Standing on the 1st tee at 10:20 this morning, our ears were suddenly deafened by a mass chirruping as though a flock of exotic birds had landed in the beech trees around us. It then dawned us that this chirruping was emanating from Bill who had discovered that following his cataract operation, he could now see where the golf balls were heading off the tee. His delight knew no bounds and, though difficult it might be to imagine, he gambolled around on the 1st tee like Bartimaeus re-born.
Of course there was a downside – he saw the rest of us Ballbashers clearly for the first time for 10 years and had to rapidly come to terms with the fact that we no longer looked quite so young as we did. He did very well to connect the right Ballbasher with the right name and there were no embarrassing moments.
So far he has had one eye fixed and the other remains almost completely fuzzy so his brain has to do the work of creating a clear picture from two very conflicted sources. He explained that it sporadically fails to do this and this probably accounts for his round today being a mix of birdies, pars and blobs. As far as Bill was concerned he did n’t care where is ball went, he was just so happy to see it go. He was equally happy to see his tee-shot reach the 17th green from where he scored a par as he was to see his ball fly off the toe of his driver on the 18th tee and disappear sideways into the woods.
The balls had fallen so that MikeS, Alan and RobM were a team and Nick, Bill and I were the second team. I am sure that, after last week when I compared his addressing of the ball on the tee to a bee approaching a flower, Rob was delighted not to have me as a team-mate, as this comment had caused him to become so conscious of his golf club that he could n’t hit the ball at all. This week he scored well so he had clearly recovered his sangfroid.
They went off first and we then enjoyed a slow round of golf in the glorious sunshine. Huntswood have re-designed the 1st hole to include 2 small ponds in front of the 1st green. They are not visible from where us Ballbashers play our second shots with the result that between 6 of us we lost 4 balls in the ponds. You can see dozens of them below the surface of the water. If PeterR brings his ball-fisher next time we play at Huntswood, he could set up a new company selling lake balls.
Not having played golf for the last 4 weeks, Nick was once again testing out his theory that the less you practise golf, the better you get. Player B had an absolute field day disabusing him of this notion including finishing with 4 straight blobs with the last ball disappearing beneath the waters of the new lake to the side of the 18th fairway.
Bill and Nick were sharing a buggy and whereas it has been relatively common in the past for Nick to be ministering to Bill’s mental traumas, the boot was on the other foot today and Bill was to be frequently heard attempting to cheer up his buggy-partner.
Although Huntswood is a nice little course, quite tight with many ways to go out of bounds, but with excellent food and service to compensate, it is fair to say that course maintenance is not up to Temple standards and it soon became apparent that the green-keepers had joined the no-mow May campaign. The grass was long and shaggy and caused all sorts of serious problems in the putting department. Sometimes even getting it halfway to the hole felt like an achievement, though Bill’s new ability to see the hole resulted in him executing some excellent long-range putts at times. I missed at least 4 make-able par putts which would have put a shine on my round given that I was playing reasonably steadily alongside my somewhat random partners.
We finally reached the clubhouse terrace where Nick and Bill enjoyed the biggest club sandwiches ever seen complete with heaps of chips and salad. I suspect that even if there had been a large sponge cake to be had, Nick may have struggled to find room for it.
The scores revealed what our team had suspected might be the case in the team competition (2 out of 3 to count on each hole):
MikeS, Alan and RobM 35 + 37 = 74 (winning all the BashCoins)
Nick, Bill and Richard 34 + 34 = 68
The individual league results were:
Richard (36), RobM (34), MikeS (30), Alan (24), Bill (19) and Nick (18).
