In days long past (about 50 years-worth to be preciser) such statistics would, unless he had a particularly interesting kink, have kindled not a flicker of interest in the average unreconstructed Ballbasher. These days, as models of reconstructed new men, we all get excited by such numbers – of course much more so if you have the 43 but even the holders of the 41 get pleasure from coming so close. Who was responsible for these numbers will be revealed further on.
Seven off us gathered at Winter Hill for the first match in Ashley’s Tankard series all excited to see what culinary challenges Ashley’s prizes would set us and knowing that they are the only prizes that the general manager at home considers worthwhile. Peter, Ashley and Michael had planned to have buggies and they were joined by Mike who had found that the mental effort to remember his shoes had consumed any mental bandwidth to do with remembering his battery.
The two buggies set off in front of the remaining 3 of us – Alan, Stuart and myself – with a semi-convincing story that they would be well ahead of us after just a hole. When they appeared to be out of reach we drove off and were then somewhat surprised to find them coming back towards us as we strode up the fairway. Total confusion was rampant in their midst which was only made clear by Ashley realising that he had played Mike’s ball in error. His own ball was, by now, some 50 yards behind us. Luckily there were no spectators around wondering how there appeared to be 7 players in the middle of one hole with two heading rapidly backwards in a buggy – I guess they would have just shrugged their shoulders and said “it must be the Ballbashers who have been let out again”.
After this hiatus, normal play resumed and they did indeed keep a convenient half a hole ahead of us for the rest of the round so we were not held up and had no-one behind us pressurising us. Since it had stopped drizzling when we tee’s off, it all made for very pleasant golfing conditions.
Unfortunately however, the three of us got off to a very poor start. We were playing single better ball and the 2-balls ahead of us had been given a 10% uplift on their handicaps to recognise that they were 2 players and we were 3. For the first 4 holes there could have been 30 of us playing the same way in our team and our scores would have been no better. On the long Par 3 3rd hole Alan and I both put perfectly respectable drives into that blasted bunker in the middle of the fairway and by the time we had each taken 2 shots to get out of it, during which period Stuart had put his ball into the greenside bunker, we had scotched any chance of a decent score and ended up with 1 point.
As keeper of the scorecard I pointed out to my playing partners that we were in serious danger of coming way last unless we scored 3 points on each of the remaining 5 holes. Alan then scored 3 points on the 5th followed by Stuart on the 6th and then both indicated that I might like to pull my finger out on the 7th which fortunately for intra-team relationships I managed to do, and then followed that by par’ring the 8th and 9th to give us a possibly respectable 21 points.
On the back 9 we started better perhaps because we had finished any discussions about wealth taxes and what we made of Burnham on the front 9, and now were into jollier subjects such as how well Arsenal are doing versus all of their main competitors assuming you don’t include Brighton in that category. Although Stuart was having serious issues with his radar we managed to come off the 18th with 22 points.
Retiring to the clubhouse we found Bill enjoying his lunch – it was now close to 3pm – hopefully he wasn’t on his 3rd. Jolly chatter ensued in which Ashley described how much more relaxing it was when your daughter invited you to her wedding on the day of the wedding thereby avoiding 12 months of angst about which hat you should wear.
The scores were then revealed to be (another plus for our brilliant handicapping system):
Ashley & Michael: 19 + 22 = 41
Mike & Peter: 21 + 21 = 42
Alan, Stuart & myself: 21 + 22 = 43
So the 3 of us had the pleasure of taking home a complete set of ingredients to make pepperoni and mozarella pizzas – there being just 2 sets Stuart kindly (?) just took a couple of items leaving Alan and I the task of taking some Italian cookery lessons. Life is never boring in the Ballbasher world!!
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