For the second round of the Autumn League MikeS took us over to play the Wycombe Heights Par 3. We always say to ourselves, in much the same way that a Doctor does before he thrusts the needle in, that this is going to do us good. In particular we hope/expect that it will sharpen up our short game as we play 18 holes with an average length of 105 yards. The 30-handicappers amongst us definitely enjoy the prospect of 12 short holes on which they get 2 shots – if everything went very well they could end up with a final nett score of 0.
However once you factor in greens either in the shape of upturned saucers or plates on a 45º angle, with always a steep drop on one side, life becomes a tad harder and whatever happens on the 1st hole tends to set the pattern for the rest of the course.
The balls fell so that Bill, Stuart and I formed one team and MikeS, JohnS and Nick were our opposition. The first hole is easily the longest on the course at 157 yards and it’s the only hole on which us senior chaps reach for a wood – in my case a 7-wood which found the edge of the green from where my putt would have easily reached the neighbouring mobile home park had it not collided with the stick en-route and fall into the hole for a 2 for 4 points. Stuart conjured 3 points from some distance from the left of the hole and we had 7 in the bag.
Bill then scored 4 points on the next 2 holes and Stuart and I added the 3 points to each one to give us 3 consecutive 7-pointers. Well, this is easy we thought. Sadly they were the last 7-pointers we would muster as some old and some new traits emerged.
Since he ruptured his Achilles tendon Stuart has understandably been loathe to put a great deal of reliance on his left leg which he is working hard to strengthen. In the meantime it has produced a serious tendency to hit irons left of the desired line and at Wycombe Heights this results in you having either to chip from the rough on the hillside above the hole or from the rough on the hillside below the hole – neither of these is desirable as you try to keep the ball on the upturned saucer of the green. If, when he has restored the missing strength, everything flies straight again, this might be a hint for what us inveterate faders of the ball have to do – strengthen one or other leg depending on whether you are left or right-handed. Taken to the extreme we might find a number of us hopping round the course.
Although I say it myself and one shouldn’t blow one’s own trumpet but if you don’t who will, my straight tee-shot on the 1st hole turned out to be replicated on the remaining 18 ( I do like tee’ing up a wedge which normally is not allowed) and as I par’ed the remaining holes, bar one, on the front 9, my partners chipped in with the extras so we ended up with a competitive 51 points (best 2 to count on each hole).
My lofty ambitions of scoring 54 points over the 18 holes suffered a dose of cold water as we started the back 9 and I managed an average of 2 points per hole on the 1st 5. Luckily Bill repeated his feat on the front 9 of scoring 10 points over the first 4 holes and we kept afloat. The trees on the slopes and in the distant woodlands were a gorgeous palette of autumnal colours which clearly brought out the hidden nature-loving side of Bill as he now set about putting his tee-shots amongst them, the better to admire the foliage close up I imagined. Either that or 13 holes is an internal uncontrollable maximum number to be played – whatever the cause Stuart and I picked up the baton the best we could and reached the finish with a total of 44 points and no clue at all how the other 3 in front of us had done.
We finished at 12 midday which allowed us a relaxing lunch in their excellent bar area. MikeS had opted for the Par 3 because he had to be home by 2.00pm in time to board the charabanc for a cultural trip to Stratford and so our timing was perfect. The team scores turned out to be amazingly close:
JohnS, MikeS and Nick: 48 + 46 = 94
Bill, Richard and Stuart: 51 + 44 = 95
The individual scores for the league were equally high:
Richard (48), JohnS (47), MikeS (39), Stuart (36), Nick (35) and Bill (28).
On the way out Bill and I learnt that Nick was having a cataract operation today about which he was understandably (as far as I was concerned) a tad nervous. Bill was very keen to re-assure him that, as an experience, it was second only to a top-class LSD trip. We await to hear from Nick whether or not this was how it turned out for him!
