Yesterday the golf course and the weather provided the ideal conditions for a Summer League game at Temple and the 8 Ballbashers who played enjoyed (or not) a very close competition of high scoring team golf as a background to the Summer League match. The return to the BB Handicapping system made for a more relaxing start even if the reduction of gimmee distance to just the putter grip was not so appreciated.
The first group comprised Nick playing with JohnT and Rob playing with Bill – they drove off the 1st before we were in position to provide background support and we did n’t really come across them again until we met on the terrace afterwards.
Our group comprised Mike playing with Pete and me playing with JohnS. Mike immediately set the tone by delicately thinning his pitch shot to about 6 feet from the pin and registering a 3-pointer while we only mustered 2. The front 9 continued in this relative scoring fashoin and it was not until the 8th that we actually managed to score more than them on a hole. Mike had also racked up 4 points on a hole so they comfortably beat us by 3 points, 21 to 18, on the front 9.
The back 9 provided a completely different outcome. Both John and I started to play some decent golf and although Mike felt that my thinned 8-iron to 2 feet from the pin on the 12th was a tad lucky, I maintained that the resultant birdie was completely fair given that I had thinned the 8-iron with exactly the correct trajectory which surely takes a modicum of skill even if it is unrepeatable.
I had made the interesting discovery on the 7th that if I lined myself up in the position whereby I reckoned I could fade the 5-iron, the shot went dead straight and in that case that was into the left-hand bunker. I now started to apply this new technique to other iron shots and notably on the 14th hit a dead straight 7-iron onto the green for another par and when John scored a 4-point par on the 15th we had gone some way ahead.
Mike and Pete also felt that my thinned approach wedge to the 16th which conveniently ran through the bunker before finishing next to the pin was also jammy but since I had now done this twice I felt that it bordered on a proven skill.
So we arrived on the 18th tee with John and I leading them by 5 points on the back 9 and by 2 overall. We all made good drives with mine being the longest so when Mike played his approach shot to what appeared to be very adjacent to the red flag and I followed that with putting mine into the right-hand bunker while John was lost in the trees, the competition suddenly became very tight as I did not have a shot on the 18th.
I managed to just get my ball out of the bunker to about 7 feet from the pin while Mike turned out to be 6 feet away and Pete was about 25 feet. Pete went first and scored 2 points for his team which levelled the scores. So then the calculation was that if I missed my putt I would only score 1 point and Mike would have 1 putt for outright victory and 2 putts for the draw.
I then made life difficult for Mike by sinking my putt for a par and 2 points. Mike now had to sink his to halve the match. He missed by no more than an inch or two but that was sufficient to give John and I outright victory.
Mike and Pete’s day was further improved when they discovered that Rob and Bill had also scored 21 points on the front 9 to halve that with them while John and I won the back 9 with 24 and the overall with 42.
Results were: JohnS and Richard 18 + 24 = 42, Mike and Pete 21 + 20 = 41, Rob and Bill 21 + 19 = 40 and Nick and JohnT 13 + 18 = 31.
Individual league scores were: Richard (36), Rob (33), Mike (32), Bill (30), Pete (27), Nick (23), JohnT (22) and JohnS (20).
