With the city waking up to persistent rain and squally showers on  Saturday morning, it did not take long for intending players to start pulling out of the Blue Lake Golf Club’s Par round.

By day’s end only 41 men and just the one  lady, Fiona Punton, braved the bleak conditions and the bravest of those were Cory  Davis, Josh Ransom and Andrew Russell who were the only players to finish in the positive.

It came down to a recount to split the winners, with C grade’s Davis and A grade’s Ransom both finishing tied on +3.

It was the former who was awarded the status of overall winner thanks to his +5 over the inward nine.

Davis was out of tune early, taking his time to get accustomed to the conditions, but returned to form and despite a minus on the 15th, he finished with three positive scores over the last three holes.

Ransom, with a handicap (8), had to settle for the grade win.

He also finished strongly with six pars over the last six holes for +4.

A grade’s Bob White (eight) was one of two players to finish with -2, having equal splits of -1.

Lachlan Byrne was the other player to finish with -2 which was enough to take out the C grade win.

Also having equal splits of -1 was Byrne (28) who finished strongly with pars on the 12th and 16th holes.

A countback was needed to decide second and third in the grade, with Mario Mancuso and Tony Morandin finishing on -4.

Fortunately for Mancuso he did all his  impressive scoring on the back nine.

Morandin went close to matching that score, falling just one plus short of Mancuso.

Ball winners were headed by David Adkins on -3, followed by Keith Ransom, Adam Dunn, Trevor Little, Josh Gale, Stephen Smith, Fred Knight, Dieter Rostig, Kevin Mansell and Brett Perryman.

White and Ransom picked up the Pro  shots on the fifth and 16th holes, respectively, while Little was the only one to win a  Nearest The Pin prize.

 In a culmination of a year-long Par winners competition, the 12 monthly winners  battled it out for the overall prize of a Party Pack, with the winner being Josh Ransom with his score of +3.

While nearly every player struggled to play under their handicap in last Tuesday’s mid-week stroke competition, there was only one who had the steel to do so: Tony Steen with his round of 79-11-68.

Steen had an average round going at first, turning with a 42 that was soured with a double bogey on the eighth.

Steen hit a superb 37 on the inward nine, thanks to birdies on the 11th and 14th.

Having been knocking on the door in the past, Steen finally picked up a win.

Two vintage West Gambier stalwarts, Colin Stratford and David Lock, tied for second with a nett 72.

It was Stratford who was finally declared the victor.

Ancillary prize winners included Frank Pinneri winning the Pro Shot.

Stratford won the novelty prize, alongside ball winners Rob Ellis, Matt Davidson, Geoff Munt, Andrew Stark, Trevor Gartside, Trevor McLean, Ben Gordon and David Adkins.