At the start of play today MikeS held the lead with 22 points in the bank but if either Alan or I were to win , then we would join him on 22 points and the trophy would be shared. Mike’s task was simple – beat or else eliminate both Alan and myself. He got off to great start when providence intervened and contrived for Alan’s daughter to produce a baby girl yesterday which meant that Alan had to be on grandsons-sitting duty. So Mike’s rivals were reduced to just me.
With Alan dropping out, a space was available and MikeW quickly stepped in to fill the gap but only for a maximum of 12 holes because he had to depart early to look fondly on a grandchild performing in the nativity play – probably as a wandering star or perhaps a camel but who knows. Had he been able to play on then a victory by him would have put the trophy firmly in Mike’s hands.
Not for the first time had grandchildren intervened in the world of Ballbashing and I, for one, do not remember being asked if that would be OK by either of my offspring before they started continuing the family line.
The 4th member of our little fraternity was RobM and with no known requirements to sit on grandchildren, he was available for the full 18 holes and a victory by him would also have put the trophy into Mike’s sole possession. The balls were thrown and the two Mikes formed one team and RobM and I the other.
MikeS got off to a cracking start when he conjured a par following a very short drive – down the middle admittedly. But after 4 holes mostly played into the teeth of a very strong wind the teams were level on 7 points apiece as were MikeS and myself – it was clearly going to be a ding-dong battle – very festive!
I then birdied the short 5th to give us a 2 point lead but they struck back immediately by both scoring 3 points on both of the next holes – showing off I thought. MikeW then added another 3 points on the 8th but Rob scored 4 for 3 points on the same hole much to MikeW’s disappointment. We continued the front 9 to include the 10th hole because here MikeW had to depart to do his duty.
At this point I had 21 points to Mike’s 18 with Rob on 16. But Mike picked up a 5 for 3 points on the 11th and I scored a careless 6 for 1 and he reduced my lead to just 1 point. Although Rob contrived to hang onto the same ball for the whole round, a ball which he said had served him well for the previous 2 rounds as well, he certainly set himself some tough searching jobs as he was hitting the ball some distance but not always in the right direction.
The wind had died down a bit as we approached the end which certainly made golf a bit easier even if the muddy ground stopped the ball from rolling any distance. At least we weren’t spending a lot of effort just trying to stand still while hitting the ball – earlier in the round I was occasionally surprised by the fact that I had hit the ball as the downswing resembled the approach of a 737 landing at Heathrow in a gale.
Mike and I both par’red the 18th to end up with yet another tie on the back 8 but the 3 point lead I had established on the front 10 was sufficient to give me a victory and thereby tie with Mike for the Autumn League.
Once we had scraped the mud out of all orifices we joined RobA in the bar where he had given up hope of us arriving – it hadn’t seemed slow but mud disposal takes time. There we enjoyed tales of other people making vast fortunes out of buying into ventures very early and possibly without any knowledge of the risks, the latter being what stops lots of us from similar successes!
The results were:
Richard (36), MikeS (33), RobM (26), Mike W (17 on 10 holes).
The concludes our 2024 golfing – next up is the Ice Bucket, a famous old team event.