Opportunity missed at Temple

With Covid and other reasons for self-isolation reducing the active numbers of Ballbashers to around 9, it was very impressive to see 7 of them arrive at Temple for a Frostbite League game today. In the days BM (before mobiles) we would have set off with a slight insecurity about the weather forecast but these days, with several weather forecast apps available on our mobiles all predicting a deluge of such size that we would soon be seeking the high ground of Mount Ararat, we elected to have a coffee and think about it.

No rain appeared and so we were just thinking about having 9 holes when someone very kindly ordered another round of coffee and a slice of cream sponge cake. By the time he had dealt with the latter and we had all dealt with the former, the deluge was another 20 minutes closer so 6 of us decided to have a putting competition over 18 holes – this thereby became the polar opposite of last week’s visit to Pebble Beach where there was no putting but lots of driving so I suppose that, between them, they constituted a virtual full round.

The teams were split as they stood which meant that Alan, Stuart and I formed one team and PeterR, RobA and RobertM formed the other. We started at opposite ends of the course with the objective of playing 3 halves of 6 holes – that’s the full putting green course – with BashCoins to be won on each 6.

We removed any chance of any more uncertainty about the scoring system in advance by agreeing that the par for each hole was 2 strokes and we would count the whole of each team’s net under or over par as the team score – no Better Ball nonsense or handicaps to be included, just raw strokeplay akin to that just played by the Pros at TPC Sawgrass, admittedly without the incentive of $3.6million for the winner.

There was n’t a great deal of incident to report of interest to the reader. We had almost gone round the first 6 holes in scratch when one of our number dropped a stroke which was disappointing, but we were gratified to learn that the opposition was 11 over at the same stage. We then disappointed ourselves further by dropping 3 shots on the 7th hole but held it together to finish 5 over for the second 9 which beat their 6 over, and after the 3rd 6 holes we had won comfortably with 11 shots over versus their 22. The BashCoin Bank has been updated appropriately.

It was still not really raining but we decided to head home and were delighted when it really started raining about 3 hours after we should have tee’d off! We need another 3 or 4 weather apps to add even more inaccuracy to the forecasts guiding us – perhaps next time we should go out and play regardless, and deal with it when and if it happens.