Wycombe Heights is obviously so-named because it is built on the heights above Wycombe – more accurately it is built on the side of one of the heights above Wycombe. So virtually every fairway is running along a ledge, on one side of which is a line of brambles, hawthorn and stinging nettles lightly guarding a precipice. Add to this image, if you will, scorched fairways comprising ridges, sling-shot bowls, steep run-offs to either side with not a blade of grass in sight. I would estimate it at about 1000 on the stimp meter (13 is considered quite quick) which puts it on a par with concrete. The greens themselves were little oases (is that the correct plural of oasis?) of green.
If you have the image of the course now in mind, I want you to congratulate the brave little band of Ballbashers who set out to try and play golf today in very hot weather. I chose this day to make my comeback to golf after 7 weeks away – it can only get better, I hope. The balls fell so that PeterR, MikeS and I went out first in our 2 buggies. We were followed by JohnT, JohnS and RobertM of which only JohnT was in a buggy.
Those of you who played Bocce at Rob’s on Sunday will be very familiar with the concept of a ball, which was thrown or, in today’s case, hit straight, suddenly veering off to the right or left in a totally unpredictable fashion. PeterR had not been able to be at Rob’s so it was something of a shock to him when this immediately occurred on the 1st hole. To be fair, none of us performed very well initially – after 3 holes we had scored 4 points and lost 4 balls. Mathematicians amongst you will have quickly worked out, that at this rate, we would lose 24 balls by the end of the round.
Peter did his best to achieve this improbable target by losing 7 including 2 on one hole but Mike and I thankfully only lost 5 between us. Mike of course quickly found that he could use his putter from about 100 yards out and, if the ball went into a bunker, so much the better because at least he knew where it was. His particular champagne moment came on the Par 3 8th hole where he took his normal earth-shaking swing and when the sparks had died down and the smoke had cleared, we observed that his ball had hopped off the tee and come to rest about 6 inches sideways. I am of the opinion that this can only happen when an electron on the outside edge of his club briefly caresses an electron on the outside edge of his ball.
Anyway, somewhat miffed by this turn of events, he took another thrash at the ball, which this time hopped forward about 45 degrees to the desired direction of travel and came to rest 15 yards ahead immediately behind the only tree for miles around. It will be no surprise to the reader to learn that he was eventually to score zero points but at least he did not lose the ball.
A little further on we encountered a South African who had come out from the clubhouse with some iced water and some sage advice on how to play the next hole. I suspect that he was familiar with playing golf in the Kalahari Desert and so understood the issues we were grappling with. His recommendation was that rather than use a driver on the upcoming 337yard 12th hole, we would be better off playing a controlled pitching wedge onto a relatively flat area and to proceed from there. He trundled off in his buggy and took up station safely in the middle of the fairway about 150 yards away.
The problem with this advice was the word “controlled”. I decided that I had just as good a chance with a controlled fade with my driver and duly went for that shot. The ball headed off in the right direction but I saw him watch the ball travelling up to his right before it encountered a crazy golf feature of a sort of slingshot bowl and raced around the back of him to head at lightning speed 50 yards downhill into a thick forest of brambles etc. My 2 playing partners adopted tactics more in line with his advice but we all lost our balls in roughly the same place regardless of tee-shot. The line of 3 blobs on our score-card looks quite pretty.
Eventually we reached the 18th which is 344yards straight downhill. I hopelessly topped my ball and it only went 300 yards downhill. Peter hit his off to the right but ended up in the middle about 335 yards down. Mike hit a super drive which went 341 yards straight down the middle. It was all too flattering for words.
We then retired to the clubhouse which has been very well done up and enjoyed some excellent refreshments on the terrace while waiting for the others. JohnS turned up first and struggled to find a suitable metaphor to adequately describe his experiences but thumb-screws were mentioned as being a slightly better option.
The scores were not high and it transpired that while JohnT, JohnS and RobM had a team score of 33 to beat our 29 on the front 9, our 33 beat their 27 on the back 9 and gave us the overall victory by a handsome 2 shots.
The individual scores were MikeS (28), Richard and Rob (27), JohnT (25), JohnS (21) and Peter (20).
We’ll miss this weather when it’s a freezing day in February – won’t we?
