It has to be said that El Plantio is a course which divides opinion – some people simply won’t go having been let down in the past by poor condition and very high prices. Some people like the course lay out and are prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt especially at this week’s price of €36 including a buggy.
Well, the course was a bit of a mixed bag – the greens have not long been tined and were generally sandy, bumpy and woolly – not to everyone’s liking. The rest of the track was good to middling with the fairways showing improvement since our last visit although some tee boxes are rather scruffy.
We decided to hold a quick vote amongst the players as to who would keep El Plantio on the fixture list and most said they would – especially at the lower price.
Anyway, on to the competition results.
We had four guests this week with Kyrre bringing along some of his Norwegian chums – and didn’t they do well with cousin Nicklas Soderberg (29) coming second to Hasse Sorenson (35).
Only two categories this week as we only had 25 members playing.
In silver division Ken Flaherty (30) was 4th – Brian Mulligan (32) 3rd – Gerald Bannon (33) 2nd and Keith Little (34) 1st.
All very close and the scoring on the low side – this trend was repeated in the gold category. Dave Gibson (29) won on countback to take 4th – Graham Temple playing off 3 looked like he was going to demolish the course but sadly faded to take 3rd with 30 – Phil de Lacy (31) 2nd and Robin Eastman (32) 1st to leap to the top of the order of merit.
Nearest the pins – sponsored by The Property Shop – went to Nicklas Soderberg, Dave Alderdice (that one was very close), Dave Bishop and Kyrre Skarsmoen who was obviously showing off that he can hit the ball straight.
Last of the runners up was Alan Maidment who won a nice bottle of red sponsored by Mike’s IPTV.
There were 2 matches in the in-house matchplay league – Robin Eastman beating Norman Cahill 9 holes to 5 and Ken Flaherty beat Mick Roscoe 6 holes to 5 a close match.
Our thanks to El Plantio for an enjoyable day. To find out more about SMGS visit our website www.smgs.org or give our Captain, Tony Smale a call on 639129223. Next week we’re at Vistabella, then Hacienda Riquelme and Las Ramblas the following Wednesdays. We would welcome guests at each event.
