Stableford versus Stroke Play

I just learnt from Susan the difference between Stableford and Stroke Play.

Ok, Stroke Play is straight forward. It means every stroke counts. And based on your handicap, you will count the strokes whether you're under par or above par with your handicap included. Example, if you are a 36 handicapper, your par should be at 108 (ie. 72+36). So, if you played a 100, you are 8 under par.

For Stableford system, say you're a 36 handicapper, you'll get 2 strokes for every hole. If you're a 34 handicapper, you'll get 2 strokes from holes with index 1 to 16, and then 1 stroke each for holes with index 17 and 18. Say the hole with index 17 is a Par 3, and you played a bogey. In Stableford terms, you actually will have nett par of 4 strokes (ie. 3+1), and you actually played par - meaning you'll be awarded with 2 points. (see table below)

2 or more over par - 0 points
1 over par - 1 points
par - 2 points
1 under par - 3 points
2 under par - 4 points
3 under par - 5 points
and so on..

More examples, say hole 1 is a par 4. You played a birdie. Your nett par is 6 (ie. 4+2), so you actually played 3 under par - meaning you'll be awarded with 5 points.

For inconsistent players like me, I will have some advantage for playing Stableford system then Stoke Play system. For the simple reason, if I played anything more than nett par (ie. 2 over par), no matter how many strokes I took, it's still 0 points.

I'm watching The Apprentice 3 on Channel 5 now...

Summon

I got a summon this morning. $30 =(

It's been a long time since I last got one. I used to cheat coupons. The concept of saving $1 or $2 gives me the excitment of not spending for parking. But when I got a ticket of say $6 (for not putting enough coupons for the extra hour) or $30 (for not putting ANY coupons at all), I told myself that I was so stupid to have thought of saving that $2 but a $30 ticket could but me 3 booklets of $1 coupons. I could parked for a good 30 hours!

So, here I am again, not learning my lessons, got a summon again. I could have played a round of 9-hole!

I swear I'm going to put coupons from now onwards...

9-hole Walking Course

Kat and I decided to play a 9-hole walking course at Transview. There's a promotion for Mon-Tue-Wed $21 only. pian ye dao...!

I only took 7 clubs in my NIKE bag - putter, p-wedge, s-wedge, 5-iron, 7-iron, driver and a 3-wood. Light-weight enough for me to carry throughout the 9 holes, I needn't use the trolley.

Transview course is rather simple, but has challenging greens. Course is not really well managed though (lotas cow grass), anyways, what do you expect from a public course? I took my driver for Hole 1. It went straight, but not far enough. The fairway of Hole 1 was going up and down, practically couldn't see the flag at all. Took my 3-wood for the second shot, quite a good landing in the middle of the fairway, but still couldn't see the flag. 2 more strokes using 5-iron and finally I saw the red flag! 5-on, it was a par-5. I thought I would do a 1 putt or max 2 putt. I was wrong - the green was challenging but fun. Well, I did a 3 putt... :P

So, I had 3-over for a par 5... I thought, that was just a warm-up. Hole 2 and 3 wasn't that bad, I managed the course well. But again, putting was terrible, dunno why.

I started to pant after the third hole, not from golf swings, but from the walking. I was perspiring, I think I would shed 1 kg of fats after the game.


This was me at Hole 7 par-4. No caddie, no buggy, just me and my golf bag on the walking course.

It started to drizzled at Hole 8. We were waiting for the gentleman before our flight to tee off. Suddenly, a group of 7 kids appear from nowhere, with an elderly guy whom they called 'teacher'. Chaos started. The kids were so eager to tee off. "Teacher is it our turn? Is it our turn?" The kids were rambling away. We had to hurry our par-3. I did a bogey. I also did a bogey for Hole 9 par 4. *disturbance*

Well, I had fun. Good short game, practise my putting, course management, good tee shots, had a little rain, but enjoyed the game!

Saturday Feast

We gonna have a feast tonight - crabs, la-la, soup, prawns and all things nice. That's way I went to cycle around my neighbourhood just now, to hopefully burn some calories before I put on later. =)

Look at what I've found! A luminous yellow Golden Bear golf ball lying on the floor near Roseburn Avenue. I noticed that most families in the neighbourhood owns at least 2 cars...

And now, all the pictures of the food, glorious food! Yummy yummy.....

*drumroll*

..

..

..

First up - CRABS! 10 of them!

Next - LA-LA! 2 plates full!

And - PRAWNS! *yum yum*

I ate one whole crab by myself! How to define one whole crab? Well, 2 gongs, 2 gonglets (you know, the joint between the gong and the body), and 4 legs. I had to throw the crab meat from the gonglets into my fish maw soup. Couldn't get up from the dining table after that feast... so full! But so satisfying! =)

I had to attend Charles' wedding lunch tomorrow. *siao liao* Dunno what to wear... I've put on so much weight since uni days, never gone back to my slim old self. I need to loose some fats before the school reopens on 3rd Oct. Talking about that, want to buy another pair of jeans that has a darker blue tone. Looking forward to next week's golf.

Mid-week golf

I played a mid-week golf yesterday at Sentosa Golf Club - Serapong Course to relive the Singapore Open experience. To have imagined that it would be a tough course to play because it was part of the Asian Tour standard, I was right - but half right. The toughness came from finding the ball that has not landed on the fairway... because not only was the rough shin-height, but the maintenance workers didn't sweep the grass away after they mowed it. So, you'll always get into trouble when you couldn't land your ball nicely on the fairway.

I teed off my first ball, it went to the right (as usual), and that was the last I've seen my Titleist ball. I swear that I could see my ball landed at about 1 meters from the side of the fairway. But the ball just went to the bermuda triangle! Now, that's a good reason why pros always have marshals and caddie to look out for the balls!

The flight in front of ours consist of 4 ladies. The marshal said today was like a volunteer's day. Lotsa flights booked were those who volunteered during the Singapore Open. I was slightly disappointed with the condition of the course, can't imagine that this was the exact course that the players from Singapore Open played.

Dropped a second ball on the rough where I landed. Took a 5-iron, managed to hit it back to the fairway. Lesson learnt - try to land my balls on the fairway. But soon I did the exact same mistake again! Can't help it when I tend to slice my balls. Tried to compensate a few times, but for those times that I compensated, my ball shot straight, hence it went left this time round... So you could imagine, an inconsistent game, plus rough that's shin-height, it wasn't really a great golf day for me. Well, placing the lousy game aside, I had a few perks on the Serapong course here and there though.

What happened to the waterfall at Hole 2? Is SGC trying to save cost once Singapore Open is over? :P

I picked up 2 golf balls from a little stream at Hole 4. I believed that one of the Titleist Pro-V ball belongs to one of the Singapore Open player. =)

Remember Hole 12, which is Hole 3 in Singapore Open? This was where my ball landed. See that big tree over there? That was where the pros landed their balls. And the difference between the two - approximately 100 meters away!

Check out the black and white swans!

A post at Hole 16 *cheese* with the Sentosa Golf Club billboard behind me at the tee box.

Volunteered Marshal at Singapore Open

It was 6:30am when my sister woke me up from my dreamland saying that we’ve got a last-minute opportunity to be a volunteered marshal for the 42nd Singapore Open @ Sentosa Golf Club - Serapong Course.

I signed up to be a volunteer 3 weeks ago but was rejected due to overwhelming response. Somehow, volunteers who were supposed to cover for the day didn’t turn up, so there I was… finally my dream came true… I was officially a marshal for the day on 11 September 2005, at Hole 3 Par 4 (479 yards) fairway, watching out for balls which sliced towards my direction. My job was to mark the balls which are on the rough with a small blue flag. I would wait for the player to come close to me, verify the sight of his ball, and then politely lift up the flag… and occasionally say ‘my pleasure’ if I was being thanked.

[From a tee set high amidst the jungle, the difficult of this almost 90-degree dog leg left is obvious from the outset. The line is just inside the big tree in the centre of the fairway and those with the confidence to take driver will be rewarded with their blind shot catching the downslope. That still leaves a mid-iron into the heart-shaped green though, with par a hard-earned reward for your efforts.]

The thrill of being a marshal that day, (other than of course looking extremely good in the body-hugging T-shirt bearing the logo of Sentosa Golf Club plus Singapore Open Asian Tour), was to be (almost) up close and personal with the top players from over the country like Adam Scott, Lee Westwood, Thongchai Jaidee, Nick O'hern, Craig Perry, just to name a few.

At 9:30am, the first flight of players teed off with a nice landing on the middle of the fairway (approximately 180m). My job was easy when the balls land on the fairway, I merely raised the “Quiet Please” pedal and enjoyed my clear view of the players, noticing how they hold the club, how they prepared for the swing, which clubs they were using and how nice their balls landed on the green.

The sun was hot, but I wasn’t complaining because I was too elated with my task. Moreover, I was with an oversized Sentosa Golf Club umbrella and the lycra material of my T-shirt was really cooling even though I started to perspire.

My job started to get more interesting after a few flights have gone by. Players who got a lousy tee shot came into my direction with their balls. I had to watch where they landed, and diligently marked the balls. Throughout the day, I think I marked 8 balls of which I couldn’t find one of them. I recalled I was day-dreaming during 3 to 4 flights after Adam Scott’s flight!

Since Day 3 wasn’t complete due to the rain, the remaining flights played on Day 4 at 7:30am. So, officially, Day 4 started at 9am with a simultaneous tee off times at Hole 1 and 10. There was a cross over at about noon, that was where I could see a huge crowd following the flight with Adam Scott, Thongchai Jaidee and Edward Michaels in it. It was at that time when all eyes were on the three super stars! Even marshals who were supposed to keep an eye on the crowd, were star-gazing with awe when the stars took their position to prepare for the shot! I, for one, was one of the marshal… hee.. hee.. We took pride as we raised our pedal sedately. I added with the hand signal stopping the crowd from moving in case of causing distraction to the players as they back-swing. The live cameras were all over the players, capturing even the slightest expression on their faces and also the crowd’s reaction to a nice landing on the green. Practically, that was all that’s worth for – volunteering to be the marshal! And after flight, I was just counting down the number of flights remaining before my job was done.

The inspiration I get from watching PGA class players live has definitely intensified my passion for golf. I’ll be playing at the Serapong Course this Wednesday to relive the experience I had last weekend.

Up close and personal with the players...

... And of course, the winner is none other than the young and handsome, Adam Scott!