufficient to discomfort but not stop us, before finally easing and then stopping completely after an hour or so.

Two Newcomers on the day, so a warm and wet Tee Set welcome to Kieran Ranchod and Martin Skoda; come back again guys, it don’t always rain at Tee Set. Martin came prepared for action with a set of clubs recently purchased from Jl. Surabaya for Rp400K. Considering the advances in golf technology over the last decade or two these clubs should have be consigned to a museum, however, he thought them a real bargain right up until he realised the set had no woods or even a putter!!!

5 Welcome Backs on the day, most notably father and son act, Mark and RJ Kilner, and a John Suermondt freshly returned from Oz and raring to go after the longest Xmas break we have on record. That long break was to be paid for, however, with a trapped nerve or some such bringing about retirement half way for John – and a two hour session on the always welcoming Pondok Cabe pijat couch – while the rest of us enjoyed the excellent playing conditions to be found on the back 9.

The Play

In the absence of our Pawang Hujan, the Grumpy Pirate’s duties were passed to the immediate past President of Everything who wore his lucky black 2011 Tee Set shirt. To this day it has never had a soaking but it is getting a bit on the nose so it might be time for a wash. No matter, the rain stopped after 4 or 5 holes played, so mission accomplished.

Regular winners were at it again with Sam Westen taking Low Gross with a 75, Santi Miller had First Birdie on hole 5 while that master of fringe play, Geoff Thwaites, was on Low Putts with 27.  Mo went for an early “shower” for the second week in a row thus missing out on picking up his winnings for a Low Net 70.

The par 3 17^th is virtually surrounded by sand and Dave Shenman somehow used it to advantage to take 1st (and only) Sandy Par on the day. RJ cranked up his swing back to a blur on the back 9 and improved by 10 strokes. Might be a message there RJ.

The putter that Newcomer Martin Skoda borrowed was not to be to his liking and contributed to his total of 45 putts and the Monster Putter award. Mel Meeds was observed to breathe an audible sigh of relief when he found out he had dodged the bullet coming his way as he had carded 40 putts for the second week in a row. Another audible sigh of relief came from our monkey who is still nursing a black eye from Mel’s over enthusiastic attentions the previous week.

While sharing his flight solely with his nearest and dearest, Mitch Wiener still reported his skirt. Damian Greenwood was the only other skirt and despite leaving very early, insisted on paying his fine and having his cross dressing photo taken.

Well done to both, but only Mitch gets the photo on this occasion; don’t worry Damian, we will get you again!!

Click to see detailed player results or more photos of the day.

Scorecards

The trial of the new scorecards worked pretty well and, most importantly, allowed more efficient data entry to the handicap system – and getting down to prize giving quicker than would otherwise have been the case.

Quality of card completion was rather better than previously but, even so, there were instances of failing to add up the strokes, putts and 18 hole totals, deducting handicap from gross score, entering the starting hole, completing Most Strokes and marking Skirts, yes or no!!

The other thing that needs improving is our communications, we failed to tell you that you and your playing partner should swap cards and mark each other’s scorecards rather than your own!!

With the rainy conditions and cheap paper there was one other challenge as well – but we plan to fix that with heavier gauge and more waterproof printing material next time – when we hope for better things  🙂

Next Sunday

Yes, it’s the last Sunday of the month and therefore the first Monthly Medal of 2014 and, for January only, this will be at Pangkalan Jati. Some minor changes here with the event renamed the “V Door Monthly Medal” – and with a new award for Low Net “The Slaneys Low Net Award“. But remember that a player cannot win more than one award!

Winner of the Stableford based Monthly Medal will receive a 500,000 Rupiah voucher to be used at the eponymous and very popular Kemang bar. The “Slaneys  Low Net Award” winner will get a 500,000 voucher to be spent on the very fine products of Slaneys Butchery.

As ever at PJ, Tee Off will be from 1 & 10 at 11:30, or maybe a little earlier, and with green fees of 565,000 roops, or just 375,000 if walking another very walkable course. Get yourself registered for PJ here for another shot at your 15 minutes of fame.

Also of particular note for 28% of our membership is that Sunday is Australia Day. That will add to the fun and doubtless the rest of us will have to put up with some high jinks – and more talk of Aussie cricketing prowess no doubt 😦

See yah Sunday! … Tee Set