Great Bacon Butties at Sunningdale Heath

At least 8 out of the 11 BBs who played at Sunningdale Heath yesterday had played in the Ryder Cup at Cascais last week and they had to deal with changing from a sandy terrain lined with pine trees and fast greens to a sandy terrain lined with pine trees and fast greens which gave them good excuses for not winning, which proved to be the case despite the 3 days of intense practice.

We arrived in time for lunch and the bacon butty that was included in our package. The bacon butty turned out to be a magnificent chunk of slow-cooked and then lightly fried gammon on a bed of home-made chutney in a warm roll – very Tom Kerridge and excellent value with a cup of coffee at £9. And they are such a friendly welcoming team which all makes for a great day out.

This was the last game of the season and we were playing for the postponed Harleyford Summer Plate – it definitely felt like the last day of summer, and with the rain that came a couple of hours after we finished, it most certainly proved to be the case.

There were scheduled to be 12 players but, although Roger turned up for his butty (very sensible), he was in too much pain to contemplate playing golf and we hope that a resolution is found asap. The 2-stage draw required with 3 buggy riders, took place and the first group comprised MikeS & PeterR playing with RobM and JohnS, and they were followed by the 3-ball of RobA, MikeW and JohnT who were followed by Alan & Nick playing with PeteF and Richard.

Although Sunningdale is described as a Par 3 course and it contains 14 x Par 3 and 4 x Par 4, their concept of a Par 3 which includes several holes longer than 200 yards, is somewhat different from the Ballbasher view of a reachable Par 3 which needs to be some distance less than 100 yards. But it is the same for everyone and the Stableford points scored were more-or-less in the normal BB range of 23 to 35.

Our first 6 holes passed uneventfully except for Nick aka Player A/B scoring 4 points on the 2nd hole having blobbed the 1st – this proved to be the harbinger of things to come as far as Nick was concerned. Alan was initially struggling with direction but it was already evident that Languid Swing was being used. As soon as he sorted out the direction dimension, he started to score well and with some excellent meshing he and Nick arrived at the turn with 20 points which closely beat Pete and my 19, which was also my score, which rather showed that we were not meshing at all well.

The latter proved to be the case on the back 9 – when Peter scored a 4-pointer, I scored 3 and then we both scored 3 on the same hole – in what proved to be a very tight team game, a lack of meshing was not good news. Alan now got into full languid golf and scored 20 points on the back 9 leaving the rest of our 4-ball trailing in his wake.

He then had to leave early to go an 80th dinner party ( I thought 80th birthdays were celebrated over tea and crumpets in the local Day Centre?). Anyway, by departing he missed the enjoyment of beating MikeS via countback with a score of 35 points and 20 on the back 9, versus Mike’s 35 points with 19 on the back 9. Alan also won the last singles trophy we competed for – the FA Cup – which suggests that he is returning to his best languid form.

The Harleyford Plate scores were: Alan (35), MikeS (35), Richard (33), RobA (32), Peter R & MikeW (29), JohnT (27), Pete F (25), RobM (24) and Nick & JohnS (23).

The team results were very close with Alan and Nick taking the lion’s share of the BashCoins:

Alan & Nick: 20 + 21 = 41
MikeS & PeterR: 19 + 21 = 40
Richard & PeteF: 19 + 20 = 39
MikeW, RobA and JohnT: 21 + 18 = 39
RobM & JohnS: 20 + 14 = 34

We had 3 Nearest the Pin competitions and continuing our Portuguese experience where we had 30 attempts at putting a ball on a Par 3 green with only one success, we had 33 attempts with only 2 successes which makes our total 3 successes out of 63 attempts – School Report says Must Try Harder!

The single NP triumph was by Pete F on a 75 yard long hole beating MikeS by about 5 feet.

That is the end of the 2022/23 season and we now look forward with our normal optimism for better swings to come in the 2023/24 season.