There being exactly 8 Ballbashers down to play and, surprisingly, who turned up to play a Novelty game, it was a clear opportunity to play the much-loved format we always put into our Ryder Cup competition – the Canadian Greensomes. As far as I recall, the reason that it is called Canadian is because we do not use the American format.
It is played in teams of two and both partners play drive off and then play their own ball for the second shot. After that, the two team-mates decide which ball to select and then play it alternatively until the putt is sunk or within the gimme distance. In theory the selection of which ball to play is based on the strengths of each player because both will have put their second shot on or adjacent to the green – won’t they. Then it is just a matter of who is the best chipper or putter on the day.
In the Ballbashers version, the selection of the ball to continue playing is normally based on which ball is not in the woods or has only just passed the Ladies Tee (sorry – to be PCQBT++, that should read Red Tee). And then even if the selected ball is within a wedge shot of the green, whichever team-mate had played a non-thinned wedge in living memory will be given the chance to show just how much of a fluke that was.
As far as putting is concerned, JohnT and myself, who were playing as partners and normally expect to take no more than 2 putts on any green, made sure that we shared the grief by always taking 3.
Thus it was, that rather than some stunning high scoring, we saw some less-than-stunning low scoring from all apart from one pair.
The one pair who managed to reach the dizzy heights of 30 points were Nick and Roger. A huge contribution to this excellent performance came from The New Driver Effect. This is a well-known phenomenon and normally occurs when you borrow a driver from the Pro Shop to try it out – it will invariably will go another 30 yards further and 30 degrees straighter for the test round which leads you rush back into the Pro Shop and pay whatever price is demanded. Over the next week, the other clubs in the bag explain to the new driver exactly how to behave if it wants to become one of the gang and the 30 yards benefit will disappear forever.
In Nick’s case he had gone to the bother of testing the driver on the range and despite finding that it behaved exactly like his existing club, he bought it at any rate. But out on the course, it did extremely well with multiple long drives in the right direction. I suggested to Nick that he should donate the spare bedroom to the driver to keep it well away from the other clubs.
The only serious problems that occurred for Nick and Roger on the way round was when their selected ball went into the bunkers adjacent to the 7th and 14th greens. They then had to take it turns to try to get the ball out. It was a little like watching a pair of meerkats at the zoo, taking it in turns to dig their burrow deeper – lots of sand flying everywhere but no sign of a golf ball emerging.
As usual, we had hired the fleet of Temple buggies between us for which I was very grateful, when my trolley battery ran out of juice halfway round. I was able to put my clubs on the back of JT’s buggy and my trolley wedged very nicely into the passenger seat. We managed to play the 3rd, 11th and 18th OK to score 3 points on each but elsewhere we had 10 blobs or single-pointers.
Ashley turned up at lunchtime to share news of the latest postponement to his finger op and to here the results of our endeavours on the course:
Nick and Roger 16 + 14 = 30
JohnT and Richard 11 + 15 = 26
RobA and Alan 10 + 15 = 25
PeterR and Bill 12 + 9 = 21
But despite the less than impressive scoring, the weather had been beautiful and everybody had had a fun time so all was well with the BB world.
