Last week there were 9 Ballbashers signed up for golf today but by the time the weather forecasts had almost come to an agreement about it being about 7C with a cold northerly bringing heavy showers, for some reason the number had dropped to 3 of us on the practice green prior to tee-off – that was MikeW, MikeS and myself.
MikeW had courageously said that he would play even though he thought that he might have pneumonia but that, if he was soaking wet and freezing cold when we had played the 12th, he would be inclined to head for the clubhouse. If that had been the case there would have been a 3 horse race up the hill.
As it was we headed for the first tee through the biting wind, and having no need to throw any balls up in the air which was just as well as they would probably have ended up in Maidenhead, we push our drives right and left and set off for what turned out to be a very enjoyable round since the lower parts of Temple are nowehere near as exposed as the 1st tee.
As you may imagine the competition was very tight indeed and we arrived on the Par 3 5th tee with the two Mikes on 6 points and me on 7. With the wind on our faces and 130 yards to carry, I elected for a 7-wood which I struck nicely towards the pin through the mizzle but I suspected aloud that it would have gone through to the back. The two Mikes put their balls in good places and off we went.
On arriving at the green my ball was nowhere to be seen and, out of hopeful curiosity, I looked in the hole and THERE IT WAS – A HOLE IN ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not that I was over-excited of course but it was my first hole-in-one and also the first hole-in-one scored during a Ballbasher game. An approximate calculation of 34 years x average 200 rounds per year x 4 Par 3 holes per round = 27,200 attempts to score a hole-in-one by the varied cast of Ballbashers over the years. Let us hope that they are akin to London buses and another will soon be along.
We never did get soaked and although we finished the round feeling that a good bowl of soup would work wonders, we had an enjoyable round, well I certainly did.
The chowder was brilliant and we were joined by Bill and Stuart who arrived in time for a free drink. It was good to see Stuart looking chipper though he did say that might be due to the large dose of steroids he had had that morning and tomorrow was another day. Bill came for the craic which was largely about the link between insulation and electricity bills and how MikeS and I probably needed to knock our houses down for the good of mankind.
The scores were:
Richard 20 + 19 = 39 (greedily taking all of the BashCoins just to put the cap on the day)
MikeW 18 + 17 = 35
MikeS 13 + 17 = 30
Congratulations, we all dream of that moment. Stuart