Last updated on April 21, 2021
One of the less widely reported impacts of the Covid Lockdown was that the Ballbashers had to delay the competition for the Ice Bucket from it’s normal slot in the first week in January to mid-April. Despite the relocation to what should be Spring, the chilly wind which swept through the mandatory side-less gazebo in which we enjoyed a post-game cup of tea, had several of us hoping that we might play it in January next year – at least we might have a log fire to sit beside.
10 Ballbashers competed for the coveted and largest trophy in the Ballbasher cabinet. The teams comprised Nick, John H and Rob, followed by Ashley, Mike and PeterR who were in turn followed by Roger + PeterF and John S and myself.
Having enjoyed a truly excellent bacon bap and coped with working out our handicaps using our handicap indices, we posted lookouts on Cross Road, managed to avoid hitting any passing vehicle or pedestrian with our tee shots and set off into the heather.
We immediately discovered that the greens were lightning quick and despite all of those hours spent watching the world’s top golfers cope with this problem at Augusta over the weekend, some of us, and me in particular, totally failed to adjust our putting stroke to the sort of speed needed. I sank one long putt of 50 feet or so during the whole round. This is not surprising because I hit every putt about 50 feet and on one hole only that turned out to be the distance needed. Given that my partner JohnS aka The Botanist, was particularly interested to explore the heather en-route to almost every hole, and I was hammering my putts out of sight, it is not surprising that we came last.
Our immediate opponents, Roger and PeteF, started like an express train with 4 consecutive 3-pointers which put them some distance ahead of everybody else after 4 holes. Sadly for them, they then started to wonder what the magic ingredient could be in their swings, and the magic disappeared before they could find the answer. Never-the-less their good start had launched them to 19 points at the turn.
Elsewhere Mike and Co were sharing out the scoring fairly evenly and recording consistent scores on their way to 19 points on the front 9.
But unbeknownst to us all, the front 3 of Nick, JohnH and Rob were being led to a massive 21 points by a red-hot Rob. They then added a further 19 points on the back 9 which included a 4-pointer by Rob on the 15th to total 40 points and win the Ice Bucket.
Second were Mike, Ashley and Peter with 37. Third were Roger and Pete with 35 and fourth (sounds better than last) were JohnS and myself with 32.
Nobody managed to get on the green from the tee for the NP on the 5th, Mike won the NP in 2 on the 11th and JohnS won the NP on the 15th (there being no heather between the tee and the green to study en-route).
We always enjoy going to Sunningdale Heath and today was no exception – could it be that 3700 yards is about our distance these days?
Actually, the story on the 15th is somewhat more bizarre than reported. By this time both John H & Nick had decided that they should pull their socks up and contribute a little more to their team round to relieve Rob of the pressure of hitting 200 yard plus greens with his drive. Both placed their first shots on the edge of the green, around 15 to 20 feet from the pin, and both then casually holed their putts to post duplicate scores of 2 shots for 4 points. After the round we calculated that, playing off his full Course Handicap of just 19, Rob would have posted an individual Stableford score of 34 points -a really impressive achievement off such a low handicap and on such a tricky course with such lightning fast greens!