week #3 (part 1)
Your golfing correspondent’s season got itself off the ground this week, a fortnight after everyone else’s. Work commitments and a (triumphant) trip to Villa Park had prevented me from entering the fray until now.
It was a tonic not to be playing in a full set of long johns but it was still pretty nippy, headgear of the woollen variety required. I was well up for it, the new golfing campaign finally upon me, but as I watched my opening tee shot squirt apologetically down to the practice area, I knew I was in for a long season, never mind afternoon.
I salvaged respectability for the first three holes (+1) but almost made history on the 4th by being the first man to go out of bounds there. A pansy potter drive up the left side of the fairway left me a full 3 wood to the green but I yanked it so far left it almost came to rest in the greenkeeper’s shed. A pushed pitch, clumsy chip and two putts later, I was storming to the next tee the proud owner of a double bogey.
I won’t bore you with the detail of the intervening 13 holes but must make mention of the disturbance suffered on the 17th green as I doggedly fought my way to a decent score. In order to equal my handicap in my first competition of the season, I needed to close the round with two pars, so when my approach shot to the 17th left me with a straight 20 foot putt for birdie, I was licking my lips in anticipation. Until, that is, my backswing over said putt was serenaded by the deafening sound of Steven Innes slamming his car door shut on the neighbouring car park, in a very deliberate attempt to sabotage my endeavours. I duly charged my putt four feet past the hole only to be mercilessly barracked by said individual who, to make matters worse, took great delight in my failure to convert the return effort. Still irked by Innes’s rank bad etiquette, I also bogeyed the final hole to return a nett two over par score and leave myself amongst the also-rans.
I took it upon myself to confront Steven in the clubhouse afterwards, we were formerly friends so I felt entitled to address him in the strongest possible terms. However, my suggestion that he took a personal inventory of his behaviour towards fellow golfers was received with short shrift and I was despatched with a flea in my ear whilst being encouraged to address my ‘mental weakness’ in pressure situations. Pah. I suggest he does likewise given he went out ten minutes later to shoot a lamentable 13 points in the 9 hole Stableford comp, hardly demonstrating the mental fortitude he’d encouraged me to work towards.
My +2 return had me finish in 17th place within my division of 34 entrants, ie. slap bang in the middle. There’s bang average and there’s bang average, this was not a promising portent for the season to come. I awoke the following morning to the email of doom from HowDidIDo, an email universally dreaded by golfers, confirming it had taken just one competition for my handicap to go up (from 8.0 to 8.1). Hey ho, onwards to Saturday.
Results – Wednesday Medal
Division 1
Alan Officer 64 (11)
John Macfarlane 65 (8)
Dylan Bruce 65 (11)
Division 2
Raymond Shearer 63 (17)
Brian Hardstaff 64 (14)
Jon Thurlow 64 (16)
Division 3
Ross Walker 63 (20)
Lindsay Anderson 63 (30)
Kenneth Henderson 64 (27)