The hallowed fairways of Royal Melbourne were the scene of Round 3 of division 3 Colts pennant. With the Latrobe side in last place on the ladder, coming up against the fifth placed side Eastwood meant that there was a glimmer of hope that the Latrobe side could win the day and avoid relegation. With Dr Alister MacKenzie’s unforgiving layout in front of them, the boys knew anything could happen.

With Matt Sellars out of a game in the VGA side, and ineligible to play colts, he took up the duties caddying for captain Keegan Michael, replacing Geoff Blackman, who took second gamer Nick Kalifatidis’ bag. Geoff’s experience proved extremely useful, with Nick taking an early lead in the match with some accurate hitting. Despite some nervous holes coming home, Nick displayed great determination to close out the match 2&1 and record his first pennant win. Niko Serdenes also kept his great season going, with a dominant display from start to finish, taking his match 6&5. This put Latrobe in a great position, only needing one of the remaining matches to fall in our favour to take the contest. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, with Aiden May being outgunned early, and Keegan Michael struggling on the complex greens. Cooper Bricks remained valiant to the end, forcing his opponent to make some clutch putts to win the match. Sadly for the Latrobe side, his opponent was up to the task, winning the match on the 17th. The final result was a 3-2 loss for the Latrobe side.

With Sunday’s loss, the Latrobe side stays in last place on the ladder. However with 6th place Medway losing 5-0 and 7th place Kew losing 4-1, there is still a glimmer of hope. For this Sunday’s final round at Huntingdale, Latrobe need to win. Provided we can do that, our fate then lies in the hands of Kew and Medway, with Latrobe needing Kew to lose, and Medway to lose, while winning 2 matches fewer than Latrobe. Having seen the fight that the boys have put in all year, I have no doubt that the Latrobe side can do it.