Last week, which I failed to report on, it was cold and promised to be wet, so the 7 golfers who turned up at Temple to play a Frostbite League game were finally reduced to 4 who completed an 18 hole putting match on the practice green. I have to report that Stuart won with 2 over the par of 36 narrowly beating myself who was 3 over par. The two Roberts were just behind. After using all of our available internal heat stores, we decided it was time to pack up but the scoring was very clear and totally auditable.
The latter point was not absolutely achieved at Binfield mainly due to the variable abilities of the Ballbashers to either understand verbal communications or, even if understood, to follow them. Ashley showed himself to be a master of diplomacy when it came to handling the denouement in his use of his magic black box of results calculation tricks.
We were drawn as 6 pairs, each pair having their own stall to hit out of up the range and their own TopTracer computer system. The marvellous lady in charge did her very best to demonstrate how to use the system to us and then, after a short practice, we were on our way round Pebble Beach. I was paired with Nick and it took us perhaps 14 holes to finally understand how the aiming system worked. Up to then we seemed to be almost being encouraged to hit the ball at at least 45degrees to the left and Nick found that striking the ball off the right-hand side of the stall gave the best result in trying to get close to our apparent aiming point.
We found out that our chipping was just not accurate enough to cope with the fact that it replaced putting out. At one stage I was on the green apparently 12 feet from the pin in 3 shots and putting/chipping for a par, and following my actual 39 yard chip to the target which I missed by a smidgeon, I was awarded a bogey or perhaps it was a double bogey? I can only conclude that TopTracer has an eye in the sky who was watching my putting performance at Harleyford last Monday.
Nick had great fun finding out why Pebble Beach is so-named, when on the later holes, regardless of where we aimed the device, and regardless of where he physically hit the ball, the system plonked him on the beach or in the rocks or the sea, often all 3 in sequence. It brought back memories of his trials and tribulations with the same conditions when we played at Dunbar. I just hope that his mental resilience has not been shattered by this experience. He does not have the same problems with his home simulator, although the barn walls might evidence otherwise, because he can at least dial out having the cliffs and the sea as possible obstacles.
Eventually we all finished, or alternatively ran out of time, and retired to the cafe in the clubhouse to enjoy excellent pizzas or sausage rolls. Everybody had really enjoyed themselves and, at £25 for the round and the drinks and the prizes, it seemed a lot better value than playing the real Pebble Beach which was later calculated to be at least £7500 for the trip.
The denouement revealed that 5 out of the 6 pairs had total nett scores between 161 (Ashley and Alan who were second) and 170’ish. But one pair had completely outshone the rest with a score of 146 and that pair were MikeS and PeteF who were both proud recipients of an Ashley carrier bag containing a selection of Lidl’s best Italian goodies to take home. The mists of time will soon obscure what may seem to the casual observer, the strange statistical distribution of results that we recorded.
It was great fun to do something very different and to play golf without worrying about buggy availability or problems with mud. Nick found out that the temperature yesterday at Pebble Beach was identical to that at Binfield so at least that part of the simulation was accurate along with the putting results!
