Mill Ride may currently be in the hands of Rachel from Accounts and possibly about to be sold to Maidenhead Golf Club, but, even with this uncertainty, it is being maintained to the highest standard, perhaps to enhance the prospects of its sale. Although, between them, the Ballbashers encountered the 5 large lakes, sometimes many times, we all agreed that it is an excellent golf course and we all enjoyed playing it whatever our results.
So what made it so good? My list would be: very friendly staff, £35 green fee charge, very good bacon baps before playing, beautiful setting with lots of mature trees and natural water features, plenty of soft sand in the bunkers, very smooth (but lightning quick) greens, flat fairways in excellent condition, interesting holes, Halfway House open with big sausage rolls, Red tees perfect for us, no hills to climb and great company. What more could we ask for?
The only downside of very little consequence: no toasted tea-cakes afterwards – and that’s a real quibble.
Alan had made the booking and very kindly sponsored the bacon baps – you can ask him how that came to be. He had pre-drawn the pairings but when JohnH had to withdraw on the morning following an unplanned encounter with a patio slab when inspecting, at worm’s-eye level, the patio building works in his new garden thereby damaging something in his rib cage. Not wanting to totally miss out, he sportingly turned up for the pre-game coffee and bap and luckily the injury did not prevent his enjoyment of his double fried egg version. I always think that a golf club that automatically provides brown sauce with the bacon baps has totally nailed how to run the place.
So the teams became MikeS, Bill and myself going off first as a 3-ball, followed by the two pairs of Alan & RobM playing with MikeW & RobA.
Once the three of us set off, the only person we then encountered over the whole 18 holes was the fish farm manager feeding his carp. He was also feeding them with salt because apparently they were lacking sodium. I can only hope that the carp are not being frightened by regular attacks by white spherical objects from another dimension as far as they are concerned – it could be the panic attacks that cause them to lose sodium via excess sweating though that is difficult to imagine under water.
Turning briefly to golf, the absence of virtually any other golfers meant that there was little chance to test out the BBs’ response to my note concerning the avoidance of slow play. There wasn’t any need to take anywhere near 3 minutes (Rule 1c) looking for lost balls since they were being comprehensively lost in 10 feet of water amongst giant, possibly man-eating, sodium-deficient carp. Bill only threatened once to leave his buggy back down the fairway (Rule 1a) when walking onto the green and Mike and I were on it like a ton of bricks. Scorecards were all being marked at the next tee (Rule 1b) even though it was testing BB memories (it’s good for us to help with dementia avoidance). And, as far as Rule 1d was concerned we were all playing too well to have to pick up the ball and as for Rule 1e (letting people who catch you up go through), the deer didn’t seem at all interested in accepting our invitation.
I have discovered that if I can remember to pretend that I have a bad back, my golf is immeasurably improved. I haven’t seen that in any coaching manuals but it is definitely true. Using the analogy of a clock, the back swing has to be to about quarter past the hour and the follow-through must go to at least 10 minutes to the hour and the swing speed must equal or be less than Alan’s. Just like two weeks ago, when the requirement of protecting the back was real, my front 9 was, though I say it myself, immaculate and I ended up with 23 points which helped the team score 24.
Mike also started well and we were neck-and-neck until he developed a problem with hitting the drive about 30 degrees to the right of where he was aiming and thereby having to chip out from behind various trees. Bill left his name on two of the NPin2 markers and was also playing well tee-to-green.
After our super-sized sausage rolls at the Halfway Hut, I forgot what it was that I had to remember about my swing and went off the boil somewhat, however Mike and Bill tossed some 3-pointers into our team score and we ended up happy with our efforts.
We retired to the terrace to await the arrival of our second group and when they did appear it looked as though we might have caught them transgressing Rule 1b (marking cards on the green) but we then realised that two of their number were still putting and Alan had picked up so all was OK.
The team scores were:
Bill, Mike & Richard 24 + 21 = 45
Alan & RobM 20 + 16 = 36
MikeW & RobA 24 + 15 = 39
Individual scores for the Brown Jug:
Richard (39), RobA (29), Alan & MikeS (28), RobM (27), Bill (23) and MikeW (17 – 8 of them on 2 holes). MikeW’s playing partners complimented him on his happy sporting demeanour maintained through out despite his golfing travails.
The NPin2 prizes went to Alan (3rd), RobA (8th) and Bill (15th).
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