A beautiful day greeted a capacity field of 60 players (15 groups) on Sunday 8th of September in their attempt to qualify for the State Final of the 2024 Scramble – an Ambrose format event – with exclusions.
The winning four would progress to the State final at Sun City Country Club later in the year where they will be joined by host club professional Andrew Gott in a bid to qualify for the National Final in late November early December.
With only one team to qualify the stakes were high, and there were some excellent scores.
If you thought last year’s winning score of 55.375 was good wait a moment.
Firstly, one must mention the Runner up team of Alister Miles (+5 H’Cap), Matt Dumble (4 H’Cap), Gav Morgan (12 H’Cap) and Luke Clark (21 H’Cap) from Lake Karrinyup who had an amazing 58 off the stick for a nett score of 54 – surely that would be enough to win?
Enter the Unbehaun team of none other than the GM himself, Ben Unbehaun (14 H’Cap, Andrew Ogilvie (6 H’Cap) and two of Ben’s old schoolmates from Wongan Hills, Brad Lyon (24 H’Cap) and Todd Farrell (36 H’Cap who after a Gross Score of 63 had a Nett score of 53 to win by a single shot from the unlucky Miles team.
Third was a team which included two of last year’s winning four, Brendan Jones (4 H’Cap) and Will Edibam (14 H’Cap). They were joined by Brayden Blackham (6 H’Cap) and Samuel Gelavis (27 H’Cap). 62 Gross, resulted in a nett score of 55.675, nearly but not quite.
In fourth spot was another youthful combination of Keedan Nelles (1 H’Cap), Joe Jones (9 H’Cap ), Oliver Bisschops (16 H’Cap) and Oz Cooke (30 H’Cap) who also had 63 Gross for a nett score of 56
And finally, the 5th placed team, who after the winners, were the best of the “non-youth” teams, with an average age of 58 – Gavin Parker (5 H’Cap), Mark Palmer (11 H’Cap), Shane Maloney (12 H’Cap) and Jeff Lane (17 H’Cap) –Gross 62 and nett 56.375.
So, the Scramble is over for another year and on behalf of all players a big thankyou to our professional Andrew Gott for his organisation and congratulations to Ben, Andrew, Brad and Todd on a magnificent winning score of 53 and we wish them all the best for the State Final
Editor’s Footnote – I had the pleasure of playing this year and the MVP award in our group went to Greg Paddon –for marking every closest putt and for retrieving the ball from the hole on all 18 holes – we knew he was there for a reason!!
From Greg Fitzhardinge
