You know that you are in for an interesting day on the golf course when Pete interrupts your porridge by sending you and your team-mate an email asking which holes do you fancy taking responsibility for in the upcoming competition. This question is based on the completely false premise that you have any idea on how well you are going to play on any given hole.
All ten of us gathered in time and all abuzz to try and find out what the other teams were going to do. First off were the strong-looking trio of Stuart, Rob and Robert. The rest of us kept our distance lest we should have our morale demolished before we started. This was just as well as I can see from the score-cards that Rob scored one of his customary birdies – if it had been he who had the yellow ball, they would have multiplying another score by 8 and the rest of us might just as well have retired to the clubhouse for a coffee there and then.
Pete and Bill’s strategic discussion resulted in Bill driving the yellow ball off the 1st tee. To be fair it was a very well struck drive and it was not his fault that it came to rest 1 foot in front of a tree from which position a scuff was the only way to play. Eventually he managed to score a 7 for 1 which doubled to 2 but since Pete and I only managed a 6 for 1 between us, we totalled a paltry 2 points.
I took on the yellow ball on the 2nd hole. My 3rd shot finished behind a tree on the left from which position I scuffed a shot to just off the green. Pete and Bill had played masterfully without any tension to be on the green in something near regulation. I was just thinking that I would be lucky not to blob the hole when I sank a freak putt from about 80 feet (I did actually measure it) and that resultant 8-pointer boosted our morale just briefly.
Pete had the yellow ball on the 3rd and of course found he was playing his 3rd shot from out of a bunker but we scrambled another 8-pointer. The following 2 holes saw the yellow ball player score a blob, our nadir being the Par 3 5th where another one of us got a blob as well so the team score was one great big blob. We suspected (quite correctly) that this performance was not going to win us any BashCoins, but as we observed at the time, the only way possible from there was up and so it proved.
Two Pars on the 6th including Pete’s with the yellow ball got us 18 points which almost doubled our total score – this slightly frightened us as we realised that, if we could do that, then the others were probably doing it on every hole. However, looking on the bright side, we had n’t hit any trees for at least 2 holes and had n’t lost the yellow ball either. With the 7th, 8th and 9th out of commission, we strolled straight down to the 10th tee. We definitely came to the conclusion that 15 holes seemed like a much better golf course composition – less tiring and much quicker to the 19th hole – perhaps we could encourage Temple to randomly drop 3 holes from the course?
And so we started the back 9 in slightly better spirits and, although when you were given the yellow ball for the next hole your blood pressure went up about 20%, we realised that we each had already dropped each other in the doo-doo so we were firmly in it together (the game not the doo-doo) and we started to play rather better.
This culminated on the 14th where Pete played 3 great shots for a birdie and I managed to score a par with the yellow ball and we totalled 24 points on one hole. That definitely puts a spring in your step though Pete had confided in me that he was worried about his drive on the 18th and had been since breakfast. When it came to it, he played a fantastic drive which came to rest 20 yards from the green in the centre of the fairway. If he had checked the loft of the club he played his second shot with he might have scored a birdie but a par was a good result, and despite my thinned wedge which possibly bounced off the church spire in Marlow before coming to rest above the 1st tee from where I then played a wedge stone-dead, we totalled 12 points on the 18th which turned out to be crucial. And that was despite the helpful advice from Stuart’s team who had lurked around the 18th green to put us off as much as possible!
The 4 -ball behind us comprised MikeS, Roger, Nick and JohnT and I had given them a 3-shot reduction in their handicaps to compensate for the fact that they had 4 players from which they needed to get two scores on each hole above zero. This turned out to be a reasonable guess.
There was a 3-point bonus for any team who managed to arrive back in the clubhouse with the same yellow ball that they started with. All 3 teams managed this so there was no advantage to be gained.
On the front 9 (6 holes as it happened) Pete, Bill and I had 40 points and were totally outscored by Mike,Nick, Roger and JohnT who had 56, as did Stuart, Rob and Robert.
However our back 9 score of 88 points (128 overall) was enough to beat Stuart, Rob and Robert who had 84 (enough to win overall with 140 points) and Mike and co who had 74 (scoring 130 overall).
Over the typically excellent Temple lunch we all came to the conclusion that, despite the odd personal tension, we had all enjoyed the format as it encouraged everyone to help their team-mates as much as possible.
