League Game at Temple

Two things were to all intents and purposes proved correct at yesterday’s league game at Temple. The first was that our new approach to adjusting team handicaps when 2-balls are playing a 3-ball in a better ball stableford team game works very well. Instead of the demoralising approach of deducting lots of shots off the 3-ball members’ handicaps, we now add 10% to each of the 2-ball’s handicaps – this makes them very happy indeed and the 3-ball are content to play off their full handicaps. Yesterday’s team scores were very close indeed which is good enough proof to this new approach for me.

The second thing to be proved correct was that if I wear my waterproof trousers on a showery day, the rain will stay away. Being mindful of the pessimistic weather forecast I decided to put my waterproof trousers on while getting ready in the car park, it being easier to carry out this manoeuvre before putting my golf shoes on. There is a definite danger that when this is attempted on the golf course in the rain, my foot will get stuck inside the trousers and I will briefly hop around on one leg like a demented chicken before falling flat on my face. What I hadn’t bargained for yesterday was that when the sun came out it was going to get very warm. I put up with the sauna-like conditions for 10 holes successfully keeping the rain away and then finally cracked and removed them. Two holes later the heavens opened as we stood on the 13th tee and the demented chicken dance proceeded luckily maintaining a vertical position. I then kept the trousers on for the rest of the increasingly hot round and finished in a cloud of steam.

There being 7 of us at the start, the balls were thrown to create a 3-ball of Alan, Stuart and myself and two 2-balls of the Mikes S & W and RobM and Bill. Normally the 3-ball would go off first but the Arsenal-supporting Alan got stuck in a football related conversation with the Chelsea-supporting Mike in the Pro’s shop and the 4-ball went first. This enabled us in the 3-ball to enjoy a very easy-paced round but did cause us to have to deny any knowledge of the 4-ball in front of us when asked by the players behind us why the 4-ball wasn’t letting us through and just agreed with their assessment of the 4-ball’s apparent ignorance of the protocols of golf. The fact that we sat together in the clubhouse afterwards was solely because we wanted to share the same view.

As for the golf, we spent most of the front 9 holes trying and failing to get the ball airborne off the fairway. We developed all sorts of theories as to how we might achieve this but it was no good – none of Alan, Stuart or myself could achieve this and we were lucky that the ball was running well. Telling ourselves that we were keeping the ball under the wind made no sense when we were hitting downwind. I did manage to get a fairway wood airborne on the 4th thereby putting myself in 7-wood range of the green but I thinned the ball into the bunker at the front of the green and then thinned my bunker shot into the long grass at the back of the green and lost it. It was not surprising that we concluded the front 9 with dismal individual scores of 12, 13 and 15 and it was surprising that somehow we compiled a team score of 20.

On the back 9 we at last started to play a bit better and helped by Alan scoring two 4-pointers including the very-nearly-a-hole-in-one on the 13th we were cruising along at an average of 3 points per hole for the first 7 holes. Stupidly we then tempted fate by discussing the possibility of reaching 27 points and everything fell apart.

Back in the clubhouse we talked about the impossibility of watching all 106 matches in the World Cup – RobM said that he wouldn’t be watching any at all thereby being Billy No-mates in any pub and MikeW was of the opinion that it was more fun watching basketball in that his live-in carer sets up the recording to start after the final score is displayed so he can watch the match in ignorance until the end. Since these matches normally finish with a score similar to 98 – 96, the rest of us felt that he could miss the first 47 minutes of play and just watch the final minute – the only problem being that there is usually an extra 45 minutes at least of time-outs, stoppages etc etc so judging when that final minute will be is not easy.

The team scores were:
MikeS & MikeW 21 + 24 = 45
Bill & RobM 20 + 23 = 43
Alan, Stuart & Richard 20 + 25 = 45

The summer league scores were:
RobM (34), Aland & Richard (32), MikeW (31), Bill & Stuart (30) and MikeS (28)