Last updated on August 20, 2021
Well strictly speaking it is Rob’s birthday today and not yesterday but, in Ballbasherland, that’s close enough. He revealed this little nugget at the denouement on the terrace at Temple in the late afternoon sunshine while expressing surprise at discovering that he had beaten the other 8 of us. It is possible that the surprise was that he had reached such an advanced age and that he was not in the least bit surprised at his victory – it was difficult to tell and it did n’t seem polite to enquire.
The balls had fallen so that MikeS, JohnS and I formed the first group, followed by MikeW, JohnT and Nick who were in turn followed by Rob, Alan and Bill.
Our group made the customary Temple start with my ball disappearing into the trees on the right, that of MikeS disappearing into the trees on the left (never to be seen again) and that of JohnS travelling about 25 yards forward off the tee. We scraped 3 points out of this inauspicious start and carried on to a similar debacle on the 2nd.
The best you could say about the mediocre golf that we served up over the front 9 was that it gave JohnS several chances to practice keeping his head down while delivering a sand wedge with maximum force in the direction of his golf ball plugged in about 2 feet of elephant grass. The outcome of this shot was regularly surprising as it proved that you could lose a ball quite easily even if you knew it was within 6 feet of where you were standing.
For my part I was able to practice missing 3 foot putts to my heart’s content and Mike was constantly surprised by the direction that his ball actually travelled in compared to where he had aimed it. He also found that his favourite trick of putting from up to 50 yards off the green did not work so well when he was trying it out of the 1st or 2nd cut.
Luckily for the team, after several blobs, John suddenly scored three 3-pointers in a row on the 6th, 7th and 8th holes and this gave our front 9 score some respectability even though we had each totalled about 13 points.
We discovered another golfing conundrum for ageing Ballbashers when we reached the uphill sort Par 3 12th which was all of 125 yards in length. The only way we could reach the green was to use a rescue or fairway wood – however these would fly at such a low angle that the result was, at best, embedding in the bank at the back of the green or, failing that, heading for the A404. The question is – how do you put backspin onto a 4 rescue club (answers in a SAE please)? Given that we can’t do it with a wedge, it’s probably a forlorn hope that we can do it with a 3-wood.
Mike did manage to score very respectably on the back 9 to rack up 18 points but the team score did not look anywhere good enough and so it proved. Over excellent tea and tea-cakes and even better craic the scores were unveiled:
Rob, Alan and Bill: 35 + 40 = 75 (winning all of the BashCoins)
MikeS, JohnS and Richard 32 + 36 = 68
MikeW, JohnT and Nick 28 + 36 = 64
Rob (34), Alan (33), MikeS (32), Richard (28), Nick and Bill (26), MikeW and JohnT (24) and JohnS (19).
In answer to the question posed about 125 yard uphill Par 3’s, on the 12th I took out my trusty 9 wood and, after watching it arc up to the heavens, found that my ball had, as planned, “dug in” after hitting the front of the green and then stopped before rolling off the back of it. The less said about the rest of my round the better but this wonderful “ladies-only” club could solve the uphill shot conundrum for ageing BBs while also being an excellent option for getting the ball up & out of the semi rough… useful.
That is an extremely helpful piece of advice. However I do fear that only Player A has the skills necessary to hit a 9-wood without looking embarassed.