Last updated on July 10, 2025
Seven BBs turned out to play yesterday in a Summer League game at Temple. As is normal with this number of players, the teams comprised two x 2-balls and one 3-ball. The format was of course Better Ball and to neutralise the advantage of having 3 players versus 2, the 3-ball each played off ¾handicap + 1. Some Ballbashers have long held that the 3-ball have been playing at a massive disadvantage and have no hope of winning, others that this arrangement is perfectly fair.
Yesterday any doubts about the fairness were totally erased when the 3-ball comprehensively won the front 9, back 9 and overall. Besides which my new handicap adjustment consultant ChapGBT recommends the 3-ball should play off ¾handicap as well – it does recommend that the 2-balls should play off 90% of their handicaps but we adjust for that by giving the 3-balls an extra stroke each and I have decided, with an uncertain future on how much AI will dominate our lives, what’s good for AI is good for me.
Despite us starting off in a swiftly disappearing cool drizzle, Temple was in it’s summer state i.e. the ball was running miles but frequently at right angles to your preferred direction of travel due to the slopes. Judging from the scores not everyone had a problem with this perhaps because their preferred lie is in some sort of rough. I did manage to avoid losing a ball in the left-hand hedge on the 9th for the 3rd week in succession by inadvertently depositing my second shot on the edge of the rough high on the right-hand side – from here your destiny is in the hands of the golfing Gods and they smiled kindly on me and left my pitch clinging onto the edge of the green by its dimples. I am pretty sure that any suggestions to the powers-that-be governing the future of Temple that it might be fair to level out some areas of the course will be given short shrift and a suggestion to have another lesson from the club Pro.
The balls fell so that the 3-ball comprised MikeS, MikeW and RobM – admittedly a strong-looking team depending on how well Rob’s radar was working on the day. The two 2-balls behind them comprised Alan & Nick and Bill & myself.
Golfers are always fiddling with anything and everything in search of the inner McIlroy and Alan had decided that, having played very well recently, it was time to radically alter his club selection by adding 3 clubs into his bag, the weight of which forced him to use a trolley. This was not a successful experiment and by halfway round he had decided to leave the extra 3 in the garage, by three-quarters of the way round they were going into the skip, and after the full 18 he was consulting with the Pro and seemed to be going for a club-fitting – that should take him into the slough of despond (Chaucer) before he may or may not emerge into the golfing Elysian fields (Homer).
Oblivious to what was going on ahead, we two teams enjoyed a real ding-dong which resulted in a front 9 result of 20 – 17 in Bills’ and my favour helped by my bunker shot at the 4th hitting the pin at full tilt and stopping dead 3 inches from the hole – I felt slightly hard done by as it might have dropped in – the other team were less than sympathetic.
The second 9 was even tighter resulting in a 17 – 17 draw. Along the way on the15th my partner Bill inadvertently played Alan’s ball – given that this resulted in an immediate 2-shot penalty for Bill, the opposition should have been delighted but maybe because the ball went into the rough, that didn’t seem to be the case. However they soon bucked up when Alan scored 3 points and we found the mis-played ball.
PeteF joined us for afternoon tea-cakes, sponge cake and a cup of tea on the terrace afterwards where the discussion ranged widely over such topics as to why Rachel from Accounts was tearful and what governs the cost of drugs in the NHS but most time was spent on the relative merits of osteopaths and chiropractors – everybody having had totally different experiences at the hands of these practitioners, and as usual we failed to reach an agreement.
Looking at the scores, it is obvious that several BBs are getting their game into a high state of tune for next week at Seaford.:
Team scores:
MikeS, MikeW and RobM 24 + 25 = 49
Bill and Richard 20 + 17 = 37
Alan and Nick 17 + 17 = 34
League game scores:
MikeS (38), RobM (36), Richard (35), MikeW (34), Alan (26), Nick (23) and Bill (22).
