Only one flight played at the empty Beruntung golf course with most of the fairways soggy from the heavy rain the night before and speedy greens. The weather was hot and humid and we finished around nun time avoiding the big storm, where we got that otw back to KL. The winner today was Ricardo Castro with 81 for 35 points, followed by Bernhard Romahn with 95 for 28, and in third place was our Swedish Viking Hans Berger with 132 for 20 points. No lunch this time.
Christmas lunch was held at the newly restored Renaissance Hotel with a superb feast, 5-star service, and facilities provided to us in a nice private room, with special thanks to Bipan Kapur. Twelve of us were in a great Christmas mood and everyone came on time assembling at R Bar, with a bottle of wine and Christmas headgear except Hans who had to pay a fine of 50.00Rm. Also, Roland had to pay 50.00 Rm because he failed to read properly the flyer and forgot to wear the LC shirt. After collecting all the bottles Tony Morris the wine master checked every bottle with the final verdict, Martin and Fritz’s bottles were the crapiest wines and both of them had to pay 50.00 Rm each with some complaints about the judge’s decision. Following the LC tradition, this year we had 4 virgins (Bent, Mike, Fritz & Roland), and with Tony’s paradise bird voice, he sang a traditional song for the punished virgins, and four of them had to drink a full glass of beer standing on the top of the sofa. After we all make a move to the private room to initiate the second half of the festivities. First Ricardo distributed to everyone the 2023 summary season report with all the numbers until the 5th of December, he also thanked Jan for all the hard work from January until the end of October with bookings and hdc reports, to our sponsors and LC members for their continuous support to our society. Also was reported that the new shirt will be ready end of December, and we will join the charity project “Swing for Humanity” charging every game 5.00 Rm for every player next year. Tony proposed that we should increase that contribution to 10.00 Rm which was 100% accepted and from January 2024 I will start collecting and I will report every 3 months to everyone the numbers. After all the formalities we started with our lunch, first a nice buffet, with a lot of choices, and after 1 hour the first delicious main course was served (King Prawn with Black Angus Beef Tenderloin) followed by the second one (Special Christmas, Roasted Big Chicken) and to finish in style a nice combination of Christmas puddings, Pavlova and other delicious cakes, all well presented. We also got a video call from our LC father Mike Smith to say some words and we were all happy to see him in good spirits. Before dessert, everyone had to sing or tell a joke. Andrew Robinson thanked the convenor for all the hard work and also a few words to the demised Cannons members. We finished around 4pm with a full belly and 12 bottles of wine empty, including the two cappiest bottles. On behalf of all LC members, I want to say thank you to all Renaissance staff and wish Merry Christmas to all regular LCs, overseas and past members, and extensive families, may the new year bring all of us good health, happiness, fortune, and love. For the magnificent twelve thank you for coming and making the lunch even more special and to all thank you for your support throughout the year.
Cheers
Ricardo Castro
BEFORE THE PARTY.
LC CHRISTMAS GIFT BAGS.
THE ASSEMBLING.
THE VIRGIN PUNICHEMENT CEREMONY.
PHOTO GROUP. THANK YOU TO RENAISSANCE HOTEL.
SECOND HALF. CHRISTMAS LUNCH.
ANDREW’S REMEMBERING THE DEMISED CANNONS MEMBERS.ALL OUR PRAYERS AND THOUGHTS.
JOKES AND SONGS TIME.
PERFORMANCE OF THE DAY.
THE 500 GAMES RESTRICT CLUB.ANDREW HAS518 GAMES, TONY 532 GAMES, HANS 503 GAMES AND ALL STILL COUNTING.LONG LIFE FOR OUR SPECIAL CANNONS MEMBERS.
The first game of December was held at Nilai Springs. Only two flights (3+4) teed off on time on Mango 9 followed by Island 9. The weather was hot and sunny, and the course was in good condition but the greens were not easy to judge the speed, sometimes fast and slow, and pin positions were always very tricky costing many puts for everyone. The winner today was Roland Steiner with a splendid 89 for 39 points, followed by Ricardo Castro with a reasonable 81 (lowest gross) for 35 points, and in third place was Bent Serritslev with 103 for 32 points. After the game six of us stayed at the club for lunch and we presented 50.00 Rm to Ricardo Castro for his win in last month’s competition and the other 50.00 to the homeless (he forgot his wallet) Roland Steiner. After lunch, he left and 10 minutes later he came back because he left his mobile on the table, so too many senior moments in one morning!!!!! For the ones attending our Christmas lunch this Friday we are looking forward to a nice celebration in style.
The last game of November was held at Bukit Kemuning with two full flights. Registration was smooth and we were able to tee off from hole one led by the speedy Tony Gonzalez, as even the second flight was still at the buggy station Tony was already teeing off. The course was playable even with the rain the last few days, with some holes the fairways were soggy but we know how to avoid that. The winner today was Ricardo Castro with a tremendous 76 (Lowest gross and his best-ever score) for 41 points, followed by Bernhard Romahn with a consistent 87 for 36 points, and in third place Bent Serritslev with a reasonable 102 for 33 points. With these results, Ricardo is the champion for the November competition with 78 followed by Roland with 74, and in third place is Bernhard with 71 points. November games are closed and for the LCOTY competition, Ricardo cemented his first position with 11 points ahead of Bernhard. The first game of December will be at Nilai Springs.
The man of the day was Hans Berger, commemorating his 500 games with Loose Cannons and we all witness this special moment with him. The course as always was playable, very dry, the ball rolling well gaining more distance from the landing point, and everyone enjoyed the round but the results were not so great with only 2 players scoring over 30 points. The winner today was David Cheung with 95 for 32 points followed in second by Ricardo Castro with 85 (lowest gross) for 31 points and in third place was our Austrian pro with 97 for 30 points. After the game six of us headed to our favorite restaurant East of Highway to commemorate Hans’s 500 games with a lot of prawns and cool beers, and the bill was kindly sponsored 100% by Hans. We presented Hans with a special LC shirt and an LC cap as a symbol of his milestone. Hans is now part of the Restrict 500 club, joining Andrew Robinson and Tony Morris. Well done Hans and keep counting for many years with us.
Cheers
Ricardo
FINAL RESULTS TABLE.
WINNER PRIZE CEREMONY.
500 GAMES GIFT CEREMONY. CONGRATS TO HANS BERGER FOR HIS MILESTONE.
Our usual Tuesday game was postponed to Wednesday instead due to Diwali/Deepavali holiday falling on Tuesday. Being a long weekend, many usual participants were away resulting in only having a single full flight (Bernhard, David C, Hans, and Roland). Nevertheless, we kept each other entertained and the game was competitive with fairly good scores.
We teed off from the 10th hole, Roland sunk a long-range putt to card a birdie to get us in the mood while Bernhard had a 10-footer birdie on our last hole, hole #9. Green was a tag slow but rolled very true, fairways were good though I never saw much of them. The course was not crowded and our round ended within 4 hours of play. We had lunch at our usual seafood restaurant beside the river and were not restricted to ordering spicy food.
The eventual winner was Roland with an impressive 40 points while Bernhard recovered from his disastrous 1st 9 to finish 2nd with 37 points, and in third place was Hans with a nice 35 points followed by David with 33 points.
Back to Bangi for the first game of the month and played Bangi and Putrajaya nines with flight 1 and 3 teed of Bangi and flight 2 Putrajaya, making quite a smooth and fast round especially flight 2 with speedy Tony Gonzalez leading the pace. Fairways the same conditions as before but I found this time the greens were not in good shape, with 3 different kinds of grass, quite fast which was difficult to judge the speed. We welcomed our guest Mike Ravlich who played his second game. The winner today was Fritz with a nice 93 for 38 points, followed closely by Ricardo (lowest gross) and Bent both with 37 points, and in third place David C and Roland both with 36. Iain Wise got his deserved 50.00Rm prize for his high performance in the October competition. After the game seven of us had a great lunch at East of Highway and the bill was 100% sponsored by Ricardo and Josef celebrating their birthday.
Today we played with good success Staffield again. In spite of the rain in the last few days/weeks, the course was in good condition. Some places were a bit soggy, but not too much. We were allowed to drive on the fairways so that was good. The greens were hard and in very good condition.
We teed off nice and early at 7.30 to beat the crowd of a tournament that morning. A very good experience, worthwhile to repeat as it gives a bit more rest in the game, and lunch can start relatively early and be more relaxed. Lunch as usual was at the club itself.
We played the Western and Southern courses with very good results for some of us.
We had three players who played better than their handicap. In third place, was Ricardo with a total of 38 points. Second was again Iain, who has been scoring very well the last couple of weeks, with 41 points. However, the first place with an enormous amount of points, more than I ever have seen, is our own Markus. He exploded and scored a total of 49 points. Rightfully he said about himself that that is called in Dutch, a “dual-boot” (submarine). Markus, well done, and obviously, your handicap went down by 2 points!
This was the last game of myself as convener for the Loose Cannons. I wish you all a good couple of months. I will be back in March next year.
For the following three days, we decided to form teams of two players, who would play a competition next to the normal individual competition. The teams were: “The Royal Balls” – Ricardo/Frans; “The Booze Cannons” – Josef/Diederik; “TOGAS” – Bernard/David; “The Hackers” – Jan/Fritz.
On Tuesday we had our regular game at Forest City. We played the Classic Course, and that was a splendid experience. Playing on a carpet, even the tees were immaculately green. That was certainly a delight. It is not an easy course, with water and a lot of bunkers around. The weather turned very hot, and in particular, it affected the second nine for a few of us. Good scoring however, with David and Ricardo sharing the third place with 32 points, Josef in second with 33 points, and Bernard, the winner with 35 points! Monday evening we were with the full 8 players and decided to have dinner at the waterfront opposite the Berjaya Hotel. And that was a mistake. We didn’t know that a new owner just took over three days before, and that was very noticeable. The beer wasn’t really beer, but resembled another yellowish liquid, and tasted very bad. So we will certainly remember that.
Wednesday we started with the first game of the two-day competition. We played at Senibong, a great course, with a lot of water on the course, but that didn’t distract us too much. Interesting there is that the first hole is a very intimidating hole over the water, dog left right, and again over the water. Because the course was relatively short, we played off the blue tees there.
Josef came in third here with 32 points, Bernard followed in second with 34 points and Ricardo had a great day with 39 points!
After the first two days, TOGAs was first with 127 points, Royal Balls second with 124 points, The Booze Cannons third with 122 points and The Hackers hacked around the courses with 91 points
On the last day, we played the Cempaka course at Palm Resort. Again great weather, luckily a bit of a breeze, because in some places it became very hot! The only disappointment there was that the greens were treated just the week before and became very slow and irregular.
The scoring was good however with Bernard winning with 33 points, Ricardo followed with 31 points and Josef was third with 29 points.
This all ended up with the Royal Balls winning with 183 points, just beating TOGAS with 1 point (182), The Booze Cannons ending third with 178 points and The Hackers finishing with 128 points.
For the individual standings, Ricardo finished as winner with 70 points. He received the special shirt and an LC cap. Bernard was second good for a bottle of wine, Josef third with an MST voucher, Diederik was 4th with an LC cap, Frand was 5th with a Pampas food voucher, Jan was 6th with a Pampas wine voucher, a sleeve of balls was for David and Fritz received a towel.
The count of total birdies was a very simple one. Only one birdie was scored by Bernard, good for an MST voucher.
After a good lunch at the club, we left around 2 p.m. for our trips back home.
A group of 6 players played on Monday a fun game at the Orchard Golf Club. A club where you don’t make a booking, just walk in and play. We played with two 3-balls and had indeed fun. The course was good, greens and fairways were well maintained, so it was worthwhile playing there. Not too expensive either!
On Tuesday we had our regular game at Forest City. We played the Classic Course, and that was a splendid experience. Playing on a carpet, even the tees were immaculately green. That was certainly a delight. It is not an easy course, with water and a lot of bunkers around. The weather turned very hot, and in particular, it affected the second nine for a few of us. Good scoring however, with David and Ricardo sharing the third place with 32 points, Josef in second with 33 points, and Bernard, the winner with 35 points!. With these results October competition, Iain is still firm in first place with 73 points followed by Bernhard now with 71 points, and in third place Josef with 69 points.
Loose Cannons KL Blog 