Courses 9 & 10: Matron and Rangatira

11 December 2010

The summer Solstice had a small field this year, only 7 turned out and I had a big task defending the Brown Jacket playing off a 12 handicap. The Solstice handicaps are always interesting and the defending champion will never retain the jacket, especially when it's half what you play off when you win!

Marton Golf Club

This time we ventured up State Highway 1 and started at the Marton Golf Club.



This was where we played in the morning the last time I was the defending champ. Last time I started with a hiss and a roar with a birdie on the par 5 1st, it wasn't as easy this time.

Marton is a pretty standard country golf course; built on rolling land, relatively flat and full of trees. It was quite a good little course and had very good watering that meant the fairways hadn't burnt away like many other courses in the area. The round was quite a good one, I was pretty happy with 89 and that was good enough to place me 6th after the first round (I fully expected to be 7th!).

My scorecard:



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Rangatira Golf Club

Just north of Hunterville in the Rangatira Golf Club.



It's not a very challenging course, the holes tend to be flat and straight. However, it's very picturesque, set on the side of the of a gorge and played on 3 levels, 6 holes on each level. It is fun getting down to each level. Both the 7th and 13th tees are very elevated to fairways below. By the time you finish the 18th hole you're a long way down from the club house and there's a cable car to get you back up - I'm not sure how many golf courses in the world can boast having a cable car?

This is a picture across the gorge...



And this is a shot while riding up the cable car...



It's not often in a Solstice that I have a better round in the afternoon (after a big lunch of a Rat Hole burger and couple of pints) than the morning, but today I did. Rounds of 89 and 87 would have won the jacket for me in the Winter 2010 Solstice so I was pretty happy with the way things went.

Congratulations to Bucky for winning the Summer 2010 edition of the Solstice. He played off a 24 handicap and shot 89, 84 for 92 (or so) stableford points. It's very hard to beat that!!

Another great Solstice event - thanks Grunta for organising again.

My scorecard:




How to get there:



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Course 8: Titahi Golf Club

12 September 2010



The Titahi Golf Club is located in the hills on the southern side of the Paramata Harbour and it has the claim to fame of being the home course of Michael Campbell, the 2005 US Open champion.



We turned up to play on a wild, wet Sunday around lunch time. A round of the club champs was just finishing in torrential rain and 4 of us hardy golfers were seriously considering an afternoon watching Sky Sport at the local pub. We went in to check out whether the club even wanted us on the course - we did receive odd looks along the lines of "why on earth would you want to play in these conditions?".

Anyhow, we decided to play and it was very wet under foot. On the third hole one Tucky sent his ball down a gully and ended up sliding down to find it (see the result below...)



It was a tough day on the course, very wet and heavy underfoot. Even so, I had a blistering front 9 of 39 (with a double bogey on the 9th). It's only a 9 hole course and on the second time round things weren't nearly as good, starting with a quadruple bogey on the 10th!

The sun did eventually come out which made the wet feet easier to deal with and we all enjoyed a day of taking nonsense and a walk in the fresh air.

The photo below is my old mate Matt Archibald teeing off on the third hole. Looking 45 degrees to the right is a great view of the harbour (shown in one of the photos above).



My scorecard:



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