There being the nice total of 8 players and it being a Novelty game, I decided that it was an ideal opportunity for Canadian Greensomes – a format we rarely play except on tour when everyone enjoys it. You play in pairs and each member of the pair plays his ball for the first and second shot. The pair then select one ball to continue with and each player then plays the ball in turn until the ball is on the hole. If Player A’s ball is selected then Player B plays the shot from that position and then they play alternately. There are 2 requisites for a relaxing round in this format:
a) Both members of the pair are striking the ball reasonably well.
b) Both members of the pair are putting reasonably well and consistently – and therein lies the rub!
I had pre-drawn the pairs so that each pair played off the identical handicap of 18 and so it was only a relatively simple matter of deciding which pair played with which and which two pairs went off first – there was no need to reach for the black bag of lego bricks. It thereby transpired the Bill and I went off first playing with MikeS and Alan. We were followed by PeterR/RobM playing with MikeW/RobA.
Bill and I then found ourselves in a titanic struggle with MikeS and Alan. Mike was hitting the ball with enormous force with sparks flying everywhere and as a counterpoint, Alan was playing the ball with maximum languidity whereby it is sometimes difficult to detect any movement of the driver but the ball is flying gracefully down the centre of the fairway. Fortunately Bill had taken last week’s polemic about the importance of the follow-through to heart and he was also smacking the ball down the middle. Moreover he was also putting consistently up to the hole. So, after the 1st hole, life was quite relaxing on the front 9.
The first hole was something different. Firstly Bill hit a tree with is drive and his ball totally disappeared. As luck would have it, I had played a reasonable drive which ended with a good view of the green. Some readers may not know that Huntswood have added 2 new ponds to the 1st hole – bang in front of the green – and they are not visible from where us mortals are able to drive our balls and I had forgotten about them. I remembered they were there after I played my well-struck 7-wood and a column of water rose into the distant sky above the ridge. Mike observed this event and elected to lay up well short of the water.
Bill and I went in search of my ball somewhat forlornly. We were standing in front of the pond when the Miek/Alan ball appeared heading directly for the pond but unfortunately we were in the way and the ball took one bounce and hit the cowering Bill on the arm and fell back onto terra firma rather than in the pond. This caused Mike/Alan some amusement. Bill and I had decided that we would have to drop a replacement ball but Mike/Alan had to play first and they then knocked their ball straight into the pond. This caused Bill and I some amusement and we were even more amused when we found my ball had landed in the pond with sufficient force to bounce out and come to rest on the other side. Once we had stopped laughing we were able to score 1 point which was 1 more than they did.
From the second hole onwards the standard of golf improved and such champagne moments were not to be found. We reached the 9th green dead level but a missed putt by the opposition gave Bill and I the lead by 18 to 17 points.
Elsewhere on the course Rob had his newly acquired putter with him (as bought at the AGM for a bargain price). He was hopeful of great things on the green with this new weapon. After the round his partner MikeW reported that Rob had missed so many putts of less than a foot with this wonderful new club that he revertyed to his old putter halfway round. Mike did not provide any info as to whether or not things improved but we might expect to see a shiny new putter for sale on e-Bay unless another BB fancies a change?
On the back 9 Mike and Alan ramped up the pressure and gained a 3 point lead over Bill and I who were not able to sustain the level of golf we had played on the front. We had 2 glorious opportunities to recoup a couple of points but comprehensively wasted then and instead gave 2 more points away.
The denouement in the clubhouse revealed a significant disparity between the scores of the two sets of pairs:
Mike S & Alan 17 + 18 = 35
Richard & Bill 18 + 13 = 31
MikeW & RobA 11 + 16 = 27
RobM & PeterR 12 + 10 = 22
The weather had been cold but sunny but after noon the temperature started to fall so we were all pleased to be back in the clubhouse where Alan celebrated his victory in the proper Scottish style with a whisky which led to a exchange of experiences whereby everyone seemed to have a relative who had lived to 90’something fuelled by a very large glass of whisky every night – there might be worse ideas.
