Blog

Match Report – Settlers Run Golf Club (Teams Event) – 17^th March 2025

On arriving at Settlers Run golf course, the weather was a chilly 10 degrees, but it turned into a nice sunny day with a light breeze, good for golf. We are playing our first teams event for the year, the 3 best stableford scores for each hole, perfect for St Patricks day!

The Settlers run golf course is a Greg Norman designed course with plenty of strategic placed bunkers and water to be wary of. The management have just informed us we are playing a temporary course due to some course development. The par 3 (8^th ) is out of play with a shorter (19^th ) par 3 replacing it, also shorter holes, the 13^th and 18^th Par 4’s.

We had 42 golfers play the course today with great fairways and fast greens.

We had two Visitors, William Kersing from Gardiners Run and Patrick Martin from Settlers Run.

The Best team score on the day was 115 points, Peter Hayward from Waterford Valley, Don Hackett  (Heidelberg), Richard Harmer (Spring Valley) and Paul Stewart (Green Acres).

Runner up with 112 points was John Fellows, Ian Norman, Don Read and Gavin McGregor all from Lakeside Albert Park.

The NTP’s: Hole 2 – David Heraud (Brighton)
                    Hole 11 – Paul Stewart (Green Acres)
                    Hole 19^th – John Hetherington (Settlers Run)

Next Games

Monday 31^st March – Rosanna Golf Club
Event – Club Championships for A Grade & B Grade (Stroke/Stableford).
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 24^th March.

Monday 14^th April – Keysborough Golf Club
Event – Final Round of Club Championships for A Grade & B Grade (Stroke/Stableford).
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 7^th April.

Box Hill Golf Club (Stableford Event) – 3^rd March 2025

The day started out quite cool when we arrived at the Box Hill Golf Club. It didn’t take long for the cloud cover to disappear and the sun to come out for a beautiful autumn day.

The Box Hill Golf Club is a parkland course with plenty of trees bordering the fairways and Gardiners creek running throughout the course. We had 48 golfers play the course today, it was in excellent condition with an array of challenging holes.

We had one Visitor, Peter Grace from Heidelberg.

The A Grade Winner on the day was Peter Grace (18) from Heidelberg with 35 Points and runner up Shay McQuade (15) from Brighton with 34 points.

The B Grade Winner was Brian Scott (24) from Latrobe with 36 points from runner up Ross Parks (26) from Northcote on 35 points on a countback from Paul Matthews (19) from Rosanna.

Other Good Scores:  

The NTP’s: Hole 4 – David Worrell (Eastern), Hole 6 – Ross Graham (Northcote)
                    Hole 9 – John Anderson (Heidelberg), Hole 11 – Phil Burckhardt (Latrobe)
                    Hole 17 – Colin Monson (Camberwell)

Lucky Door Prizes
                   1^st – Round of Golf for 4 at Box Hill Golf Club won by Neil Box (Heidelberg)
                   2^nd – Book (The Golf Course Guide) won by Neil O’Keefe (Heathcote)
  

Next Games

Monday 17^th March – Settlers Run Golf Club
Teams Event – Best 3 Scores Stableford. 
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 10^th March.

Monday 31^st March – Rosanna Golf Club
Event – Club Championships for A Grade & B Grade (Stroke/Stableford).
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 24^th March.

When we arrived at the Heritage Country Club the weather was quite a chilly 8 degrees, with some low fog around and many Kangaroos lining the driveway in. The management at the Heritage informed us, that due to our numbers we could only use Hole 1 to 12, so we had to reshuffle some groups around. After the briefing from Naiomi it was off in our carts to our allocated Tee’s.

We had 47 golfers play at the St Johns course, the cloud cover hung around for a while, but the sun came out for pleasant day of Golf. The course was in excellent condition with the greens being very true for putting. We had 2 new members playing their first game: Andrew Livingston from Bairnsdale and Greg Blake from Rosanna. Then we had 4 Visitors Peter Grace & Derek Jury from Heidelberg and Peter McCormack & Joe Gehrig from Kew.

The A Grade Winner on the day was Max VanHelden (18) from Kew with 38 Points from runner up Shane O’Connell (15) from Latrobe with 37 points on a countback from Peter Hayward (9) from Waterford Valley.

The B Grade Winner was Margaret Harbinson (33) from Heritage with 35 points from runner up Ross Parks (25) from Northcote on 34 points.

The NTP’s: Hole 3 – Brian Scott (Latrobe), Hole 7 – John Fellows (Lakeside Albert Park)
                    Hole 11 – Peter Hayward (Waterford Valley), Hole 17 – Ken Baddeley (Kingston Heath)
  

Next Games

Monday 3^rd March – Box Hill Golf Club
Event – Stableford.
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 24^th February.

Monday 17^th March – Settlers Run Golf Club
Teams Event – Best 3 Scores Stableford. 
Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 10^th March.

For the MDVGA first official game for the year we had a rather Hot forecast for Gardiners Run. The management of Gardiners Run had informed us, that due to the forecasted hot weather they will not allow us a Shotgun start, but a 2 tee start from7:48am.

So we had 42 keen golfers turn up for the Challenging conditions, it didn’t take long for the heat to arrive. The course was in excellent condition, but the greens were a little on the slow side. We had 3 new members playing their first game: Gail Simpson from Sandringham, Paul Mathews from Rosanna and Peter Barter from Mandalay. Then we had 1 Visitor Andrew Livingston from Bairnsdale.

The A Grade Winner on the day was Bino da Silva (5) from Rosanna with 40 Points from runner up Bill Bussau (9) also from Rosanna with 39 points.

The B Grade Winner was Oscar Diaz (22) from Camberwell with 36 points from runner up Phil Moorby (31) from Northcote with 35 points on a countback from John Steen (21) from Kooringal also with 35 points.

Other Good Scores:  

The NTP’s were: Hole 3 – Don Hackett, Hole 7 – Peter Barter
                              Hole 11 – Ros Pearce , Hole 16 – Bill Bussau
  

Next Games

Monday 17^th February – Heritage Golf & Country Club (St Johns Course)
Stableford. Note – Carts are included in the event cost. Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 10^th February.

Monday 3^rd March – Box Hill Golf Club
Stableford. Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 24^th February.

For the Hume challenge at Medway golf club, we arrived at the course with some great weather for golf. It warmed up as the morning went on with some brief cloud  cover to give us a bit of relief. We had 20 pairs vs 20 pairs in 4BBB Stableford format.

A special thanks to John Harris for assisting Larry Wilson on the morning desk.

The course was in excellent condition however the greens were a little on the slow side which didn’t affect some of the scoring. There was some really great scores from both teams, however the overall result was Melbourne Vets 15 matches to Hume 5 matches. Melbourne vets also won 3 out of the 4 Par 3’s.

The NTPs were

Hole 8 – Phil Moorby (Northcote),

Hole 10 – Peter Schonewille (Spring Valley),         

Hole 17 – John Harris (Northern).

Next Games

• Monday 3^rd February – Gardiners Run Golf Club -Stableford. Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 27^th January.
• Monday 17^th February – Heritage Golf & Country Club (St Johns Course) – Stableford. Note – Carts are included in the event cost. Registration by 7.30am. The booking sheet opens at 5pm, Monday 10^th February.

As 2024 ends I would like to take this opportunity to recap on the year and outline our plans for 2025.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate this year’s major event winners:

a) Golfer of the Year – Mike Steventon (Northcote)

b) Club Champion – Stuart Webb (Peninsula Kingswood)

c) Bowl Winner – Cec Bailey (Spring Valley)

d) Cranbourne Cup – Neil Campbell (Spring Valley)

e) Woodlands Cup winner – Ross Graham (Northcote).

This year we made several changes to the schedule. Some courses such as Latrobe and Sandhurst were cancelled due to cost considerations and new courses like Heritage, Heidelberg, Ranfurlie and Medway were added. In all we scheduled 21 events and surprisingly no event was cancelled due to bad weather.

As a reminder the Committee endeavours to schedule events every 2 to 3 weeks during the year with a mid-year break for winter. These events are held across some of Melbourne’s premium golf clubs with a focus on:

• Being accessible to members in terms of distance travelled
• A reputation as a high-level private course
• The retention of some premium courses
• Being cost effective for members

Notwithstanding these objectives there has been a noticeable drop off in attendance this year from an average of around 70 in 2023 to 50 in 2024. With the few fewer numbers, we have lost some of our leverage with the host clubs. This has been reflected by being restricted to a nine-hole shotgun start and in the case of the recent Rosebud event a one tee start.

We are all aware of the cost-of-living pressures and the increased subscription fees levied by our own clubs as the primary reason for the fall off in numbers.

So, we have reviewed the schedule for 2025 and reduced the number of events to 20. Heidelberg and the second events at Heritage and Rosebud have been deleted. We have kept the two events at Cranbourne as 2025 will be the last year it will be open. We have also deleted Ranfurlie and Medway based on feedback and introduced Eastwood and reintroduced Northern. The team events have proven to be popular and so we have retained those. The four premium courses of Yarra Yarra, Spring Valley, Woodlands and Riversdale have also been retained. With the proposed changes we are hoping to get closer to our long-term average of 70 players.

The MiScore/One Golf system has worked very well with only minor issues, mainly passwords and guest registrations cropping up at the beginning of some events. I thank you all for your ready acceptance as it has had dramatically reduced the resourcing required to run each event.

 A thank you to the members who have rallied to represent the MDVets against the Hume Vets to be played on 20^th January 2025 at the Medway Golf Club. The event is now online in our current booking system. There are a couple of positions open and we would like some reserve members as there may be some last-minute withdrawals. We have been successful for the last few years so let’s hope we can continue our winning ways in 2025.

Finally, we have started discussions with other Veteran Associations, Eastern and Victorian, with a view to offering full reciprocal rights to participate in each other events. Next year will be more ad hoc but in 2026 we hope to align our schedules and introduce challenge events like the one with Hume Vets.

We look forward to welcoming you to our first event for 2025 and if you have any feedback or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to pass it on to us.

On behalf of the Committee, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers
Larry Wilson