There being only 4 players at Huntswood yesterday, we were provided with an opportunity to play pair against pair and we decided to use the format pioneered earlier in the season by Stuart whereby each player is “given” one free kick, one free throw, one mulligan and one reverse mulligan to be used at any point in the 18 holes he and his team-mate feel to be the most beneficial.
A reverse mulligan is when you ask an opponent to re-take a shot – normally used when he has just played the shot of his life and therefore likely to cause extreme upset, even fisticuffs.
The balls fell so that MikeW and I were partnered playing against PeterR and RobM. The weather was perfect for golf – hot, sunny periods and a pleasing breeze. Huntswood was in the same shape as all other golf courses round here – parched fairways and very green, slower than usual, greens.
We started by playing a Stableford competition and, after we halved the first 2 holes with pars, we realised that it was much more appropriate to play matchplay with this format, and switched. The ball was of course running a long way and we also soon realised that, with everyone demonstrating that they could get themselves into serious trouble without any extra help, the beneficial use of the Reverse Mulligan was going to require serious thinking – not something that the Ballbashers are over-endowed with.
We decided to use the Free Kick when a putt had finished a couple of feet from the hole. Mike had warned us that this was not as easy as it sounds and I clearly did not concentrate nearly enough when from 6 inches I managed to kick the ball at 45 degrees to the desired line of travel with the result that they took a 1 hole lead.
Mike and I then won the 4th, 5th and 6th to move into a 2 hole lead and then they started a comeback by winning the 7th. We arrived at the short 253 yard downhill 8th and, of the 4 of us, only Peter seemed to hit his drive in approximately the right direction. Had Mike and I known that he had hit it 254 yards into the centre of the green 1 yard from the pin, we would have used one of our Reverse Mulligans and asked him to take his tee-shot again. But, with other players tight behind us, it seemed churlish to ask him to walk back the 254 yards and re-take it. Besides which, he may well have refused in an over-aggressive fashion and planted his driver somewhere unpleasant. As it is, he sank the putt for a brilliant Eagle which so far outclassed our nearest attempt that it was not sensible to ask him to take the putt again. That put us level.
The 9th was a catalogue of errors by everyone with at least Mike and Rob going out of bounds off the tee. Peter played it reasonably enough but I could not stop my ball slip-siding down the hill to the right even to the point that I was playing my 5th shot from beyond the hole and out of the dried up pond in front of the 18th. Peter’s play won them the hole and gave them victory on the front 9.
We discovered that the Free Throw is not as easy as it sounds as well. Either we are all losing strength (perish the thought) or the ball is not as heavy as it feels because we were invariably short. Peter almost threw his ball into the green-side bunker at the 12th and nobody tried it off the tee which might have been sensible given the wayward nature of some of the tee-shots.
Mike and I were 3 up on the back 9 standing on the 16th green with both Mike and Rob having driven the to the edge of the green. Mike left his first putt short and went down for 4 but Rob sank a 6-footer to win the hole – but only briefly, because Mike played his Reverse Mulligan card and asked him to take it again and he duly missed – cue much huffing and puffing from the opposition. They could now only draw the match.
They won the 17th and we had no RMs left to stop them. They needed to win the 18th to halve the match. They decided not to play their remaining RM when I hit an unusually straight drive down the middle, nor again when I played an even more unusual straight 5-wood to 40 yards from the green, nor again when I played a totally unlikely sand wedge into the centre of the green. Of course when I sunk a 12 foot putt for a birdie they did ask me to take it again, and I missed but I still got the par and, despite Peter’s brilliant use of his Free Kick to move his tee-shot from under a tree, which resulted, in the end, with a par as well, Mike and I won the back 9 by 2 holes and the match by 1 hole.
All-in-all a great match enjoyed by all 4 of use who now need to practice our skills at kicking and throwing the golf ball, though I doubt that will be popular with Keith at Temple when we do it on the practice green.
