It was an interesting week at the Mount Gambier Golf Club to start 2024.


There was perfect weather on Thursday, not so perfect Saturday afternoon and a very rare occurrence with Nick Wilke winning both the Thursday competition and Saturday’s C grade event plus posting the best score of the day on Saturday.


Wilke also took out the January monthly medal.


Thursday’s field of 118 enjoyed another day of perfect weather with no wind conducive to good scoring.


That was the case for Wilke (33) who used his handicap to perfection with 22/22 splits that comprised nine three pointers but included only one par being the 18th.


Wilke recently returned to competition golf following an ankle injury that kept him sidelined from football with South Gambier and the purchase of a new set of irons has been the big improver in his game.


While Wilke was a clear winner on Thursday there were many other good scores with John Miles (18) also last week’s runner up continuing his good form with 40 points comprising 20/20 and included seven three pointers and a birdie four points on the difficult 12th.


Having lost a shot from last week another handicap reduction is on the way for Miles.


President Trevor Roberts played well for 39 points as did Matt Bryant and on 38 were Peter Emetlis, Nathan Taylor a recent Saturday winner, Trevor Younghusband and Mark Teakle.


The ball run down went to 35 points again with valued volunteer Rob McIntyre taking the last one.


The nearest the pins were taken out by Josh MacLean on the 8th and Kevin Cook on 16 but birdies were hard to come by.


Saturday morning golfers had the better of the conditions for the field of 104 before the late afternoon rain arrived.


Saturday was the monthly medal stroke round and as mentioned earlier Nick Wilke (28), being five shots less than Thursday, shot the round of the day 65 to take out C grade and the monthly medal.


Wilke had nett splits of 33/32 and improved on Thursday with five pars.


Wilke has lost another four shots off his handicap which makes a total of 15 shots since May 2023.


Josh MacLean (20) was the unlucky runner up with nett 66 which would normally be a winning score.


The long hitting MacLean has posted some good scores of recent times and playing the back nine first had nett 33 followed by a birdie on the first (his 10th hole), then picked up further shots with pars on two and six before the golfing gods brought him undone on the difficult 7th.


But still an impressive round.


They were followed on nett 68 by Brad McDonnell and Ian Ewart, on 69 Andrew Birks and Doug Reid then on 71 Scott Kenny and Cameron Buchanan (31) who was on a 40 handicap back in November 2023.


B grade was taken out by Peter Berkefeld (15) with nett 67.


It was a welcome return to form for Berkefeld who back in the day was quite a sportsman on the athletics track and cricket with West Gambier as well as being (and still is) a music tragic.


After a mixed bag front nine, Berkefeld rolled back the clock with a nett 31 on the back nine, shooting 38 off the stick.


Moryn Sullivan (11) also played well for nett 68 and similar to Berkefeld had a strong back nine nett 32 with a birdie, par, par, par finish.


It was enough to count out Daryl Hutchins also with nett 68, then on 70 were Peter Lock and Tony Revill and with 71 Bryce Whicker and Daniel Arch.


Good scoring on the back nine continued in A grade with Zac Shanks (7) the winner on nett 68 courtesy of a back nine nett 30, shooting 35 off the stick made up of birdies on 12 and 18 and one bogey on 13.


Matt Knowles (7) also with nett 68 would have fancied his chances of winning with a back nine nett 31, even par 36 with birdies on 15 and the difficult 17th and bogeys on 12 and 16.


It was a similar story for Rob McIntyre, nett 68 and nett 32 on the back nine.


Also with nett 68 was Michael Cutting (6).


He was followed on nett 70 by David Pick with another good score courtesy of playing more golf and Peter Waters, then on nett 71 Jason Shanks, under pressure from son Zac, and Jon Clayton.


The ball run down went to nett 75 with nearest the pin on the 8th taken out by club champion Darren Bilney and no surprise a birdie followed as did Mike Griffiths with a nearest the pin birdie on the 16th.