Unusual for Thailand but look at the photos, cold and wet, who would believe it. There were plenty of phone calls and discussion regarding a reschedule but in the end it was decided to go ahead. It did not look good weather wise right up to the start and even the caddies had decided there would be no golf today. But Chiangmai Golfers are made of much sterner stuff and all 48 turned up today with only one, who shall remain nameless, deciding not to play - much to the chagrin of his team mates having to play one man down. Those who made the effort were rewarded with a virtually rain free round and, as is usually the case in this type of tournament, a close scoring event. The course held up extremely well considering the heavy rain over the past three days, wet yes, but extremely playable and with many who had not played the course previously already planning to return and play it under better conditions.
The winners this year were the VIKINGS or Team Scandinavia, Mr.B. Lucassen, Christian Friis, Steve Bannister & Inge Billman coming in with a net 61. One shot behind in second place was Team England with Nigel Jones, Mark Morris, David Hub and coming out of retirement especially for this event Mike Breeze coming in with a net 62. Third Place was taken by Australia 1 with a net 63. It should be noted at this stage that another team Lanna Ladies also scored 63 but had to be disqualified for an incorrect score card after much discussion by the committee resorting to the rules book for varification. Then would you believe 5 teams came in with a score of 64, at one stage nearly causing Les our treasurer to have a heart attack in deciding how he would divide up the prize money if they were first or second. So nine teams within four shots. Of course we all had to listen to stories of how birdies were hard to come by, chips for birdy that rimmed out, chip in pars, long putts that went in and those that rimmed out but hey what else would we have to do while waiting for the Celts scorecard to come back from Bangkok.
Nearest the pins were: Hole 6 Christian Friis, Hole 4 Gary Burke, Hole 12 Steve Jepson and Hole 16 Nigel Jones all gratefully accepting some bottles of fine wine selected by Les who accidently dropped two at home and had to go out and buy more (I think the club should reimburse him).
Thank you to all involved in the organising of this event as there is no doubt that it is one of the most popular events on our golfing calander and most of all thank you to all who played the game as this is what Social Golf is all about.
