The mens eclectic started last Sunday. This was quite a popular event last year with 37 participants and over 3kg of cards returned during the season, and it looks like it will also gather a good amount of people this year - I have collected over 50 cards from the box in the first 7 days! The new score cards are twice the size (and weight) of the previous cards, so perhaps we are heading for a 5kg season. I might need to find a bigger cupboard to store the cards this year. The leaderboard can be seen from here. If you have not yet put in your first eclectic card then why not do so next time you play? It is free to join and it is a lot of fun - it is not too late to join in!
The kuukausikilpailu also started last Sunday and the scoring has been pretty unbelievable. I was quite happy with my round yesterday (38 points) until I saw that 5 of the 15 other competitors had returned better scores than me, with four of them scoring over 40 points! The 288 rounds played in the kuukausikilpailu last season included only 6 rounds of over 40 points so it is quite amazing that we have already had four such rounds in 2013.
For those who have not yet played their first round in the kuukausikilpailu, there are still 12 days to do so, there must be something magic in the air at the moment so why not try and beat the 43 points total which Rami Veranen somehow managed to compile.
As I have mentioned previously, entries are open for the reikäpeli events. Matchplay is a very special form of golf as you really get to compete against your opponent face-to-face instead of playing against the course. Matchplay frequently brings out amazing performances from the competitors and for some competitors it takes them to a different level that strokeplay never seems to (e.g. Ian Poulter in the Ryder Cup). I will be using my blog in the next couple of weeks to try and persuade you to join these events.
The Nelipallo Cup
The competition is played in a fourball-bestball format which you might be familiar with from the "fourballs"
in the Ryder Cup matches. The term "Nelipallo" is from the official Suomen Golfliitto name for this format.
How does it work? You play in a team of two against another team of two. Handicap is used, each player in the match gets strokes from the lowest handicap in the match (so strokes are done on an individual basis not a team basis). Each player plays their own ball on every hole and the best score (after handicap) counts as the
team's score for that hole. It is matchplay... so you win the hole if your teams best score on that hole is better than the other teams best score on that hole. The more detailed rules can be seen from here.
The great things about this format, in my opinion, are the following...
- you play with a partner, that allows for tactics (e.g. "you get the safe par so that I can go for the birdie")
and also allows for taking some risks that you would not normally take... your partner can always save the day!
- handicap is used, so everyone can compete equally
- although you are playing as a team, you play your own ball all the time (not like foursomes or scramble)
... this combines to make it one of the most fun ways to play!
The competition is open to all Kytäjä members, teams can be all male, all female or mixed... and if you want to play but cannot find a partner then you can enter as a single player and a partner will be selected for you.
The first ever winners of the Nelipallo Cup were Petri Syrjänen and Jukka Kymäläinen who managed to hole a decisive putt on the 18th green. Why not join the competition in 2013 and try to be the ones to inherit their title!
Andy
P.S. - thanks to everyone who keeps visiting this website. The site has been active for 14 months now and last weekend it passed an unbelievable milestone - there site has now been visited over 50,000 times! Lets see if we can get to 100,000 visits before the end of the year.