Ben Southall became the “Caretaker for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef” a couple of years ago through the Best Job in the World campaign. Ben loves @queensland and the Great Barrier Reef &
is one of the most energetic people I’ve ever met.

Ben tweets regularly about being in some wonderful part of Queensland…

Why the heck is it that Monthly Medal is the comp I seem to have a couple of blow out holes on?! Very frustrating…

Summary of the round:

Date played: 4th February, 2012
Score: 92 off the stick

Highlight: Definitely the par 5 6th hole which measures 439 metres (480 yards). After a cracking drive and a beautiful 3 wood approach, I had a downhill putt of around 2.5 metres for an eagle. Only my second ever eagle putt. I left the putt short, but made the birdie with a very easy tap in.

Lowlight: A tough call. Two shocking holes today. The par 3 tenth hole (the first hole played in the round) where I put the tee shot out of bounds (by around 30 cm’s) and I ended up with a 6. Or, the par 4 12th hole. After a great tee shot, my wedge into the green flew a little left of the green (not far!) and I couldn’t find the ball. I had to go back down to the location of the approach shot, dropped a penalty and then put my approach wedge left and into the greenside trees, duffed my chip and ended up with an eight on the hole. Those two holes were two of the first three played, thank heavens I corrected the round and got things back on track. I’d end up going with the effort on the 12th, my average on that hole is 5.5 and I ended up with an eight.

An interesting looking scorecard this weekend which included five pars and a birdie went with four bogeys. The round also included four penalties, FOUR! Two lost balls, one out of bounds and one in the water. #lesigh

The scorecard can be found http://golfshot.com/Rounds/Detail/34-8671929-8671977

Putting continued to improve this round. I had four one putts, but also had 2 x three putts. A total of 34 putts for the round. Putting continues to improve from the 40 plus putts in a round about a month ago. I can definitely continue to improve this phase of my game and aim to get down to the 30′ish putts per round consistently by the end of this year.

Pre-round handicap was 22 exactly. This round was a new entry into my best 8 rounds for handicapping purposes. It knocked out a 95 off the stick and my handicap drops to 21.6, so I still play off a 22 in next weeks comp.

I’ll try and get a couple of photos during future rounds. I know these reviews are a little droll without imagery… (maybe even with imagery they’re drool)

My bet for the weekend was a five leg multi of victory by the NBA’s Thunder and Magic, into the English Super League Leeds Rhino’s, into the NBL Gold Coast Blaze and PGA 3-ball victory by Webb Simpson over Keegan Bradley and Aussie Jarod Lyle.

A good result for the team with all five legs saluting.

Updated visual of results for each punter so far:

I am out in front by a ways, but, my style of punting can easily be run down by Mick. Mick backs 15-1 / 20-1 horses, so one win by him would put him in front. I need consistent collects to keep winning.

Matt’s a cluey dude who knows how the internet works and is an all round good guy. Currently tweeting about renovating his newly acquired house, you can expect to see a good mix of witty one liners and intelligent online marketing information.

Follow him, it’s worth it.

#notdeadtome

This years punters club trip will be to a golfing trip to China. Very excited by this. I’ll post more info here over the coming weeks, but I’ll post the weekly update here.

After 3 bets by each of my clubmates and two bets by me, the winning % is below… A % of 100 means money back on bets laid.

Oh yeah! That’s me out in front at the moment. I’m following my regular strategy of multi-bet combination on short priced fav’s.

(PS…. I bet these posts really bring in the SPAM)

#10 #goodpeople @brettow who runs BNE digital shop Speedwell. Very knowledgeable about digital & team does great work https://twitter.com/#!/ckjchambers/goodpeople

Summary of the round:

Date played: 21st January
Score: 90 off the stick

Highlight: Par three scored on the fifth hole. My tee shot (9 iron) flew the green and landed on the tee block, some 15 metres behind the green. My lie was sloped severely and I needed to chip down an embankment. Given the difficulty of the shot I was happy to land on the green and have a 7 or 8 metre putt left. I sunk it. My scores on the par 3′s today = 4, 4, 3, 6.

Lowlight: The par three 8th, which I knocked my tee shot well left. Chipped through the green, duffed a chip back on and then three putted… #lesigh

Last week I undertook an AimPoint putting lesson. More info to post on that later. I was hoping my putting would improve and it certainly did. I only recorded one three putt (break in concentration) and recorded three one putts.

No 7′s on the round! Nine bogeys and three pars.

Round result 21st January

The scorecard can be found http://golfshot.com/Rounds/Detail/20-8542412-8542446

Putting definitely improved a touch. I played the par three’s better than usual (except the 8th) and no blow out 7 or 8 scores on any single hole. Definite improvement, but had a couple of brain explosions.

My handicap pre-round was 22. Considering the round was inside my best 8 of the last 20, my handicap should drop lower. This round will knock a 95 out of the equation.

As at today I’ve only added 7 people. I certainly intend for it to be a far greater representation of all the good peeps I follow, but I am not intending on adding them all in one swoop. I’ve embedded onto this page http://www.ckjchambers.com/my-favourite-tweeters/ the list and their most recent tweets. The comments on that page include when I added each tweeter and why.

h/t to Mr Andy Elwood for the #goodpeople tag inspiration.

Whilst I am here, I’ll also add #8 to the list….

Rohit Bhargava – @rohitbhargava. Rohit’s twitter bio reads: “I write a blog about influential marketing. I work at Ogilvy. I have a personality. I wrote a book on why personality matters: readpni.com”

#goodpeople #8 @rohitbhargava posts regularly about online marketing & once sat on a TQ panel about “Best Job”. https://twitter.com/#!/ckjchambers/goodpeople

Summary of the round:

Date played: 27th December
Score: 84 off the stick (my best ever score) which was 45 Stableford points
Highlight: A near chip in second shot from 40 metres out, which resulted in an easy putt for birdie on the 9th hole
Lowlight: A disastrous three putt 7 on the par 5 third hole after having a pretty easy par putt.

My putting score was 30 putts. Statistically an excellent result, but this was achieved with a chip in “no putt” par on the first and two lengthy single putts on holes 12 and 16. There was two shocking three putts on back to back holes (holes 3 and 4) and I slide a lot of putts past the hole or missed short putts I should have made. I felt this was the least satisfactory phase of my game yesterday.

Scoring wise, I managed a birdie (mentioned above as the highlight hole), six pars, seven bogeys and 4 doubles.

You can find my scorecard on golfshot -> http://golfshot.com/Rounds/Detail/360-8309406-8309779

This was my lowest off the stick score. An 84, which could have been so much lower without a few dodgy putts. I dont know that I could have broke 80, but I would have gone close. The 45 stableford points was enough to register as second in the comp on the day.

My handicap dropped from 23.9 to 22.7. Means I am now playing off a 23 handicap. One more competition to play in 2011 and my handicap started the year at 28.1.

Dave Grohl was quite the entertainer, full of energy and engaged with the audience throughout the show. Grohl told a story about being arrested for drunk driving on a scooter after a “Big Day Out” concert years ago. I also loved the way he and Taylor Hawkins mucked around and teased the crowd about the number of songs which they would play during the encore.

This video is from the concert, not shot by me, but is of one of the better songs from the concert. Generator.

The setlist for the Foo Fighters Gold COast 2011 show can be found – http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/foo-fighters/2011/metricon-stadium-gold-coast-australia-4bd1230a.html

I found a couple of articles reviewing the concert:

The review on the Gold Coast Bulletin. Another review can be found on the triple m website

When the Foo Fighters next come back, I’ll be sure to get tickets again.