On Wednesday it was 6°C but due, to the cold wind, feeling more like 3°C when 4 intrepid Ballbashers went out to play another round of the Autumn League, whose name conjures up visions of warming rays from the sun beautifully highlighting the golden canopies spread out across the golf course – a far cry from reality as demonstrated by a shivering MikeW arriving in the clubhouse some 4½ hours after setting out.
Mikes S and W were paired playing against Alan and RobM. They were joined by PeterR, PeteF and myself in the clubhouse for post-match lunch. We got there just after 1pm expecting that particular 4-ball to go round lickety-spit. Not so it seems as they let several pairs through as they went round. I have no match report so cannot tell you why this befell them – perhaps they were busy massaging some heat back into their frozen bodies or maybe they spent untold hours looking for wayward balls.
Either way they obviously had a very tight game for the scores revealed a dead heat:
MikeS & MikeW 19 + 20 = 39
Alan & RobM 18 + 21 = 39
Perhaps that was why there seemed to be to us onlookers a slight frisson of tension in the 4-ball as they debated precisely where MikeW had been recorded by MikeS as scoring 6 for 2 when he had in fact scored 7 for 1. MikeS had assumed the thankless task of scoring for everyone and in the heat of the discussion pointed out more than once that it made no difference to the result. As far as the team result went that was indeed true but a later audit by your correspondent revealed that it made quite a difference to the individual results and to the possible destination of the Autumn League trophy itself!
Of that more later. In the meantime in attempt to defuse the tension, Pete introduced the topic of the new Weatherspoons at the top end of Marlow High St. He had obviously conducted some assiduous research and discovered that you get a pint of beer for something like £1.89 and, if you were at a loss for something to do on a cold day, you could buy a coffee for about 3p and spend the whole day there drinking as many other coffees as you could manage – what a delightful prospect we all thought.
Pete then took us deeper into the Weatherspoons philosophy during which PeterR opined that he could clearly enter Mastermind with the special topic of Weatherspoons. Pete thought that was a bit wide and he would probably choose the narrower, more interesting field of Weatherspoons carpet designs. This was getting too deep for most of us so we reverted to the safer topic of knee operations and post-op pain relief on which we could all safely exchange first or second-hand experiences for a good hour.
Following the 1 point downward adjustment to MikeW’s score, the individual results were declared to be:
MikeW (35), Alan (34), MikeS (31) and RobM (27).
However the audit at home carried out to check the BashCoin results (none changed hands) revealed that MikeW’s score was 2 points less and the result became:
Alan (34), MikeW (33), MikeS (31) and RobM (27).
Suddenly Alan has another 6-pointer in the League Table which gives him a great opportunity to overhaul the current leader MikeS. There are a couple of other runners in this race so the final two games will be highly competitive.
