Report – CITCO round 3 – 20 May 2015

The reporting from Round 3 of the CITCO Grand Prix has to start with the starter! Arnaud Bouteiller hosted the players in what can only be described as the pre-game dining suite, with tables set-up to offer wine, cheese, salami’s, baguettes and home-made tapenade. Rumor has it the olives were lovingly crushed between virgin’s thighs, but it was not clear if the thighs were his own or not. Surely he is much too handsome to still be … never mind! We look forward to seeing how the next starter is going to follow that gastronomic display. No pressure Dennis Robertson!

Suitably fed and watered, 29 FROGS and guests hit off from the first eyeing a podium finish, improving their standing on the CITCO leaderboard, and avoiding the dreaded pink ball. Fear is a great motivator and raised the standards across the entire field – SS was up 3 points this week to 16.

It was crowded at the top last night! Philip Zimmer was the best of 6 FROGS on 15 points, but this was only good enough for 5th place. Mark Houston went one better with 16 points.
Gregor Dalrymple and Paul Goes both had fine evenings about the Belenhaff hillside, bringing home 18 points with Gregor pushing Paul down into third place on countback.
The stand-out performance goes to Leon Marks … QUADRUPLING the winner’s round 2 score (5 points) with just one lesson! Leon was disappointed with the shakey start scratch on the first, but was pleased with 5-over par for the rest of the holes giving a stellar 20 points. Unfortunately Leon could only make a brief appearance in the clubhouse so his student was called on to collected the prize on the night.

Mark Gillies hit a couple of sprinkler heads to skip down the fairway to collect the long drive award.

Nick Felfoldi was not on form on the night but was lucky that he was the only guest. His pink-ball matching score was unchallenged and left him claim the spoils in the best guest category, along with a pink ball for good measure.

James King was called up for the NTP award, but was disappointed to find it was only to present ‘his’ prize to the FROG who pitched it an inch closer to the pin. A fine shot from Franco Mastroddi took the prize.

Steve Kaiser and Ian Doherty put themselves in contention for the pink ball again this week with 10 points, but Ayzo Van Eysinga (yes – Ayzo Van Eysinga – that’s not an autocorrect error) saved their blushes. Succumbing to match-play pressure he blobbed his way down the hill on the 1st, blobbing through the kink on the second and blobbing his way around the corner on the third! A handful of pars and a bogey on his way back up from the pit of despair saw him amass his 9 points & earn the coveted pink prize.

After three rounds the top of the overall CITCO Grand Prix leaderboard looks something like this:
Andrew Paton on 45 points
Duncan Tippin on 41 points
Peter Baxter on 40 points
Mark Houston on 39 points
Gerry Mullen on 39 points

I am not sure where John Sutherland is on the overall leaderboard, but the 20 points Leon earned him last night will certainly do his standing no harm. Congrats on your win John J. A McIlroy-esque dominance of the field.

Thanks of course to our main sponsor CITCO for the continued support.

SHRM Matchplay
Plenty of SHRM Matchplay results were decided in the last fortnight, three of them on the night:

Rupert Birch was match-play rusty having received a walk-over in the last round & fell to Simon Baker, all be it after fighting until the 3rd extra hole.
William Heath tonked Stuart Rowlands 4&3
Andrew Paton was equally ruthless with Paolo Tarakdjian. Another 4&3 victory
Jess Have put his feet up after seeing Ayzo Van Eysinga’s shaky start, put was nearly caught napping & scraped home 1up.
Daniel Kaiser needed an extra hole to beat Graham Paul on the night to keep some link to SHRM
Duncan Tippin was not kept suffering for too long. Arnaud Bouteiller did the descent thing & finished him off 4 up after 6 holes.

All Preliminary matches have been settled at this point. There are 7 remaining round 1 to be played on or before 3rd June…..tick-tock! Round 2 matches have until June 24th to be settled.

Thanks to SHRM for their continued support of the Matchplay event.

Housekeeping
The next event is Round 4 of the CITCO Grand Prix, back at Junglinster on June 3rd. Dennis Robertson will be sending a telex asking for time preferences.