It was time for the brave talk to end and for Maclean’s best and wanna bees to take the Challenge of this year’s Championships.

Storms and heavy rain greened up the whole course and the greens returned to more manageable speeds for now.

With preferred lies on fairways only, rakes and no relief in bunkers, flagsticks being handed around the greens between players and the return of marking your partners score some players, found the stress levels just bit too much with some spectacular highish scores throughout the field.

With four grades and gross prizes in each grade at the end of the four rounds the watchword was safety and damage limitation.

In A Grade, Shaun Rose completed a curate’s egg of rounds to come in with a good score of 75. Four birdies and couple of howlers kept the spectators wondering what would happen next. In second place was Luke Many with solid 78. Only one more of the likely contenders broke 80 with Mark Rae on 79. But its early days and even those ten shots behind will feel two good rounds with mistakes above them will give them a chance.

In B Grade, Tony Johnson led the way with an excellent 84. He was closely followed by Coby Tabor and Wayne Mackaway just two shots back.

In C Grade, Scott Young just pipped Brett O’Connor, both on 89.

D Grade was well led in by Ryan Wisley with 99 was the only player in his grade to break the “ton” but following close behind was club legend John O’Keefe.

Net prizes in A Grade went to David Bruton, Andrew cowling and Shaun Rose.

In B Grade Greg Doolan just pipped Wayne Mackaway and Tony Johnson.

In C Grade Scott Young and Brett O’Connor both headed the handicap prizes.

In D Grade the gross winners similarly took the handicap prizes.

There will have been many ball prizes but if you had terrible round, don’t expect a ball.

In the true spirit of the inclusive golf that Maclean is known for, a women’s Stableford was run concurrently with the men’s championship.

It was hotly contested: Christine Powell, Sherree Forsythe and Kylie Ryan all had 33 points and could only be separated on countback.

Apart from the “new” rules to contend with, we also returned to nearest the pin prizes. Our par three holes all have new sponsors and full details of these enhanced nearest the pin and regular hole in one prizes to be announced next month.

 Miles James