PDC 2020 - Gold Coast

Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman. Legends of the game. Champions in everything they did, whether that was playing (27 majors between them for God's sake) or designing golf courses (800+ at last count) including Lakelands, Sanctuary Cove and the Glades, which along with Royal Pines and Hope Island made up the PDC 2020. 

Yep, those gents were true champions. Unlike anyone who participated in the COVID-19 impacted PDC. With no interstate guests it was up to the Queenslanders to show their true grit and demolish these half-arsed 'resort courses'. Yeah, that didn't happen. Instead we witnessed a pathetic collection of desperate and aged men, beaten into submission by the Goldie's finest. Across 40 rounds of golf among 12 men grown men, with probably 360+ years of golfing experience, not one person shot their handicap. Frankly it was fucking disgrace. 

But there had to be a winner, and one man stood taller than the rest, again. All hail The Chief. PDC 2020 champion. Well done, Michael. 

Scores to the best of my recollection were: 

Chief: 35 32 27 28 30 - best 3 rounds = 97

Craw: 34 27 31 30 30 - 95

Butts: 34 30 28 - 92
Wardy: 28 33 24 25 29 - 90

Lord: 30 29 31 29 29 - 90 

Tom: 29 26 26 26 25 - 81
Barnsey: 25 24 26 25 28 - 79
Doc: 26 xx 29 - 

Schnapper: xx 24 23
Shirls: 29 29 

Matt QH - soz, not sure

While the golf on display was mostly rubbish, there were plenty of highlights, including: 

Greetings at Lakelands for round one. I always enjoy the vibe before for the first round, reengaging with blokes I haven't seen for yonks, the anticipation of great things, which inevitably end in disappointment. Nice course, especially the 10th, par 4, water along the left. That was a cracker. Shame I took double.

Dinner on night one at the local Chinese joint, a well negotiated late call at a huge table, with mountains for food and outstanding wine from Jeff, and the Lazy Susan working overtime. Delicious. So good we nailed it on night two also. 

The Royal Pines / Hope Island double day two. The latter is a wonderful track. The energy levels over the 36 holes were sustained with the help of buggies. 

Sanctuary Cove Pines plus long and late lunch. Teed off on the 10th as our first hole, just about the most difficult par 4 in the country, 400+ metres, piss all the way along the right, playing into a breeze, a bit hungover. I don't think anyone in my group scored a point on that one! Super post-round long and delicious lunch, culminating with Craw falling asleep at the table, a putting comp as homage to the 2010 tourney which included Links Lady Bay (sorry the link the pics is kaput), and gifting a cap to the Arnold Palmer statue.

 

Post match swim, can't recall which day, but a therapeutic wind down. Was there a State of Origin win also? 

The 2020 PDC was supposed to be in Melbourne, but the COVID-19 lockdown/s forced the change of venue. Fingers crossed all goes well for the 2021 tourney revisiting the super southern courses and the larger group can catch up again. 

 

  

Two decades on

It's 20 years since Barnsey, Muz and I enjoyed a memorable stroll around Augusta National. Tiger won, by 9 shots I think, his first major. We were well and truly back home by the time he teed off for the first round having visited the course on the Monday practice round.

Some random (very poor pics of) pics and memories:

Entering the course for the first time straight behind the 13th green and being awestruck, which is  kind of pathetic really, it's just a golf course, but it was fun.

Walking around the front 9 which at that time was not televised. And also being very surprised at how hilly it was, especially the 10th and 18th some of the gullies on the front 9.

Muz being threatened with removal from the course because he wasn't displaying his ticket, despite having a Australian PGA badge on him, and subsequently being chaperoned by an over-eager old mate 'official' until we could rendezvous and present said ticket. His ticket was in a backpack that I was carrying. This is pre-mobile phone days when "I'll see you in an hour near that tree" meant exactly that.

No branding on anything, expect for 'Masters' logos. Not even on the Coke dispenser. In the great capitalist market place this struck me as kind of, like, a bit socialist.

Phoning Chief from the public phone on course. "How's work, Chief? We're behind the 16th green at the Masters". "Ohh, you're kidding?"

Seeing J-M Olazabal up close. How could anyone swing the club that hard and fast?

Stocking up big time at the memorabilia shop.

Going to the baseball in Atlanta v Chicago Cubs (I think).

By lovely coincidence Craw, Barnsey and I celebrated the anniversary by tackling the Indooroopilly National captain's course for the Moxon Cup. Somehow we conjured two scores +8 in a 4BBB v Par, Craw and I head into play offs! Forget the 1997 Masters, you need to wind back the clock to 1983 to see Craw and I on the honour board for the Moxon. Fark, I was 15!

Shot of the day was from Craw on the last hole - green 9. After carving his second shot right from the middle of the fairway Neil finds himself sort of beneath the tree near the sand container. Out comes his trusty sand iron, naturally. I watch him practice swinging thinking, nice swing but he's dreamin' if he thinks he's getting this close - the pin is front right, he's 40m from the green and then has 15 feet to the flag all downhill. He sinks it! Easy birdie.

Happy days, then and now.

PDC International 2015

Reflections on the 2015 event from Tim 'Schnapper' Young

Like fine dining of the highest order, the golf courses for PDC 2015 were perfectly matched to the quality of golf and scoring from none other than Jeff “Moet” Butler.

Apart from the long list of notable absentees, Benny and Wardy worked incredibly hard to treat 2015 PDCers to some of the world’s finest courses including Metropolitan, Commonwealth, Royal

Melbourne and Woodlands. A perfect blend of golfing challenge and design excellence, sprinkled with manicuring not seen since the last Kardashian shoot. The weather was near perfect.         

In years past, the PDC victor had never been announced prior completion of the last round. 2015 was an exception due to an amazing display of precision golf including an eagle “2 a 5” knock-down 2 iron into the hole. Jeff “Butts” Butler strung together consecutive stellar rounds including 41 points (16 greens in reg) at Commonwealth, followed by 37 points at Woodlands on Friday the 13th of November to record what must be the highest 3 round stableford total in PDC history. Well done Butts - a much deserved PDC winner. Who came second……Who cares!

The 2015 PDC included so many highlights that the following summary doesn’t do it justice:

East-West Coast Precision: Benny and Wardy were able to achieve seamless coordination for all aspects of the tour including 5 of the best courses in Australia over 3 days. Well done fellas.

Hurts Hire Cars: possibly the worst run hire car operation in history – Hertz Melbourne Airport. They didn’t know where our cars were and then provided one with 2 baby seats - we go on tour to get away from kids for a few days!

Wildlife: Timmy Cole took us on a hole by hole adventure with his ornithological knowledge. His affinity with Rosellas (particularly Crimson), Corellas, Lorikeets (particularly Rainbow) and so many more left us all twitching with excitement. Brendan tested TC on the definition of an aggregation of pelicans and Shirls identified some species that TC couldn’t place. Wardy also tried to get friendly with the local snakes - including one of the world’s deadliest, but escaped unharmed.

Food and Drink: Tommy kicked things off by organising a Greek feast in Oakleigh. He had us fed and watered within 20 mins of arrival. Delicious Greek food for 11 – thanks Tommy.

Butts produced another superb quiver of top shelf wine. He amazes us every year with his selections. I think it was the best year yet - thanks Butts. Special mention also to TC for his fine BBQ action on Friday night.

Player Summary

Butts - sick of talking about him now [Fine Cotton off 6 mind you]

Benny - a slow start but 36 fine points at Commonwealth after jumping out of the blocks to be 3 under after 9

Brendan - great to have him along for his first Tour and impressive to shoot a career best 82. Peter Lonard definitely his swing coach?

Craw - no matter the score, watching him chip is worth the trip. One off a glass top rammed earth to an impossible pin spring to mind [with no shortage of action]

Doc - some great iron play and many flashes of brilliance. Craw was kind enough to highlight one slight weakness – not reaching the ladies tee for 5 shots on one hole at RMGC……but went on to make 6!

Shirls – up and down of the century at RMGC [refer to footage of shot and putt]. For a man not in love with it, he plays the game ok! Talk on the course……….? Yep, certainly can.

Mick – right up there again with most solid holes over 5 rounds [unfortunately no 4 birdies in a row this year]. Solid play save for a few blowouts…...but we still miss the Monica grunt!

Schnapp – went missing…again. Slight tummy problem bought on by excessive hooking!

TC – pure power with club in hand and some flashy brilliance for a new father of 3. Knowledge of a feathered savant. Slightly wayward shot on the 9th at Commonwealth gave the clubhouse guests some cause for tightening….

Tommy – longest sweetest 5 iron on Tour. The kid can strike it. Watch out next year once he plays Commonwealth every other week.

Wardy – pure power and brilliant scoring at times. Highest power to weight ratio on Tour.

Hoping that next year’s 10-year anniversary PDC tour see’s the return of some of PDC’s finest and a similar quality of golfing and non-golfing “par excellence”. Lots of video highlights in the links below.

I couldn't upload some of the video (the limit is 100MB) including Schnapper and Craw's entertaining commentary of Doc's ricocheted drive off a buggy and across an adjacent green. It reminded me of Doc's adventures at Narooma a few years ago, for old times sake.

PDC International 2014

All hail the Chief! 102 stableford points for the best three rounds ensured the Chief took the PDC trophy again, this time single handed, with Craw, Jeff and Lord one point behind.

This year saw the return to Barnbougle - 36 holes at The Dunes on Thursday, followed by a wind swept 18 (plus another dozen or so for the brave) on Friday at Lost Farm, and a final 18 at Lost Farm on Saturday morning.

It's hard to go past the post-event summary from TC:

Digger - proved he is a champion, it may be a fluke if you win once, not if you do it twice.

Jeff - 14 greens in regulation, gets better with age like a good red from the Margaret.

Craw - what's better than 3 birdies in a row? Hole in one. Get that smile off your face Craw.

Ferg - who cares when your son's a future Australia cricket captain?

Ben - if he had a handicap twice as big it would be daylight second.

Doc - massive purple patch in round 5 with regulation birdie on 10 and several pars.

McGenius - moral support was missed on days 3 & 4.

Tim Y - great commentary, great swing, was peaking when it was time to go. Dark horse for 2015.

Wardy - started majestically with 35 and peppered the flag spasmodically the remaining time - all the time receiving calls and calmly averting crisis as they arose.

Tommy - was missed on day 1 but managed to battle injury to conjour many highlights. Big ticker.

Dave - a swing only Jim Furyk would love. Like Wardy started strongly. Good night Dave.

All of this took place under splendid sunny blue skies and temperatures in the high teens, even if the Friday morning zephyr grew to 50km/h by the afternoon. Superb! Meanwhile Brisbane went into lock-down as G20 was held in the CBD. Half the city left for either the Sunshine or Gold Coast and fried in the stinking heat, that climbed for 39 on Sunday.