Fortune does n’t favour the brave

It was Novelty Game time at Temple yesterday and, with 7 BBs scheduled to play, I had turned up without any thoughts about the format we could play. But MikeS came to the rescue with the suggestion that we could play that rather pressurised game in which each team has to choose whether or not to include their scores on the just-completed hole with a 2-ball allowed to include 10 scores per 9 holes and a 3-ball allowed 15 scores on each 9 holes. Their totals at the end of the round being divided by the number of players in each team.

While waiting outside the Pro Shop, the news came in that PeterR had woken up with a sore throat and would not be joining us, and we had just started thinking about a new format for 2 teams of 3 players when this news was followed up with a message from JohnT pulling out as well, so we were now reduced to 5 and Mike’s suggested format was once again adopted.

Mike then suggested that the 2-ball be made up of Bill and himself as they were sharing a buggy and the 3-ball should be Stuart, RobA and myself. Bill was later to remark that this pitched the Very Senior Golfers (>80 years-old) against the mere Seniors (2 x 78 years-old + 1 soon-to-be 78 year-old) and wondered if this should be matched by a handicap increase. The Seniors who outnumbered the Very Seniors demurred.

It was a perfect Spring day for golf and, as we stood on the 1st tee, gazing out across the vista of fresh green trees and perfectly mown greens, it was difficult to think that there could be any better place to be. This feeling of paradise regained was soon disturbed by Mike and Bill hoicking their drives off to the left and the resultant self-deprecating comments.

The thing about this format is that it requires some thought given to strategy, never the most prominent of Ballbasher capabilities. After each hole you have to reflect on the scores that you have just posted and the likelihood of improving on those scores on the holes to come. As the 3-ball, we would have 27 opportunities to score on each 9 holes and we could choose 15 of them as we went along. Initially, with the sun shining and the ball running further on the firmer fairways, us, being optimistic by nature, could see no reason why we should n’t be able to score 15 x 3-pointers in those 27 attempts, perhaps with a couple of 4-pointers thrown in for good measure.

This optimism lasted 3 holes, by which time we had selected just 3 scores and being able mathematicians were able to work out that. at this rate, we would only have 9 scores included in the front 9 which would surely put us at a significant disadvantage. Had the technology been at hand we might have resorted to ChatBot for some help but I suspect that none of the programming team behind ChatBot ever had Ballbasher dilemmas in mind when they were doing the coding and I think that this is a Good Thing.

Stuart then had a brain-wave (a rare occurrence in the BB fraternity and therefore to be treasured). Instead of thinking that we could each score 3 points on every hole, perhaps we should take a more pessimistic approach and work out where that might be realistically possible on the holes remaining e.g. there was fat chance of achieving this on the 9th. We therefore now started including any 2-pointers we scored and hoped that we would n’t have to resort to including 1 -pointers. Following this method we had used up our allowance for the front 9 when we had played the 8th which was just as well given what then happened on the 9th.

In the midst of all of this brain-numbing statistics, Stuart and I decided to take Rob’s putting in hand. He seemed to have developed a sort of jerk-prod-yank of a stroke with the result that none of us could forecast where and how far the resultant putt would go. We decided that he should adopt the radical approach of swapping his hands round so that the left-hand gripped the club lower than the right-hand. We started by training Rob to know which was his left and which his right hand. It would be over-egging it to say that the results were immediately stunning but by the end of the round we felt that there was glimmer of light at the end of the putting tunnel.

We attempted to follow our pessimistically-based strategy on the back 9 but did let our guard down by assuming that we could all score well on the 18th hole and left 3 scores to be taken. When Stuart and I had put our second shots to within 8 feet of the pin, we were congratulating ourselves on our genius and thinking of the enormous score we were about to post. However Rob’s second shot had gone into the deep bunker just short of the green and, after several fruitless attempts to excavate his ball, he posted a blob which we had to include. I then took 3 putts from 8 feet and Stuart missed his 5-foot birdie putt but did score a par so we added another 5 points to our score and joined Bill and Mike for lunch on the terrace.

There it transpired that Bill in particular had (amazingly!) been pushing Mike to take a bold, optimistic approach and not include the 2-pointer they had scored on the 6th and then again, go for broke and not take the 2-pointer they had available on the 15th. Had they done so, they would have halved the front 9 and won the back 9 and overall. As it was, and perhaps sadly, the pessimistic realists won the day:

Stuart, RobA and Richard: 12.0 + 10.67 = 22.67
MikeS and Bill 11.5 + 10.5 = 22.00

All-in-all it was a perfect day for golfing and we had all enjoyed ourselves – roll on more Spring days I say.