Yet another unusual novelty format yesterday. This time you were allowed to use a tee-peg anywhere on the course with the exception of the greens. On top of that there was a bonus point to be had if you scored a nett par (3 points) by holing out from off the green, otherwise known as a Ferret, and if this was achieved from out of a bunker then you could add 2 points to your score for a Golden Ferret. Is there no limit to RobM’s fertile imagination? – you don’t need to answer this!
The balls were thrown and the two 3-balls were MikeS, Steve & PeteF and MikeW, Stuart and RobM. The two 2-balls were the buggy riders – Roger & RobA and Bill & Richard. We all had high hopes from using the tee-peg wherever we wanted – this turned out to be a case of pluses and minuses.
We soon discovered that the biggest gain was from using the driver off the fairway for the second shot. On the second hole where my 2-ball 10% uplift on my handicap gave me a double shot my second drive put me in easy reach of the green from which position I scored 3 points. At this stage I thought that we might score 27 points on each 9 holes but the Par 5 4th soon dis-abused me of this notion when after 2 good drives I put my 3rd into the bunker at the front of the green.
Surely using my tee in the generally rock-hard bunkers would solve all of my problems in the sand – not so it seemed as I thinned my first shot straight into the up-face of the bunker where it lodged looking for all the world like a fried egg. Not to be daunted by this outcome I managed to put my tee into something resembling the north face of the Eiger and had another bash at it. Once again my ball struck the face and dropped back to my original starting position. I then repeated the first attempt with the same result and, feeling like Gerrard Hoffnung meeting yet another barrel of bricks, I gave up and settled for zero points. Bill scored 1 point but our attempt at 27 looked unlikely.
Bunkers and tee-pegs were obviously incompatible and I henceforth resorted to the standard shot for better or worse. And this is what we generally found – pitch and chip shots were best not attempted with a tee – there was a strange tendency to thin the shot and this was reported by the other groups as well.
Then all of Bill’s Christmases came at once when on the 6th he holed out from off the green for a par and bagged a Ferret – the first one ever seen at Temple. For that he scored 5 points and gambolled around the green like a spring lamb – similar to when he discovered after his cataract operation that he could actually see where his ball went. We were extremely jolly in our buggy after that and even took to singing about corn reaching the sky as we travelled along – luckily remote from our opposition who are both members of a choir.
We had been having a very close battle with our immediate opponents but even though Roger scored 3 points on the same hole, we took the lead. That was reduced to 1 shot when RobA scored 4 for 4 on the next hole with no Ferret involved.
But the Ferret re-appeared on the 9th when I too holed from just off the green for another 4 points to give us 25 in total for the front 9 while Rob and Roger scored a respectable 22.
We realised that it was good news for our approach shots to roll about 6 inches off the green so we could attempt to score a Ferret but none appeared on the back 9 and we once again enjoyed a tight battle only settled on the 18th when I managed to score a par.
The only other Ferret scored on the day was by MikeS who holed out in 2 shots on the 18th to score a total of 6 points on one hole, which feat, discussion in the bar afterwards suggested , had only been matched by Tim B-T at Temple and JohnS on the downhill 7th at Harleyford.
The scores turned out to be very tight as always:
Bill & Richard 25 + 20 = 45
MikeS, Steve & Pete 21 + 23 = 44
MikeW, RobM & Stuart 24 + 19 = 43
RobA & Roger 22 + 19 = 41
What a privilege it was to be having a fun day on the golf course in the warmth of the sun for the first time this year.
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