The Ballbashers’ memories tested

Two years ago playing a round of golf was, for the average Ballbasher, a relatively simple game. He could turn up about 15 minutes before the first tee-time, wander freely into the clubhouse, throw his ball into the air, play a round of golf and leave all that tricky handicap business to Nick and Richard.

Two years later finds the average Ballbasher trying to remember if its British Summer Time or not, trying to remember his mask, trying to remember his handicap index, trying to work out where he left his mobile phone, trying to remember where he left his glasses, trying to remember how to log in to the MyEG app and then finally trying to remember how you play the game itself. All “this trying to remember” does not play to the average Ballbasher’s greatest strengths.

And then we get to the post-round bit where the average Ballbasher has to try to remember how to enter his score into the WHS. Nick and Richard are now having serious doubts as to whether or not they will be saved any work with this move to the WHS. Eventually “monkey see, monkey do” will hopefully kick in and also Covid restrictions will be a distant memory.

As for today’s Summer League match at Harleyford, the 4 Ballbashers who turned up in shorts may now be busy dealing with the results of the excess chafing because a cheeky little breeze was blowing cold Arctic air from the North-East. Bill contrived to create even more airflow round his nether regions by splitting his shorts – certainly not a result of putting too much Dechambeau into his driving as he was his normal relaxed self off the tee.

The course conditions were excellent but it really does help to know the Harleyford greens well to achieve a good score.

I was playing with MikeS and Bill and our team cause was greatly aided by Mike scoring a 2 for 4 points on the 6th. He got another 4-pointer on the 8th but that one was cut to 3 points for the team score. None-the-less we played steadily to accrue 21 points on the front 9. This was followed by a slightly less steady progress to 19 on the back 9.

After last week’s putting debacle I had gone to e-Bay and bought a putter for £45 which was a very close approximation to the Fisher putter I used to play with and I have found that it has fixed the problem for the time being. I am considering having a black bag full of putters in the garage and just plunging my hand in for a lucky dip choice every time I go out to play golf. Maybe a reversion to a hickory shafted mashie or niblick will sort out my fade off the tee?

The denouement in the clubhouse took rather longer than usual as we battled our way through MyEG app but in the end we did get several scores entered, possibly getting the wrong side of the current Covid bubble rules in the process as we worked out who were our best friends when it came to vouchsafing that our entered score was correct. By the time we had achieved this landmark, we would probably have vouchsafed any score.

We can now prolong the enjoyment by waiting to see what happens to our handicap indices overnight. Oh Joy!

The team results: MikeS, Bill and myself 21 + 19 = 40, PeterR and PeterF 18 + 19 = 37, Roger, Alan and MikeW 18 + 16 = 34, Nick and Rob 15 + 15 = 30.
Individual scores were Richard (34), Alan and MikeS (33), Roger (28), Nick and PeterF (27), Bill (25), PeterR (24), MikeW (20) and Rob (19).