Golf
10 April, 2025
Royal Rainbow golfers take on 2025 Dust Bowl
After six long months of golfing hibernation, Royal Rainbow was aroused from its slumber.
Thanks to a mass of people (over twenty were counted) volunteering their time a couple of Saturdays ago, and with Daryn Clugston and Wayne Nitschke’s tireless efforts around the course over the last month, the course was ready to take on the hackers and slashers that make up our brilliant club.
Undaunted by some of the driest conditions seen on any golf course east of the Nullarbor, eighteen of Rainbow’s finest men took to the tee blocks in an event that shall be now known as the ‘2025 Dust Bowl’.
It was great to see a real mixture of the experienced, the new, the young and those returned from other pursuits.
Players were allocated into six teams of three with Captain Pommy Leach hoping to have rigged the teams well enough to get himself an early season win. It was not to be.
Unsurprisingly, many of our players failed to hit the ball straight off the tee, despite what could only be described as the perfect weather for golf.
One such fellow was newbie Jimmy Kranz, who swatted lustily at his ball on the 8th tee only to see it hit a tree and make a beeline back to him.
But Jimmy, cool as a cucumber, blocked the returning ball with his club, knocking it into the air and taking a very smart catch.
Less cool were the exploits of Adam ‘Potsy’ Gould, who, after one too many errant shots with the driver, hurled his much-maligned club down the fairway (the only piece of golfing equipment to do so for Potsy Gould) and then proceeded to verbally abuse the club, ending the tirade by telling his wayward ‘big dog’ that it could lie and die in the sun for all he cared.
One player who was having no such trouble off the tee was that old stalwart of the club, Rodney ‘Popeye’ McLean whose sneaky practices during the week clearly paid off.
Popeye McLean took out two nearest-the-pins and almost netted himself a hole-in-one on the 10th.
However, his nearest-the-pin on the 16th was in somewhat controversial circumstances, as he paced out the distances between his ball and the marker left by Az ‘Boom-Boom’ Glen himself, quickly declaring himself closer before our less-than-diligent President Roger ‘Milko’ Smith could put a halt to all this.
But then, why would you pull a team mate up that has carried you all day.
You see, there was no denying ‘Milko’ Smith, ‘Deadeye’ McLean and Hamish ‘The Hammer’ Hollamby, a team filled with guile, strength and poise.
These three gentlemen played to the dusty conditions better than any other team.
Eventually paring the course and with that, took out the ‘Dust Bowl’ for 2025.
Sluggett, Stephen ‘Little Pom’ Leach and the revamped Oscar ‘Mullet’ Clarke.
In particular, it was young Mullet Clarke, who just as the hopes of his teammates were fading pulled off two of the surrealist shots seen at Royal Rainbow.
The first was a hooking second shot zinger in amongst a nest of trees on the 15th that took a well-crafted deflection of a nearby tree to end up a mere 20m from the scrape allowing the team to walk off with a tap-in par.
But it was what would become the last shot of the day on the 18th that ignited the flagging hopes of his teammates.
Absorbing the moment and the pressure, Mullet Clarke called his shot (bounce, bounce and in) before cooly holing out from 30m to give the team a birdie - birdie finish to their round.
Clearly playing out of their skins was a team of three that have probably played a mere three rounds of golf between them in the last three years.
Potsy Gould, Maxi Tregenza and Plugger Clugston showed their incredible potential if they were to play golf more often (and I hope that they do).
With a 74 off the stick, these lads were less than one shot behind the winning team who had a power of experience behind them. An amazing effort.
And lastly, there needs to be a special mention of the Mallee Mauler who has been having some intensive work done on his body to keep him tip-top.
He explained that he was not keen to play golf on Saturday so as not to undo all this manipulative work.
Which is fair enough. Except… the word is that he was actually saving himself to give the veterans another mauling on Mondays.
Late update.
The Mallee Mauler’s plans did not come to fruition.
Instead, another local icon, Dexter ‘Palmer’ Schilling had an absolute day out against his fellow veterans in Warracknabeal.
Scoring a very impressive 40pts, this Rainbow gentleman won by three clear shots.
Hopefully, the handicapper gets to him before he starts a big winning run here at Rainbow.
Next week, golf will be a stableford round to help ease all of us into the season.
Tee off at 12:30pm. Get there about Midday.
Hope to see you there! Till next week – happy hitting!
Scores: Men
1st - Roger Smith, Hamish Hollamby, Rodney McLean – 71 – 11 – 60
2nd - Stephen Leach, Robert Sluggett, Oscar Clark – 70 – 9&5/6 – 60 &1/6
3rd - Adam Gould, Dean Tregenza, Heath Clugston – 74 - 13&1/6 – 60&5/6
Aaron Glen, Jimmy Kranz, Justin Oakley – 74 – 12 – 62
Steven Newton, Dexter Schilling, Travis Clarke – 82 – 14&1/6 – 67&5/6
Wayne Nitschke, Peter Gosling, Collis Fisher – 80 – 10&1/6 – 69&5/6
NTP – 10th – R. McLean
NTP – 16th – R. McLean