On Saturday in a stroke event played on the 19-9 course, Joe Haylock had seven-over-par 78 off the stick - and he played off a 19 handicap.

Then there was Ray Walton with 93 for 60 nett, but he could only manage second place.

The overall ball competition amongst the 167 players saw the cut-off point being 67 after countbacks and the result sheet shows us that 16 C-graders had scored of 67 or better.

Other top cards from the same grade came from Scott Edwards and Craig Ariesen (63); Tony Voorby and Harry Coggan (24) and Simon Keating, Sandy Dunshea and Randall Richardson with 65.

The interesting thing about it all is that young Joe Haylock has lost only two shots and he’s now playing off 17.2.

As would be expected this was the first time he’s broken 80 and his best before Saturday was 85 last year.

Then we come to second placed Ray Walton.

He’s been playing golf for years and years but until Saturday hadn’t broken 100 for just on a year ago. In fact, on January 23 2010, he had 94.

It should be said however that the fairways have plenty of run and the tees and pin placements have been fairly liberal.

In other words the course is playing ‘fairly easy’ as long as you stay out of trouble.

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There was a great competition in B-grade with Rod Firth’s great round of 80 worth 62 nett for him (and probably a whole stack of cash). His rate of improvement has been noted in recent times so we expect to see a few more shots peeled off his handicap.

In second place was Steve James who had 81-63 to get the second prize on a countback from Winston Granger (80-63).

Laurie Caton also played well for 81-64, Todd Richards had 82-64 as did Reg Pipe (77-64), David Wrigley (82-64), David Hayward (79-64) and Guy Naden (82-64).

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The A-grade trophy which came courtesy of Daniel Carmody and BTW Communications, was dominated at the top of the leader board by Graham Jameson with 74-65 after a countback against John Espert (77-65) with Ross Horrocks the unlucky player, also with 65.

Horrocks’ five-under-par 66 was some great golf.

Next best was Richard Pawlenko with 73-66 and Grahame Marchant (81-68), Andrew Graham (81-68), Pat Caton (78-68) and Peter Ipkendanz (78-68).

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All four of the nearest to the pins were top shots with Craig Ariesen just 28cm on the 8th; Greg Smith 53cm 5th; Laurie Caton 92cm 23rd and Ross Tomlins 136cm on the 26th.

o Results: page 26