This was also the occasion for the first appearance on a full-sized golf course for some months by Bill and we also welcomed back John H who had also been absent from our ranks for some months – it was great to have them back with us.
There were a record crowd of 11 Ballbashers out today – all aiming to win Marilyn to adorn our secret trophy shelves far from the general manager’s view. Some very complicated scheduling by Bill revolving around the unfortunate issue of buggy-sharing had decided the groupings – Stuart/JohnT/RobertM went out first, followed by MikeS/PeteF/JohnS/Bill and Alan/PeterR/JohnH and I brought up the rear as is our wont.
We were all faced with the same monumental task of trying to catch and overtake Peter R who was sitting on 54 points as the day begun. Bill had not played a single Eclectic round this summer and therefore had the simplest objective of all – attempt to score 55 points in one round. With clouds of dust mixed with rust emerging from his bag every time he selected a club this would have been a superhero-level achievement and just to be out on the golf course at all was an excellent achievement in it’s own right.
JohnH started out like a man on a mission – his mission was to convert his 24 points to 55 – he was playing delightfully controlled golf for the first half a dozen holes – not trying to hit the ball too hard and hitting it straight – but he was then smitten by the thought that gets us all when in that state – “if I hit the ball a touch harder, it will go another 50 yards in the direction of the green”. Of course that is seldom, if ever, the outcome and the radar failed to adjust fast enough with the normal results in which trees and bushes suddenly come into play and the 50 yards extra in the wrong direction is not very productive.
Elsewhere, Robert was trying to manage the re-development of most of Southampton in between remembering that he was on a golf course. He had arrived in a slight state of confusion when he read the sign on the front gate stating that he was entering the hallowed grounds of The South Buckinghamshire when he was sure (correctly of course) that it was the location of the more prosaically-named Farnham Park. Despite all of these distractions, he did manage to contribute 9 points to his team’s score.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Eclectic game is a very strange game indeed. JohnS set what is possibly a new Ballbasher low scoring record of 9 points for the whole round and managed to improve his eclectic score by one point from 50 to 51. In complete contrast, I scored 39 points for the whole round and still only managed to improve my score by one point from 48 to 49. I rather suspect that if I had scored 49 points today, I would have still only improved my score by one point.
And so it came to pass that, despite adding no points at all to his starting total, PeterR held on to win Marilyn from MikeS and JohnS who came joint second. The full results are in the Eclectic Table.
As far as the BashCoins went, at least my 39 points contributed on that front and our team of Alan, PeterR, JohnH and myself scooped the whole pot which was useful on the final day of the season.
Coming 2nd in the Eclectic just added the final touch to MikeS’ s massive score in the Master Golfer which he has won by a country mile – not bad for someone who is our oldest member, and who missed some of the competitions through medical indispositions. The full results which include some excellent performances all round are in the Master Golfer Table.
So now we go onto the 2022/23 Season and look forward to another jolly year of Ballbashing.
