It was time for the Autumn Tankard today and with Ballbashers falling by the wayside like so much confetti, it was left to the highly tuned athletes in our midst aka Nick, MikeS, JohnT and Bill, to fight over Ashley’s always delectable prizes. When there are 9 or more playing, the winners can walk away with a whole Xmas shop, but with fewer players out, a more reduced but none-the-less highly pleasing prize was on offer.
Our correspondent reports:
“With just four Ballbashers available to take on the challenge of the Autumn Tankard on a fine autumn morning at Temple none of us expected such an excellent and, at times, genuinely exciting game.
After 9 holes the scores couldn’t have been tighter with John T, Mike S and Nick scoring 21 and with Bill scoring 20. The second 9 proved almost as close with the lead switching on a regular basis and with the scores after the 17th standing at John T on 40, Nick & Mike S on 38, and Bill on 37.
The 18th proved to be a nail-biting affair with the three challengers throwing caution to the wind in their desperate attempts to overtake the leader. Nick’s bold opening shot left him an unexpected 15 foot from the pin following which he took 3 putts to score 4, John T and Bill took more cautious lines resulting in a well-earned 3 each, and Mike took used an even more effective strategy to score 2. Final scores were John T 43, Nick 42, and Bill & Mike 40.
Part of the reason for the more than impressive scoring was undoubtedly the appearance of Ashley, who turned up on the 6th to display the two bottles of excellent wine that were on offer for the winner, and who then accompanied us around the following 12 holes, dangling his bottles in front of us and providing encouragement and derision as appropriate from the side lines as the game progressed to its denouement.
The more observant reader will have worked out that the end result was a tie between Bill & Mike for the Tankard, requiring a “closest to the pin” play-off on the 18th with Bill snatching victory by virtue of leaving his ball around a foot closer to the pin than Mike. Magnanimously, Bill donated one of the bottles of wine to Mike safe in the knowledge that, once located, the Autumn Tankard would be his to display in his trophy cabinet for the following year. Well done Bill… steady under pressure for virtually all 18 holes and a well deserved winner. (ed. note that the only permanent part of the Autumn Tankard is the empty wine bottle).
The even more observant reader may have, by now, realised that this was in fact a putting competition on the practice green precipitated by the four of us being unable to play due to the recent (and appalling) vandalisation of the Temple buggies, and with scoring being based on the lowest number of putts over 18 holes, constructed by playing the practice green’s 6 holes three times in succession.
And, to top it all, the one hour playing time for the competition must, by a country mile, have set a new record for a Ballbasher trophy round.”
