The Medal Vase is the only competition which comes close to the format played by the PGA professionals though it is extremely doubtful that they would recognise it as such. To avoid possible suicides on course we do put a maximum cap on the number of strokes that a struggling Ballbasher can incur on any hole. This year our in-house scientist, Dr J, did point out that the proposed cap made it very similar to playing Stableford so we added an extra stroke for good measure. We all refused to drop the idea of putter handle length gimmees which was just as well given the difficulties many of us encountered keeping the ball on the green let alone getting it actually into the hole.
The now well-tried and trusted Lego Method of sorting out the teams regardless of how many members are in buggies was used to produce the 1st group comprising Stuart, MikeW and RobertM, who were followed by PeterR, Alan and JohnS who were in turn followed by a 4-ball of Bill, JohnH, RobA and myself.
The extra pressure of medal golf was immediately apparent on the 1st tee where at least 3 put their drives into the large hedge running alongside the tee itself. Others tried to slice their balls onto the adjacent 10th fairway which was littered with about 20,000 golf balls from the practice range. There then followed in our group multiple attempts to get out of the greenside bunker and with my team-mates all posting 8 shots, we were on our way to what turned out to be a very enjoyable day’s golf.
The course was in excellent condition and the fairways were wide and running well so any shot hit in a vaguely straight direction towards the hole went a very flattering distance thereby often finishing up in a bunker put wherever a Ballbasher tends to hit a ball. It certainly is not due to a lack of practice that we find getting out of bunkers quite so difficult and it all looks so easy on the TV but it was in the sand and on the green that many shots were added to our totals but looking down the score-cards, there were only 3 scores of 9 shots recorded which was a good result for us.
We first encountered the young lady opposite when we were on the 7th tee and she was playing off the 4th tee behind us. We were very impressed by her swing but thought that she ought to wrap up warmer given the chilly breeze which occasionally caught us unawares. By the time we reached the 9th tee, she was waiting to tee off the adjacent 7th tee and decided to unleash a cascade of golden locks which immediately caused sundry fades and hooks to develop in our drives. We waited to admire her tee-shot and offered compliments on the impressive shape. Later on when we met her again on the boundary of the 14th and 15th she seemed to have joined up with a pair of old codgers which some of us found encouraging as it clearly showed a caring nature.
Blood pressures sank to more normal levels as we continued to finish line and retired to the terrace for well-earned drinks. Here various members had to conduct complex mental arithmetic which involved adding up some quite big numbers, subtracting some other bug numbers and dividing the result by 3 or 4 depending on team size. Luckily all of the Ballbashers still have 10 fingers and toes each so the calculation was possible but flawed. Post-match auditing revealed that Peter, Alan and JohnS had won all of the BashCoins.
Team results:
Stuart, MikeW and Robert: 41.67 + 40.67 = 82.34
PeterR, Alan and JohnS : 40.33 + 37.67 = 78.00 (won front 9, back 9 and overall)
Bill, JohnH, Richard and RobA: 41.50 + 38.00 = 79.50
Individual Medal Vase Results:
Richard (69), PeterR (73), Alan (75), MikeW (76), JohnH (78), Stuart (82), Bill (85), RobA and JohnS (86), and RobM (89)
