The number of playing Ballbashers was too small to permit the usual Snowdrop Tankard prizes to be purchased. So, sadly, the victorious Ballbasher(s) were not going to return home to frighten the general manager with an amazing array of Indian chutneys or perhaps Lidl’s best offering on the Turkish theme. With the final dropout making us but 3 in number, the winning team was only to consist of one player and he would have to make do with scooping up the majority of the BashCoins.
Nick withdrew in the morning for fear of dissolving in the forecast rain, leaving Stuart, myself and Peter R to brave the elements. Stuart took some convincing, firstly he phoned to make sure that I had seen Home and Dry and then when I reported back that I was prepared to risk it and we duly arrived at the club, he had to be once again persuaded that we would be enjoying ourselves in the mizzle or whatever came our way for the first hour.
We elected to play off the green tees to shorten the time we would spend enjoying the rain and we all hit very encouraging monstrous drives down the first fairway. That part of my game continued to work quite well for the rest of the round but what happened next became a bit of a struggle. It was much less so for Peter and although I won the front 9 with 16 to Peter’s 15 and Stuart’s 11, Peter then turned on the after-burners and disappeared out of sight on the back 9.
Stuart was obviously feeling a tad aggrieved not to be sitting in the warmth of the clubhouse with his hands round a cappuccino and this seemed to imbue his shots with a random dispersal shape. No more so than on the downhill 8th where he came within 6 inches of his ball disappearing down the Henley Road embedded in the bonnet of a passing pensioner. The photo opposite shows the moment of triumph when he retrieved it from the fence railings along with what looks like an appropriate wellie boot.
As mentioned above, Peter went on the attack on the back 9 and ended up with 5 x 3-pointers on the 7 holes we played. Along the way I lost a favourite golf ball into the cut-through road running alongside the 11th fairway – you would think that at something like 250 acres, there would be enough space to keep the ball inside the course but where there’s an opportunity to hook, shank or pull, there’s an opportunity to escape the confines.
We had been playing at a high rate of knots and got round the front 9 in about 1½ hours so I sent out a rallying call to the Dining Club that we should finish at 1pm. I had reckoned without Stuart’s desire to stop playing in the rain and when we caught up with a 4-ball in front after the 14th, he suggested that we head for the clubhouse. However I harboured over-optimistic thoughts that I might yet catch up Peter and suggested we head for the 17th which we did. Peter then immediately scored 3 points on the 17th to completely squash my optimism and we swiftly completed the 18th thereby taking us just under 3 hours to play the whole round.
We retired for lunch and were duly joined by 5 members of the Dining Club – Pete, Nick, Bill and Rob, plus Robert M on his first trip to the club since his hip replacement, and he arrived without any crutches or other support aids looking very hale and hearty.
There ensued the usual wide-ranging discussions on health issues, weapons of mass destruction, AI and the problems of trans-gender athletes – luckily the latter has yet to be an issue in the ranks of the Ballbashers who, by now. have probably forgotten what gender they are supposed to be.
The 3 golfers, exhausted from their efforts in the rain, crept away leaving the Dining Club in full flow with Nick just started on his first piece of cake.
The scores were Peter (32), Richard (24) and Stuart (21).
