No less than nine birdies and two eagles on the Wadi course enabled the team of Mike Gerbich, Johnny Aldridge, Jaganeswaran Thangavelu and Subra Periyaasamy to take the festive honours in the Emirates Golf Club Christmas Scramble.
The team quickly shrugged off the disappointment of a double bogey on their first hole, the tough 18th on the Nick Faldo-designed layout, in commanding style by shooting four birdies and an eagle over their next five holes and stood on the sixth tee at four-under par for the round.
The scoring blitz continued in cracking fashion as a second eagle on the 10th and five more birdies saw them card an astonishing 11 under par gross total of 62 giving them a nett 60 under the usual scramble rules of deducting one tenth of their combined handicaps. Their sparkling round was only just good enough, however, to hold off a spirited challenge from husband and wife team Ken Matheson and Nova Matheson and Ken and Senga Newell who came home with a nett 60.6.
Third place went to scramble specialists Mick Brett, Berit Paton-Reid, Cheh Ngim Ratcliffe and Steve Ratcliffe who returned a nett score of 61.6 total.
Also receiving early Christmas presents were Viv Caley and Lloyd Stewart for their accuracy on the nearest the pin holes as well as Berit Paton-Reid and Rajiv Khatwani for the long drives of the day.
