The BBs took to the burnt steppes of Huntswood for the latest round of the Eclectic. We soon discovered that it was virtually impossible to avoid going into the ponds in front of the 1st green due to the fairway having the running capability of concrete. This, of course, works both ways as later on I hit a drive 250 yards which is getting into McIlroy territory.
There used to be a joke about a gorilla who could play golf and he could hit the drive 400 yards but unfortunately he hit his wedge shots and putts the same distance – a bit like Bryson DeC – and therein lies the rub of the problem of getting the ball to stay on the green. Do you use a running 7-iron which will bounce left and/or right at random, a wedge into the sky which will bounce as high again or the putter. The latter approach is much favoured by MikeS and he practices it throughout the year unlike the rest of us who have absolutely no idea how hard to hit a putt from 50yards.
I was in a team with Mike and Stuart and we greatly benefited on the front 9 from Mike’s excellent play which apparently made a change from last week when he lost 8 balls. Although it was a team game Mike’s 22 points on the front 9 contained so many 3 and 4-pointers which were the only scores taken into account for the team score that we managed to reach the dizzy heights of 29 points. This included one putt which was sunk from about 90 feet.
The back 9 proved less successful until we got to the 16th when, while MikeS took a break for a while, Stuart and I contributed to get our score to 24. This excluded the 10th which we used to overtake a group of 3 golfers ahead of us who had held us up for 9 holes and who were of the opinion (erroneous) that because they were playing a club competition, they were entitled not to let us through. We took matters into our own hands by sprinting past them to the 11th tee which was fine for Mike in his buggy but was more of a challenge for the damaged systems of Stuart and myself. Our other 4-ball did the same manoeuvre on the 14th hole.
Once again we enjoyed the food on offer – they really do provide an excellent service at Huntswood from the Pro Shop to the bar – while we swapped scores. The 3-ball divided their total score by 3 and the two 2-balls divided their scores by 2, hence the strange numbers
MikeS, Richard & Stuart: 9.67 + 8 = 17.67
Alan & RobM: 6 + 11.5 = 17.50
PeterR & RobA 1.5 + 9.5 = 11.00
So the trio won the overall by 0.17 point – the narrowest margin possible.
The data will no go off to be processed by Bill to update our eclectic scores and I forecast some big movements!
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