Those travellers amongst you who have visited the temples at Khajuraho will know that pleasure is almost always matched by some pain, though in the case of Khajuraho, an equal dose of imagination way beyond that of the average Ballbasher is also required. This basic premise however does remain in Ballbashing golf, and my quiet contemplation of the pleasure of my round today was rudely interrupted by the ping of an arriving email letting me know that 2 shots had just been knocked off my handicap, and I shall have several months trudging through the winter mud to reflect on whether or not the briefest encounter with what passes for golfing ecstasy was worth it. Anyway, as always, I digress from reporting on what happened today which started quite cool with a strong breeze blowing. It got warmer but the breeze never left up.
Mike S had skilfully managed to cope with the normal ins and outs of booked Ballbashers, and the added novelty of 2 guests, to arrange a copious number of buggies to go with 3 tee-times at a good time in the morning at Temple. He had bypassed the normal scrabbling amongst the thrown balls to set out 3 groups of which the 1st, comprising Mike himself, Peter R and Bill were all travelling in individual buggies. I do remember that in France, Bill brought along his own sound system with a selection of dub-garage-grime beats to enhance his buggy experience and he looked so focussed as he left the 1st tee, I wondered if he was repeating this approach.
The 3 buggies shot down the hill and that was virtually the last we saw of them until we arrived back at the clubhouse. Nick, Roger and I formed the second group and, having struck our tee-shots roughly in the direction of Marlow, we set off to enjoy our round as well.
Behind us were Rob with his guest, Brian Scholfield, and Mike W with Peter, his Kiwi guest from LA, who, unsurprisingly given he was at least 6′ 6″, was an old basketball-playing chum. Mike and Peter had just returned from a 2-day trip involving a round at St George’s in Sandwich. They should have been in fine fettle but I think that Mike’s golfing morale may have been a touch damaged by the bunker experiences down there.
In Nick’s case, Player A was mostly present for the front 9 and he quietly acquired 17 points. Roger was also playing very steadily and, with just one blip on the 9th, where he managed to avoid the new earthworks designed to stop your ball running into the hedge and ran into the ditch instead, he also totalled 17.
Possibly it is something to do with the approach of Halloween but my putter seemed to have become bewitched and I only had to wave it gently for the ball to trundle virtually any distance over the green and fall into the hole. This greatly helped me get to 22 points on the front 9. With good meshing the team totalled 24 playing of 3/4 handicaps + 1.
On the back 9, Player B arrived and took over very abruptly from Player A with the result that Nick started with blob, blob, one. He tried to take on the well-meaning but usually contradictory advice from his playing partners as to which of the several elements that make up the perfect golf shot needed a different approach and finally conquered the gremlins on the 18th where he narrowly missed a par.
The magic wand continued to work in my favour until a 5-footer for a birdie was missed on the 18th – I’m slightly worried that midnight may have struck and my putter will now go back to resembling a pumpkin. However today I scored 23 points on the back 9 which gave me 45 in total – irritatingly one short of Alan’s record of 46.
The denouement in the clubhouse revealed that the Buggy Brigade had scored 15 + 16 =31, Mike W and Peter had a very consistent 20 + 20 = 40, Rob and Brian had 17 + 19 = 36 and Nick, Roger and I had 24 + 21 = 45 which scooped the BashCoins.
As far as the League was concerned the scores were: Richard (45), MikeS (33), Rob (30), MikeW and Roger (29), Nick (28), Peter R (26) and Bill (in rehab) 14.
A brilliant round by Richard – his gross score of 76 was just 7 shots over par which must be a Ballbasher record. No luck, just incredibly consistent golf… and it could easily have been better as it included three putts that were only millimetres from dropping in the hole.