We were delighted to stage the first ever 9 hole PowerPlay Golf event in Scotland last Friday here at Kinross . Despite the fairly miserable weather on the day, a very impressive field of 130 golfers took part including 11 juniors. 

The gray, wet conditions did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of everyone who took part and everyone agreed that this new, shortened version of golf with the added element of strategy was enormous fun.  With every green having two flags / pin positions with the easy white flag and the difficult black flag.  Whoever decided on some of the black flag positions on the day undoubtedly has sadistic tendencies with that at the 8th hole in particular proving a huge challenge, set up as it was on a small raised plateau at the back of the green.

The scoring essentially uses the stableford points scoring system with double points being scored if you elect to play to the more difficult black flag and score a net par or better on that hole.  Every golfer has to elect to play 3 PowerPlays to the black flags within the first 8 holes and you have to declare it before you tee off on that particular hole.  The 9th & final hole poses a further risk / reward decision for golfers because anyone can opt for an additional (optional) 4th PowerPlay but on this occasion, if you then fail to get a net bogey or better, you actually lose 3 points – and yes, yours truly played it like a muppet and lost 3 points!

One of the main highlights of the day was the extremely generous sponsorship of Western Saab of Perth who offered 4 different unbelievable prizes for a hole-in-one at each of the white & black flags at the two par 3 short holes, the 3rd & the 7th.  The star attraction however was a Saab Convertible sitting on a plinth beside the 3rd green waiting for someone to  get a hole-in-one to the black flag for someone who had nominated that they were playing a PowerPlay.  It is a tricky hole at the best of times and the black flag position was pretty tough so under normal circumstances few of us would have selected that hole for one of our 3 PowerPlay holes – but most of us did anyway because we wanted to win the car!  Sadly nobody managed it although one group of 3 players unbelievably all played their balls to within 4 feet of the hole with the closest rolling gently past the hole and ending up a mere 15 inches away – so unlucky!  Me? I didn’t even trouble the green (even with my 2nd shot!).

Despite the wet conditions, there was some extremely high quality golf played.  At least 2 golfers managed to record a net albatross on a nominated PowerPlay hole to notch up 10 points on that hole alone.  One of those players, Ronnie McHale (9 handicap) actually went on to take overall honours on the day which I dare say should not come as a major surprise, particularly as he notched up a further 10 points on the following 2 holes (ie 20 points in total on the 4th, 5th & 6th holes).

The final results were as follows:

Men                                               Handicap                Strokes Received                  Points

1. Ronnie McHale                     9                                    5                                     31
2. Andrew Lockhart                   6                                    3                                     30
3. Jim Wardrope                        4                                    2                                     30
4. Roy Houston                         12                                   6                                     30
5. Tom Deacon                         18                                   9                                     29

Ladies

1. Deborah Rettie                    22                                 11                                     27
2. Trish Anderson                    27                                 14                                     25
3. Audrey Thomson                 21                                  11                                    23

Juniors

1. Ogilvie Robertson               11                                   6                                     26
2. Cameron Donaldson          10                                   5                                     25
3. Matthew Smith                     8                                    4                                     23

Team Event

1. Aly McGregor, Steven Hind & Scott Cook

All in all, and despite the inclement weather, both the event and the novel golfing format were deemed a great success and we are already planning to hold a bigger and better event next year over 18 holes, split into 2 separate 9 hole circuits.  If you did not play in our event last week, you ought to make certain you do so next year because it is a really fun way for golfers of all standards to play and enjoy themselves.