We played the first Summer League game on Wednesday and the weather Gods provided a true summer’s day for us to play it on – in fact I don’t want to sound churlish or ungrateful but some of us, me included, actually found it too hot and were quite exhausted by the time we finished – next time I will believe the forecast of 22C and wear a pair of shorts and a solar topee to keep the UV out.
Pete had to drop out due to sacroiliac joint problems – we need to invite a chiropractor to join the Ballbashers – we could probably keep one in business between us – and thereby we became 8 and went out as two 4-balls playing as pairs for the Better Ball comp. The balls were thrown and after the normal confusion resulting from a combination of deafness and buggy-riding we ended up with MikeS partnering Bill, MikeW with Alan followed by Nick + myself and PeterR + RobM.
Having enjoyed last week’s golf where the “Once in a Blue Moon” effect enabled me to not thin any shots and not lose any balls, I started with some confidence. This was soon obliterated when I could not find my drive down the 1st which had gone more-or-less straight down the middle with some run-off to the right. One of the group in front later reported having seen a Srixon near the 1st green but it being nothing to do with his group he left it alone – some kind of neon sign marking it’s position would have been useful!
The effect of this blow to my confidence emerged as some form of PTSD linked to sinking 3 foot putts – I was fine from 6 feet but 3 feet proved impossible, luckily this did not effect our team result but it certainly did impact my individual score as I missed four from this range pin in or pin out.
Elsewhere in my group of four RobM had concluded that the cure for his random radar problems, particularly off the tee, lay in introducing languidity into his swing. Speaking personally I tend to the view that you are either born languid e.g. Alan, or you are not e.g. the rest of us. But Robert being of an optimistic nature felt that he could force himself to become languid and maybe, looking at his laid back approach to time and even day-keeping, perhaps he is not too far away from this state and he just has to clear the million or so conflicting thoughts concerning his swing out of his brain and he will become languid.
This thought was catching and all 4 of us spent effort trying to become languid with only occasional success. I guess that trying to become languid is a contradiction in terms but when we achieved this state akin to Nirvana we did actually see our tee-shots go straighter. Sadly it was only fleetingly present and when it wasn’t we had to spend the usual time hunting for balls that had run off the fairway into the trees.
The change of stroke indices which started very aptly on the 1st April resulted in the 3rd hole going from SI 13 to SI 7 which my partner Nick used to great advantage by scoring 4 points for his par while the nearest opposition scored a regulation 2 points. They retaliated on the 7th when Peter scored 4 for 4 but this time we scored 4 for 3 and this one point difference enabled Nick and I to beat them by 19 to 18 on the front 9.
Nick repeated this on the 14th, which had gone from SI 12 to 8, with another 4 for 4 and once again we beat our immediate opposition by 19 to 18 on the back 9. Exhausted by the heat and the hunt for the Holy Grail of languidity we crawled into the clubhouse for our normal dose of discussing what can we do about Mr T. The solution to this dilemma is just as hard as finding the mental state of languidity and it may that, if we can achieve the latter, we will no longer be much bothered by the former – one can but hope.
Team Scores were very, very tight:
Nick & Richard 19 + 19 = 38
Peter & RobM 18 + 18 = 36
MikeS & Bill 18 + 18 = 36
MikeW & Alan 16 + 18 = 34
Individual scores for the League:
MikeW (32), Richard (31), PeterR (30), RobM (29), MikeS (28), Alan (27), Bill (26) and Nick (25) – that series of steadily descending scores ahs probably never been matched before – it’s a bit like a Royal Flush.
Handicap adjustments have now re-started but judging by the team results there is nothing much wrong with them at the moment.
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