It was a golfer on a sunny day,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the Temple course did play,
In the spring time, the only pretty green time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Old golfers love the spring. Anon.
I was tempted to start this report with a blow-by-blow account of the NSPCC quiz last Friday at which no less than 9 Ballbashers took part, one of whom was the quiz-master, namely Rob. He revealed a hither-to unknown masochistic streak by leaving one word out of one of the 20 anagrams of football teams which was an evening-long puzzle for everybody.
By the end of the main course everybody in the room had got 19 of the 20 anagrams and, speaking for our table, we then spent the rest of the evening using every spare moment forlornly trying to remember the name of all of the football teams in the first 4 divisions of every European country in a vain search for the solution. At the end of the evening it transpired that a) Rob had left the word out and b) the results did not count towards our quiz result at any rate! The missing team? Manchester United of course – they frequently go missing.
As for the quiz results, I can let you know that a Ballbasher was in the winning team and several Ballbashers were in the team that came last.
As for the golf today, it was indeed clearly the first day of Spring golf and Temple was in really great condition. We know it was the first day of Spring because Dr John emerged from his winter hibernation for his first game of golf since the last Covid vaccination. I suspect that he has been following the hours of chat about our various medical afflictions and decided that if he was going to have get involved in that, he might as well get paid for it and spent his time more profitably elsewhere. It now being Spring, hopefully medical complaints are on the wane and it is safe to come out.
John was teamed with me and Stuart so we had a close-up view of his golf. And he hit some very impressive shots including a superb bunker shot for a stone-dead Par 3 on the 16th. There was some occasionally rusty moments but not clouds of the stuff.
I once again took to the course expecting to be afflicted by the yips when it came to putting – it’s been 3 weeks since I contracted it and Harleyford practice putting green brings it out in its full glory. But I have discovered that if I keep changing my grip and stance, I seem to be able to keep one step ahead and my playing partners today would have probably not been able to detect anything to untoward. I could probably finally fix matters by having a telescopic handle on my putter which would extend from say 1 foot to 6 feet in length at the press of a button, perhaps coupled with a set of steps.
The other team comprised Nick and Peter R who were sharing a buggy ahead of us. We were due to be 6 players and, it being Bill’s 80th birthday, we expected a little celebratory drink at the end of play but unfortunately Lynne had arranged a family get-together and they did n’t fancy Temple as their party venue so we had to do without – both Bill and the celebratory drink.
After wading through the jungle on the fairways of Harleyford with the JFGS on Monday, the smooth mown fairways at Temple were a positive delight and the 3 of us ambled round very happily chatting about his and that. While John worked out which was the sharp end of each of his clubs, Stuart and I enjoyed a ding-dong battle. We reached the turn with me on 18 points and Stuart on 16 but he eliminated that lead with 10 points on the next 4 holes so then we were locked together for the run-in.
Ahead of our group, Nick and Peter were enjoying a cosy Darby and Joan outing in their shared buggy. We saw them in the distance but had no idea how they were doing. The did n’t seem to steam ahead of us but that’s probably because they were busy with the thermos and a slice of Battenberg.
At much we were joined by Pete, Rob and Robert so the golfers outnumbered the Luncheon Club for the first time for some weeks – another indicator that Spring is not too far away. After a few moments of medical exchanges, the talk switched over to topics such as “How can anyone vote for Trump?” and “We are so sorry about what has happened with the SNP”.
While Nick enjoyed the last slice of almond and cherry cake, the scores were revealed as follows:
Team scores:
Stuart, Richard and JohnS 21 + 23 = 44
Nick and PeterR 19 + 20 = 39
Spring Cup scores:
Richard (39), Stuart (35), Peter (33), Nick (25) and John (20)
Luckily we had previously agreed that handicapping adjustments would be re-started with the first Summer League game next week.
