Yesterday it was time for the prosthetes who make up more than half of the BB headcount to look out their old X-Rays to remind themselves how they manage to qualify for the Prosthetic Cup. For some the level of their current prostheticism was too high to enable them to participate – amongst them Bill and MikeS were notable absentees as were the 2024 Cupwinner Roger, PeteF (now definitely a prosthete), Ashley, JohnT and PeterR. So it was left to the well-qualified Alan, MikeW, JohnH, RobM plus the recent joiner Nick to compete with each other. They were joined by 2 non-prosthetes to make up the team numbers – RobA and myself.
It was a glorious day and the fairways were very hard and running well – this is not really good news at Temple where all of the fairways bar a few tilt in many directions, a bit like Rob’s Bocce track. So there was a premium on hitting the ball dead straight without draw or fade spin – I suspect that Alan is the only BB who does this most of the time and the rest of us have next to no idea when either draw or fade might occur.
The group I was drawn in had been reduced at the last minute to 3 members – MikeW, RobM and myself. The other group was made up of Nick & JohnH playing with Alan and RobA. Unfortunately for us RobM and MikeW were too busy putting the finishing touches to their putting strokes and we missed the opportunity to set off first. This gave us a great opportunity to observe a group of BB prosthetes going about their business up ahead of us.
There is in Physics a concept known as Brownian Motion, so-called because it was first observed by Robert Brown, a botanist, in the 1820s. It concerns the erratic, zig-zag movement of microscopic particles suspended in a fluid and is a result of these particles being bombarded by even smaller particles in the form of molecules. The collisions are random and uneven causing the particle to move in a seemingly random, jerky path.
It seems to me highly likely that, if Brown had nor been observing pollen grains in water, but instead had been wandering around Temple in the company of groups of Ballbashers, that he may well have made the same startling discovery which is even used in modelling share prices.
Our group started very well when MikeW nearly drove the first green with a very straight drive and rounded that off with a par. On the next hole RobM extricated himself from a difficult stance balancing on the edge of the fairway bunker to eventually chip virtually stone-dead for another 3 points followed another 3 points on the 3rd, 6th and 8th. But cracks were starting to appear. We only scored 1 point on the 4th when MikeW was interrupted by a medical call and these days, when the Dr rings you, the call must be taken because it may not happen for another year. I was level with the pin for 3 on this hole but managed to 4 putt – in mitigation I would plead that the greens were very quick.
MikeW then drove his ball clean through the 8th green and we didn’t find it. Then my ball disappeared when I hit a perfectly OK drive up the 9th which the fairway tilt probably put into the road alongside. We ended up scoring no points on the 9th and that was to cost us a lot of BashCoins at the end of the day.
While observing the Brownian Motion ahead of us, we had a let a couple of 2-balls through in one of which was a young lad who was knee-high to a grasshopper, built like a grass-hopper and who hit the ball upwards of 50 yards further than us – a reminder of times past. When we let the other 2-ball through we got confused as to which ball was whose in our team and MikeW, who had hit an enormous drive, sadly played RobM’s ball. Confusion has yet to be a qualifying ailment for the Prosthetic Cup but I can imagine that might change in the not-too-distant future.
The somewhat relaxed pace of the day meant that I had to rush off and missed the prize-giving but I can see from the photo that PeteF joined the group and did the presentation to Alan who won by a country-mile thereby continuing his recent good form which he is translating into trophies.
The Prosthetic Cup results were:
Alan (38), RobM (30), Nick (29), MikeW (25), JohnH (rtd hurt after 11 holes).
The team results were:
Alan & RobA 21 + 20 = 41
MikeW, Richard & RobM 19 + 20 = 39
Nick & JohnH 18 + dnf = 18
