What was there not to like about playing golf at Farnham Park today? It was really warm – shirtsleeves and even shorts were in evidence – Rob was possibly feeling it was a little cool having just got back from Costa Rica but it was pure balm for the rest of us. There was only a gentle breeze. We were neither held up nor pressed from behind. Just a great day for golf.
Despite being glued to the Masters over the weekend, studying the swings and the chip shots and how to putt on glass, most of the BBs present did not show an immediate improvement in golfing prowess – perhaps they were over-thinking their take-back. JohnT did emulate Rory’s great bunker shot on the 18th at Augusta, when he holed his bunker shot on the 17th – it was actually more Morikawa than McIlroy in it’s trajectory but in it went.
The balls had fallen so that PeterR, RobA and MikeW all set off first in 2 buggies. They were followed by JohnT (also in a buggy) and Alan and me who had both just arrived in time. Alan arrived on the tee just in time to tee off – a commendable economy of effort such as normally distinguishes his golf.
I am not at all sure why this happened but I found that, after 7 holes of golf, I was one under scratch. It was possibly because I was trying to avoid aggravating my back muscle problem and swinging very slowly but everything was working like a Swiss timepiece. I then missed a 3 foot putt for another par on the 8th which, although it may have left me on scratch, seemed to have a cataclysmic impact on my golf and, relatively speaking, all 4 wheels came off with a mighty clang.
Alan had also been playing really smoothly for the front 9 holes and reached the turn with 18 and with JohnT contributing as well we had a halfway team score of 43.
Perhaps it was because we were playing over lunch-time and we were hungry, though Alan had had the foresight to pick up a sandwich on the way, but the second half became much more of a struggle. JohnT’s aforementioned bunker shot was the real highlight and Alan and I both managed to par the 18th to finish off which proved to be critical for the team result.
The denouement on the terrace revealed that the buggy brigade in front had found scoring difficult. Mike W was unusually wayward – he refused to blame this on his new knee, rather that he had forgotten how to hit the golf ball. Rob said that he was jet-lagged and had still not recovered his wits following his method of travel from his Costa Rican hotel at 4000ft up down to sea-level via 7 hypersonic zip wires. If anybody knows of a good psycho-analyst, Rob would like their contact details please, plus a voucher for the M&S underwear department. So they had scored 32 + 31 = 63 and we had 43 + 33 = 76 so we made off with all of the BashCoins.
The league result was Richard (23 + 14 = 37), Alan (18 + 14 = 32), Rob (15 + 13 = 28), Peter (14 + 11 = 25), John (9 + 14 = 23) and Mike (7 + 12 = 19).
