Once again the Ballbashers returned to Seaford to play for the Sand Bucket. We had a couple of late withdrawals but Malcolm once again stepped in at very short notice to fill one of the slots so we were 11 in all.
Once again we hugely enjoyed the trip which was very well organised by Ashley. The service, food and golf course at Seaford were all flawless and even the weather, which had been forecast to be a lot of rain on Tuesday, was absolutely OK with only a miniscule amount of rain on Tuesday when it was perhaps a tad cool, a strongish breeze on Wednesday and enough sunshine for Nick and me to get sunburnt despite having taken the Factor 50 with us, which we had not bothered to apply because it looked too cloudy.
Nick devised a fiendishly clever way of managing the draw to take into account who was walking and who was in a buggy on Day 1. If he could convert it into an app to run on his watch then we could use it every week and save ourselves a huge load of pfaff.
The results of the draw were that there were 4 pairs – MikeS & Ashley, Nick & PeterR, MikeW & RobA and JohnS & me. And there was one 3-ball – Stuart, Alan and Malcolm playing off 3/4 handicaps + 1. The 3-ball questioned this swingeing cut in their handicaps before we started playing on Tuesday, again halfway round the course when I met them on the 10th and again at the end of play on Day 1 when they were sharing last spot.
Their complaints were carefully considered by the DisHon Sec Handicapping and myself for at least 5 seconds before being rejected out of hand on the basis that precedent more than backed up this calculation. Perhaps out of irritation that they were n’t getting anywhere with that approach, they then focussed more on their golf and proceeded to win the day’s golf on Wednesday thereby finishing 3rd overall.
On Tuesday John and I played with MikeW and Rob and enjoyed a great ding-dong of a game in which we all played well at times and also meshed quite well as teams. As a result, John and I were in the lead at the end of play with 40 points followed by MikeW and Rob on 38, Peter and Nick on 35, MikeS and Ashley and Stuart/Aland and Malcolm both on 33.
Ashley made the sensible decision to cancel the putting comp before supper as it was a bit chilly and we were all somewhat knackered. Also sundry joint manipulation exercises had to be undertaken by almost all of the assembly to provide some chance of playing the next day.
After an excellent dinner, there was time to play snooker. Last time we attempted this, the first frame took the best part of 2 hours to complete so a sensible suggestion was made to have a time cut-off of 20 minutes per frame which gave just about enough time to pot 4 or 5 reds, a couple of colours and give away more points for foul shots than were scored. Fortunately Alan had raided the privy purse earlier in the day so he had a few groats to feed the meter. We were playing in teams of 3 which did cause our perhaps wine-befuddled brains a small problem in trying to remember who were with playing with, and who against, and also whose turn it was next. We managed to stay up until 11pm when Ovaltine beckoned and off we went to bed leaving the black ball totally untouched.
For Day 2 Ashley had organised buggies for everyone which was great relief for us hardened walkers who set aside our normal view “that we much prefer to walk, so much closer to nature etc etc” and enjoyed the rapid transit from gorse bush to gorse bush. John and I were now paired with Nick and Peter and an approximate calculation would suggest that we lost about 20 balls between us with Peter contributing 9 to the total on his own.
On the front 9, John and I continued where we had left off the day before, playing and meshing quite well to score another 19 points. Sadly for our chances of winning the coveted trophy, 27 holes proved to be the limit of our endurance and all of our wheels fell off at once, and we staggered to the finishing line with only a few extra points making 71 in total.
Elsewhere on the course MikeW and Rob were continuing as they had played on Tuesday and added an extra 18 + 18 points to their 38 to give them 74 and victory. As I mentioned earlier, the complaining 3-ball won the Wednesday competition with 37 points. The LD (PR and MW), NPin 2 (RC and MW) and NP (RC and SC) balls were distributed and somehow Ashley seemed to be able to award everyone a prize bottle of wine which was an entirely suitable outcome for a grand trip to the seaside.
As a postscript, I have been complaining about suffering from the yips for the last 3 months and so I decided to investigate how I might over come this problem. I came across many Youtube suggestions but one which took my eye was a grip known as the saw grip. I can only say that if anyone else contracts the yips, I suggest that you look at this method. It brought instant joy to my life and I sunk many an unlikely putt at Seaford – it may have been the sea air of course but I don’t think so.
