43 Points and 3 Mea Culpas

We will deal with the 43 points later but, in order to give myself some absolution I have to confess to the 3 Mea Culpas first.

The first sin that I committed yesterday was to break the Bsallbasher’s 1st Commandment and turn up to play golf without having indicated in Doodle that I planned so to do. I thought that expression of surprise on Mike’s face as he saw me emerging from my car was that I was still here but, not so, it was due to the fact that I was there. Luckily only 7 had signed up so I made the number 8 which was better.

My second sin was that I only contributed 3 points to our team score on the front 9 and, at the time, I thought zero points on the back 9. This leads neatly onto the my third sin which was to add up our team score inaccurately and so deprive us of a clear victory on the back 9.

I was partnered with Rob and I became so convinced that I had contributed nothing, that when we agreed his back 9 score and I deducted one point from his tally, I incorrectly deducted one point from the team tally as well, when actually I had contributed one point to our score on that hole. This mistake lead me into declaring a dead heat on the back 9 with Nick and Mike – it’s too late to change the final declared result now, but, in penance, I have given my meagre winnings of 2 BashCoins to Rob thereby ensuring that he does not miss out on his very just desserts.

With that lot of my chest, I can report on the match. Huntswood, alone out of the local clubs, were allowing buggies out yesterday as long as the golfer had good medical reasons for needing one. It is slightly surprising, given the state of the Ballbashers that we did n’t have 8 buggies out yesterday but 6 of us thought we might make it round the 18 holes including RobM who managed to wipe out all memories of his one shot participation last week by hammering his drive off the first tee way down the middle and setting off like a spring chicken for his next shot.

RobM was partnering JohnH and they, together with Mike and Nick, were the 1st 4-ball while Bill/JohnT and RobA/myself made up the following 4-ball. Bill was using JohnT’s buggy as a caddy and RobA hit the bare minimum number of shots so we kept up right behind the others all the way round despite my very erratic, and I would like to think uncharacteristic, contribution to proceedings in which I managed to par 2 of the toughest holes on the course but sprinkled blobs and one pointers all over the rest of the card.

RobA was continuing his recent very rich run of form, hitting some prodigious drives and very consistent 6-irons to score 19 points on the front 9. Bill and JohnT were also meshing well as a team apart from when they both scored 3 points on the 7th (though that’s far better than 2 blobs) and both teams scored 22 points on teh front 9 which we hoped might be sufficient – forlornly as it turned out.

RobA then proceeded to absolutely blow the back 9 away, scoring 17 points including two consecutive 4-pointers between the 12th and the 16th. He scored 24 points on the back 9 and thereby ended the day with a stunning 43 points. As a team we declared 24 points on the back 9 (though as explained earlier we actually had 25). Bill and JohnT had been keeping in contention until the 13th but Hurricane Rob did for them from there onwards.

The weather was very kind with no rain but the course was soft with very little run which makes RobA’s score even more remarkable.

The clubhouse was now open but fully booked with people having Christmas lunches – we had not realised that Huntswood was such a target for local gourmands. But PeteF had booked us and him a table at the Chequers in Hedsor where we found another excellent lunch snack menu on offer, very similar to the Feathers, which all goes to make you wonder why our local Cookham Dean hostelries cannot achieve similar.

The denouement revealed that Nick and Mike had racked up 24 + 24 points = 48 thereby winning the front 9, halving the back 9 and winning overall ( there’s now no doubt that Nick’s in-house simulator is paying dividends). They were followed by RobA and myself with 22 + 24 = 46, JohnH and RobM with 19 + 19 = 38 and Bill and JohnT with 22 + 15 = 37.

The Autumn League results were RobA 43, Nick 35, Mike 34, Bill 31, RobM 30, Richard 29, JohnH 25 and JohnT 24.

We were joined by PeteF and Ashley at the Chequers where the talk, for a change, focussed not on knees but on heart flutters – we could definitely contribute a medical column to the sports pages of the national press. The lunch was excellent as was the chat – we left in the dark.

As a postscript – RobA’s 43 points off the yellows at Huntswood is a new record and the Records Page on the website has been duly modified.