Last updated on July 29, 2023
I felt that no more adequate description of the joys of Eclectic golf could be found anywhere other than in the email that our co-Eclectic organiser, Bill, sent me with the scores to be uploaded onto the website:
“Rich
Boy, is this a great competition. Sonning was difficult with only you and MikeS over 30 points, being 33 and 32, respectively. Everyone else was under 30 with Stuart leading the also-rans at 29. But, the comp is so good that we now have 4 Bashers in “contention” for nicking JFK’s squeeze with over 40, led by PeterR (46), MikeS (45), Nick (44) and little old me at 43 (a major miracle). The interesting thing is how the meshing can work or hurt so much, e.g you going from 29 to 42 yesterday after only 2 games is a good upside example.
This situation is worth a flutter. I’d put my bucks on PeterR as he has 3 x 4’s, but I reckon Smith is the not-so-dark horse in a battle with Nick. Of course you could always come thru as you are on 42 after only 2 games and targeted meshing could get her.
We have 3 more games to play before Portugal with at least 6 in contention. The format just shows how one can catch up so quickly by simply showing up, and the handicaps seem to be doing their job quite nicely.”
The only comment that I can add to that commentary is that if any of you feel insecure about getting out of bunkers, then you could surely do no better than talk to Rob who yesterday went into more bunkers than there are holes on Sonning Golf Course. By the time he was playing out of one of the many fairway bunkers on the 18th he had experimented with just about every golf club in his bag. But, practice makes perfect and his shot on the 18th was a thing of beauty – struck with a 9-iron, it went about 100 yards up the fairway. The fact that his next shot found the elephant grass beyond the next set of bunkers should in no way detract from the magnificence of his first shot.
A further comment occurred to me and that was concerning the attempts to form teams before we tee’d off in which the presence of 4 buggies containing 6 people who had already selected their buggies plus the 5 walkers presented an exercise in mathematical logic which would have confounded Einstein. His Theory Of General Relativity is a piece of cake compared to sorting Ballbashers into teams.
We did manage to organise ourselves after a while and probably set off in inverse speed order which did have the merit of us all finishing within 15 minutes of each other but also incurred that amazing incident of both Nick and Bill in the last team driving through us in the middle team – an unheard of occurrence.
The final team scores were:
Nick, Bill & JohnT 2.33 + 3 = 5.33
Alan & RobM 4.5 + 3.5 = 8 (won back 9)
PeterR & MikeW 6.5 + 3 = 9.5
MikeS & RobA 8 + 1.5 = 9.5
Stuart & Richard 10.5 + 3 = 13.5 (won front 9 & overall)
