Paul Smith Running Hot, Hot, Hot

 In the words of one of his playing partners, Paul Smith played ‘awesome golf’ today.

From his playing handicap of #2, Paul has scored 42 stableford points for a gross of 68, that is Hot!!

With an even 21 points on each nine, including five birdies over the round, a golfer needs lots of talent and concentration. As a #2 handicap, there is not much room for error.

 That score needs to be rated higher as the surprise weather conditions made the second nine just a little more challenging.

 Poor old George Mueller. He handed in a great scorecard which showed 40 points, one of his best scores for quite a while. He thought, and we thought, that would have been enough for a very good win, but that thought lasted for only about 10 minutes. Still, second place is yet another consistently good game for George.

 Ian Bell was the player who described Paul’s game as awesome. He is no slouch himself, scoring 37 points from his #6 handicap to take third place but, unfortunately for us, will soon be heading home, but not before another round on Friday.

 Michael Blumhagen is never out of contention lately and, although not quite playing to his handicap this time, still grabbed fourth place with 33 points.

  Winners at Greenwood

 1^st  Place – Paul Smith (2) –  42 pts

2^nd  Place – George Mueller (15) – 40 pts  

3rd Place – Ian Bell (6) – 37 pts

4^th Place –  Michael Blumhagen (6) – 33 pts

The original headline for this report was to be ‘We never expected this’

A hot morning became easier as groups got to the first tee when some cloud cover moved in. After about one hour of play a sudden and unexpected thunderstorm descended on the course, bringing heavy rain for about 15 minutes and then drizzle, together with thunder and lightning, for the next couple of hours.

Because the players stopped to take shelter, it became three hours from tee off until the first group got to the ninth green.

At the half way mark, another stop while deciding whether to continue, saw eight players call it quits, citing the amount of lightning around, so the remaining two four-balls completed the round in, wait for it! 5 hours 58 minutes from tee off.  A long day.

It was a pity about the storm as the golf course is in superb condition and, fortunately, the fairways and greens were not negatively affected.

Wet, confusing, and as long as it was, it was certainly Paul Smith’s day.

 Photo: Winner, Paul Smith, with Toby Glass (C) and Tip Briney (R)

No, Toby and Tip are not here today, this is an old photo as we cannot pin Paul down for a new one.

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