For a couple of hours yesterday the sun shone upon us and as we took off at least one layer of clothing we felt it was almost sensible to be out playing golf. We had to ignore the reality that the Ice Bucket should have been more accurately known as the Mud Bucket. On the day that the Winter Olympics opened we should have been able to imagine that the Ice Bucket held a cold bottle of fizz that we were sharing with Lindsey Vonn high up on the slopes of the Matterhorn but the reality was much more down to earth or, more appropriately, down to mud and none of our group had long blonde hair under the battered golf caps so far as I could tell .
We were the regular team of 4 Musketeers – MikeS, RobM, Alan and myself – and the Ice Bucket being a team competition, the balls were thrown and MikeS & RobM were to play against Alan and myself. It was, as Alan remarked a chance for us to gain some revenge after we had lost to the same pairing last week. My ambition was not to repeat the same mistake I made on virtually every hole last week in hitting my first putt about the same distance beyond the hole as it was before I hit it.
There ensued for the first 8 holes a ding-dong battle involving some excellent golf. Although the mud prevented a lot of forward run on the ball, it did have one upside in that you could normally find a worm-cast within 6″ of the ball when it came to rest, which provided a useful temporary tee-peg on the fairway thereby slightly simplifying the use of 3 and 5-woods. Rob wasn’t able to take a lot of advantage of this as he was usually playing his second shots from anywhere but the fairway, but his partner, MikeS, was playing some very solid golf and we arrived at the 9th tee with each team on 20 points courtesy of inter-mingled 2 and 3-pointers.
The 9th proved to be a turning point. From nowhere the opposition each scored blobs while Alan and I managed 2 points apiece thereby taking the front 9 by 22 points to 20. It had been the case that we had been meshing well – while I scored a steady 2 points on every hole, Alan threw in 3-pointers from time to time and this continued for the next 5 holes during which period, our opposition lost their way somewhat despite the surprising warmth of the sun and we had built our lead up to 7 points.
My run of ten 2-pointers ground to a halt on the 15th where, playing straight into the sun, and despite us all being of the opinion that my ball had gone straight up the fairway, we couldn’t find it anywhere. It was presumably caked in mud and thereby very well camouflaged. But this glitch did not stop Alan and my onward march to a 7-point victory by 40 points to 33.
Npin2 was won by Alan on the 18th and I took the NP (8th) and LD (6th) golf balls.
We were joined in the clubhouse by Bill fresh from a speed awareness course which he had earned doing 26mph in a 20mph zone on a dual carriageway! He had enjoyed his morning as the course seemed to have been run by Morecombe and Wise, but the ensuing debate was concerned with how to turn off the relentless bonging in modern cars warning you of the approach of a fly or similar.
Bill was, as usual, on top of the day’s political news and advanced the opinion that the days of the Great Leader over the Water were numbered. If he proves to be right we should him forward as the BBC’s next political pundit!
