THE winner of Highlands Golf Club’s Harold Durbin and Ron Kite sponsored Mittagong Cup was David Tasker with a great 68 off the stick.
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Amazingly with his handicap of three, he failed to get a mention in the ball competition.
After initially withdrawing due to the impending arrival of his second child (who subsequently decided the time wasn’t quite right to enter the world), I was fortunate to play with David and witness some of the best ball striking I have ever seen outside of the professional ranks.
Better luck on the greens would have easily seen him card a 65. While on the subject of sub-par rounds, I have it on good authority that professional Lee Hunt returned a handy 66 off the stick.
Jeff Carey returned to the winners circle to take out the A Grade nett with 66, thanks in part he says to his revised handicap of 10.
He just edged out Richard Crawford who finished on nett 67, whose 72 scratch would have been in the running for the cup had it not been for David’s round.
The nett scores only got better in the lower grades with Bruce Tasker (no relation to David) recording a nett 63 to take out B Grade from Brad Webb, who finished with a nett 64. Meanwhile, James Ritchie won the B Grade scratch with 80.
The nett round of the day belonged to Gavin Low, who came in with a nett 62 to win C Grade from Bill Gould who shot a nett 64. Allen Rooke recorded a solid 88 to win the C Grade scratch.
I’m not sure whether the new handicapping system is responsible for so many low nett scores being returned, with nett 70 struggling to win a ball on Saturday.
From a personal viewpoint, we have gone from a system where it was too easy to lose shots and difficult to get them back to a system where it seems too easy to get them back yet not lose any shots.
A number of winning scores in the low 60’s have been returned over the last few weeks where the player hasn’t lost any shots off the handicap.
I have a feeling there will be plenty of opinion about this system in the future.
While I realise there is no such thing as a perfect handicapping system, it concerns me that in this modern era we cannot come up with a more equitable system.
Over to you, mathematicians.
