The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (Keats) threw up a true Autumnal day at Winter Hill today. Perhaps it wasn’t quite as sunny and warm as the forecast suggested but the colours of the trees and the views more than made up for that. Everyone agreed that greens and the tees were in excellent condition and the fairways were pretty good as well. There was no rough to speak of and so no chance to put John’s 1st Law of Golf into fully accredited action.
There were 10 playing with 3 buggies being shared by 6 of them. Lego bricks were drawn out of the black bag and mysterious machinations resulted in two teams of 3 – PeterR, Roger and myself, being followed by JohnH, JohnS and Bill who were in turn followed by the two 2-balls of RobA and RobM playing with MikeS and MichaelW.
Off we went full of the joys of Autumn and the three of us duly scored 3 points each on the 1st hole. That was not particularly clever given that only one score was to count and it also easily represented the high water mark of our round – there was only ever going to be one direction from there.
I spent the rest of the front 9 beating my ball on the head with every variety of fairway wood that I carry (4 in total). Generally speaking the outcome was not too bad because the ball, terrified of what was to come next, shot off like a scalded cat, never getting more than 3 inches off the ground but generally travelling straight up the middle. I was pleasantly surprised that the ball didn’t decide to hide in some undergrowth for fear of more such terrifying treatment but I guess it was too discombulated to make any sensible decisions. Luckily the putting was a tad better and my team-mates were playing steadier games and by the halfway mark we had 21 points which was never going to win but was not too disgraceful.
Something out of my control happened on the back 9 and I started hitting the ball up the bum which quite naturally caused it fly off up into the air presumably to cool itself down. Roger had fun on the 15th Par 3 pimple hole whereby his tee-shot went off the edge and finished on the 16th tee. From there his recovery shot came within 6 inches of gaining the top but sadly from there it ran all the way back to his feet and groundhog day got underway. Elsewhere we learnt that JohnS, having put his tee-shot on this hole down the bottom of the cliff on the right-hand side managed a miracle chip to gimme distance for a par so the hole is apparently playable after all.
Back in the clubhouse we were eventually joined by the two 2-balls who had themselves had great fun competing with each other – a competition eventually won on the 18th by a miracle bunker shot from RobA.
The team scores were high and very close:
RobA & RobertM: 24 + 17 = 41 (apologies for the apparent gasp of surprise at the 24 – it was just a wayward cough)
JohnH, JohnS & Bill: 22 + 20 = 42
MikeS & MichaelW: 17 + 22 = 39
PeterR, Richard & Roger: 21 + 23 = 44
The league scores were also close:
Richard (36), JohnH (33), MikeS (32), MichaelW (31), RobA (29), RobertM (28), JohnS (25), Peter & Roger (23) & Bill (20).
There is no doubt that we will be seeking a return to Winter Hill in the next couple of months.
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