We were a nice round 8 in number at Hennerton and therefore a perfect fit for playing Canadian Greensomes in pairs (play your own ball for 2 shots then choose yours or your partner’s ball to continue with). The Lego bricks were drawn and first off were MikeS & RobA playing with Roger & myself and we were followed by Nick & RobM playing with PeterR & JohnS.
Nick had arrived looking a tad shaky and enquiries discovered that the physio had told him to start doing 2 stints of 30 minutes per day of exercises to strengthen his leg muscles prior to having his knee replacement in just short of 4 weeks time. As of today he had not been able to think of a way of getting Sue to do them for him and was left with the nightmare thought that he might just have to do them himself. I am sure that everyone was inwardly sympathetic even if their helpful comments suggested otherwise.
We were pleasantly surprised to find Hennerton very green with quite lush grass in places and with charming staff. The greens had recently been sliced and sanded which occasionally had the effect of deviating the golf ball but they were otherwise very true. The course is about 75% of the length of Temple and has a selection of interesting Par 3 holes – some off the edge of a cliff, some over a valley and some quite long which certainly gave us a stern enough test.
It is very important in this format to agree with your partner that there will be no “sorries” when you put his nicely lying ball into the boondocks or leave a putt halfway to the hole. Roger and I contrived to keep to this agreement for the most part but we definitely heard our immediate opponents discussing the need for putting lessons before they attempted the back 9.
We had been absolutely neck and neck on the front 9 with equal scores on every hole up to the 9th where Roger and I managed to snatch a 1 point lead by getting 3 points to their 2. None of us was playing with any consistency but the close competition made it great fun (particularly if you win).
The back 9 continued in identical vein until the 16th where once again Roger and I gained a 1 point lead which we held through the 17th. On the 18th Roger’s drive had a nasty encounter with a tree on the left hand side but then I managed to put my second shot out of bounds and had to retire about 30 yards to play Roger’s ball for our 3rd shot. After 5 shots we were in the bunker on the left-hand side of the green from where Roger had to sink the bunker shot for us to get a point. This not being some kind of fictional paradise, this did not happen. Our opponents were about 2 feet off the back of the green in 4 in some of the lush grass and, unusually for the ace long-distance putter MikeS, he left the ball about 8 feet from the hole which Rob was unable to convert from giving them a zero as well and another 1 shot victory for Roger and me.
We retired to their excellent clubhouse terrace to enjoy a well-priced variety of sandwiches etc and some relaxing conversation enlivened by RobA sharing a photo of his very swollen toe which had been stung by a bee entering a hole in his crocs unfortunately while he wearing them – the price of being fashionable I suppose.
The scores revealed an excellent round from Nick and RobM which very nearly eclipsed us all:
Nick & RobM 23 + 19 = 42
Richard & Roger 21 + 19 = 40
MikeS & RobA 20 + 18 =38
PeterR & JohnS 18 + 17 = 35
We enjoyed Hennerton and will no doubt return.
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