Several runners (well, walkers as it happens) and riders (buggy-riders in this case) turned up at Winter Hill yesterday to play the last game of the 2023 Eclectic League and find out how well the golfing gods were disposed towards them in their attempt to overtake PeterR, the leader at the start of play and also the reigning champion.
Poor mis-guided fools – despite the incredibly close finish, Peter triumphed for the second year in succession with exactly the same score as last year – 54 points. He clearly knows exactly what has to be done to win Marilyn and his game is ideally suited with an eclectic mix of 0, 1, 3 and 4 pointers – hardly a 2 in sight.
After an incredibly complex division of the 11 Ballbashers in attendance into 3 teams masterminded by Bill using arcane formulae to ensure that nobody who was, on paper at least, in close contention for victory played with anybody else who was in close contention, we set off in perfect playing conditions for those who enjoy the Indian Summer and zero wind which, I have to say, includes me. The course was in immaculate condition with fast, true greens which, I am sad to say, none of the players in our group were anywhere near close to mastering.
For the first time in this year’s league I had come equipped with the table showing me the holes on which I had an opportunity to improve my total score. Barring unlikely 4-pointer birdies, I had worked out that there were 5 holes that I needed to target and a possible improvement of 6 points which would have given me a total of 55 points which I thought might win the league. This prediction turned out to be 100% accurate. Unfortunately my ability to produce the goods on the day did not match my ability to predict the requirement.
As it happens I was playing with Stuart, RobA and Bill. And Stuart stated at the outset that he thought that knowing which holes were strategically important would only increase the likelihood of screwing them up. The evidence of my performance possibly leans in favour of his view in that on the 5 holes, I scored 2 x 3-pointers and 3 x 1-pointers thereby improving my score by 50% of my target. This is likely to be a continuing debate for years to come (the golfing gods allowing).
The first group comprised JohnS, MikeS and the defending champ Peter R and they just disappeared out of sight. The second group comprised JohnT, PeteF, Alan and RobM and they very definitely did not disappear out of sight. After we had enjoyed 9 holes of studying their random manouvres forwards, backwards and across the course, we felt that it would be very selfish of us to keep all of this enjoyment to ourselves so, when catching them up on the 9th green, we suggested that, if they let us through, they could then have similar enjoyment on the back 9 which suggestion they readily accepted. Stuart then immediately received a call which resulted in his having to leave and we were reduced to a 3-ball which meant that we accelerated away from the 4-ball and denied them the pleasures of our backsides so-to-speak.
Having missed countless opportunities to add multiple birdies to our score, we eventually finished and found the first group relaxing on the patio where they had been for some time. A few geological time periods later we were joined by the 3rd group and we could carry out the denouement. We could n’t know the final league result for sure but it sounded at the time that by adding 1 point to his score, Peter R had kept the pursuers at bay though it was going to be close and so it proved with 4 players within 4 points of his final total of 54.
The team scores were calculated by the normal eclectic method (where team score = Σ ( n where n > 2) x § where n is the number of Stableford points scored by each player on each hole and § is the reciprocal of the number of players in the team:
MikeS/JohnS/PeterR 9 + 9.33 = 18.33 (winning front 9, back 9 and overall)
PeteF/JohnT/Alan/RobM 8.25 + 5.5 = 13.75
Stuart/Bill/RobA/Richard 5.25 + 6.33 = 11.58
