Hairy knees and winning 3-balls at Temple

PeteF turned up for lunch at Temple yesterday and amongst other interesting subjects for the BB players to get their teeth into, he asked us whether we dreamt about any elegant iron shots, superb chips and monstrous drives that we might have played during the day’s golf or do we instead dream endlessly in a circle of missed simple 4 foot putts – these two options are the golfer’s equivalent to the differences between heaven and hell depicted by a Flemish Primitive in an altar triptych somewhere in Bruges. This was a subject close to my heart because following on from last week when I had hit everything plum square in the middle of the clubs thereby producing an endless stream of pars, I had spent at least the first 9 holes hitting the ball on the heel or toe of the club in completely unpredictable directions and missed every make-able putt and was very worried about my dreaming last night.

Fortunately in a way Pete himself replaced my likely nightmare with another one of marginally less impact when he revealed that, following his knee replacement, he was suffering from the very rare condition of Very Hairy Knee. There was much discussion round the table of the possible causes with the favourite being the presence of some seriously throw-back Neanderthal genes in the Forrester family tree. Bill wondered if Crewe could have been the last refuge of the Neanderthals given that it was unlikely that anyone else wanted to go to Crewe. It was generally agreed that it was good news that golfing dress code didn’t require us to wear kilts when playing which could have been possibly given where the game is governed from.

Readers will I am sure be pleased to know that my confused brain failed to dream extensively about hairy knees or anything else related to golf. As for Pete himself, he seemed to be enjoying the new personal grooming opportunities and had no immediate intention of investigating the depilatory products available in the female section in Boots.

After we were reduced to 8 to 7 in number for golf when PeterR dropped out to focus on retrieving his wife and her severely disabled car from somewhere north of Manchester (thus demonstrating what a caring bunch we BBs all are), the balls were thrown to create a 3-ball of Mikes S & W and Bill followed by two 2-balls of Alan & Stuart and RobM & me. The 3-ball seemed to take a huge amount of time working out their adjusted team handicaps for the Better Ball comp (= 75% handicap rounded + 1) and then set off with 3 very good drives.

As I inferred earlier our team score on the front 9 was achieved in huge measure by RobM who scored 14 out of our 17 points. Two out of the miserable three points that I contributed came on the 9th and that was a harbinger of some improvement on my part. Our immediate opposition were also enjoying erratic progress. Stuart had sunk a rocket of a putt from about 50 feet on the 1st for a par but he then disappeared until the 5th.

In an attempt to regain the free-swinging Stuart we know of old, he had a couple of lessons with Luke who had given him perhaps 4 things to think about on his swing. We all know that a BB is typically only capable of remembering 1 thing at a time especially with a golf club in our hand and it was not much of a surprise that when we met Luke at the driving range by the 13th tee, Stuart demanded his money back but Luke convinced him that a couple more lessons would be sufficient to clear away the debris and reach nirvana swing-wise. Having just blobbed the previous 3 holes Stuart was not so sure but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as it did seem to be the only solution currently on the table.

Rob and my back 9 was virtually the opposite of the front 9 in terms of who contributed the most points but at least we reached the 18th with an uncatchable 4 point lead over Stuart and Alan. Alan signed off with a good par while I signed off with a missed 3 foot putt – no surprises there but the point lost by doing so meant that Rob and I did not win the back 9.

Lunch in the clubhouse was accompanied by the ritual dis-emboweling of Rachel and her policies and the chat about hairy knees after which Stuart suggested we might enjoy some good news, but when the 3-ball announced their scores with a huge dollop of feigned surprise that they could possibly beat us, we realised that good news was going to be hard to come by and talked enthusiastically about record decks instead.

Bill, MikeS & MikeW 20 + 19 = 39
Richard & RobM 17 + 19 = 36
Alan & Stuart 17 + 16 = 35

The individual league scores were:
MikeW (35), MikeS (32), Bill (27), Stuart (26), Richard (26), Alan (25) & RobM (25)

Bill has jumped into a strong lead in the BashCoin stakes – his enthusiasm for golf now knows no bounds!