Experience suggests that we should always take the BBC weather forecast with a huge pinch of salt – maybe it’s due to the failure to predict the hurricane in the 80s but they always seem to err on the pessimistic side now. On Monday morning they were predicting wall-to-wall rain today nearly convincing us to call today’s golf off but luckily their competition in the form of the Met Office and XCWeather showed no rain so we decided to go ahead and were rewarded with a splendid Autumnal day on which to play golf across the picturesque fairways of Winter Hill.
It was another of Ashley’s Tankard series and, as always, we are sent forth by the general manager at home with instructions to win the goodie bag usually reflecting the country that Lidl is featuring at the time – Italy is a favourite. We were 11 in number with two buggies and after a complex throwing up exercise (balls not anything nasty!) the teams of 4 pairs and 1 3-ball were agreed to be:
MikeS & JohnS first out with MikeW & RobM, followed by Alan & Ashley playing with Roger & PeterR and they were followed by Bill, Nick & myself as the 3-ball off 75% handicaps + 1 – it being a single better ball competition.
It was apparent from the start of our round that Player B had decided that the weather was too lovely for him not to put in a prolonged appearance – he even started on the 1st tee where although Nick did not miss the ball entirely as JohnS had done earlier, the connection was so subliminal that the ball rolled about 6 feet forward off the tee. After that he contented himself with ensuring that Nick very rarely played a shot off the fairway but even if he did, Player B felt much happier taking the ball back into the golden leaves off the fairway.
Our other team member, Bill, had decided that his key role in our team was to encourage Player B and myself and in the event that we were clearly in trouble he would step into the breach which he did masterfully on the 8th and the 11th – on the latter he was only an inch away from sinking a 40ft putt and scoring a birdie for 4 points and was easily close enough to win the NPin2 prize on that hole.
Player B also occasionally decided that enough was enough and contributed some points on holes 2, 3 and 15 which co-incidentally and luckily happened to be 3 of the holes on which I didn’t get a shot, the other one being the 11th where Bill was the star.
That left just the other 14 holes where fortune favoured me on the day and I picked up 8 x 3-pointers and a handful of 2s which was all very relaxing and made for a good team vibe. With 21 points on the front 9 and 23 on the back we even felt that we might have a chance of winning. Sadly, although the scores were all very close, victory went elsewhere:
MikeS & JohnS 25 + 20 = 45
Bill, Nick & Richard 21 + 23 = 44
Alan & Ashley 20 + 22 = 42
Peter & Roger 20 + 18 = 38
MikeW & RobM 19 + 17 = 36
NPin2 balls were won by JohnS, Bill and RobM
Instead of the expected bag of gourmet delights, it being November 5th, Ashley had decided that the only appropriate prize could be a monster firework which had to be half-buried in the ground and observed from at least 8m distance. Mike and John’s eyes lit up like teenagers when they received these and although the general manager might not be so keen, they were clearly going to have fun sooner or later this week!
