This week’s live golfing action finds Jason Barbour sending a luscious tee shot over the gully, looking on with pride as it nestles safely upon the 7th green. It’s a fine golf swing no question, Jason being one of the club’s lowest handicappers (I think he plays off 2).
It’s strange then that his trophy cabinet resembles that of Birmingham City’s, ie. boasting only cobwebs and empty shelves. He may have won the Winter League this year but that’s a doubles competition and his partner happened to be Kevin Riddell, our multi-time club champion. Anyone could have won it playing next to Kevin, even me, and apparently Kev’s now doubtful for the forthcoming club championship given the back pain suffered whilst carrying Jason throughout the winter.
Saturday’s conditions were exemplary. After a chilly start, the sun came out to bathe golfers as they competed in the DF Leslie qualifying stroke-play event. Once again I found myself striking the competition’s very first tee shot, my 7am start time secured via the weekly booking system pantomime. For the uninitiated, golfers play stroke-play events in groups of three, with each group’s start time separated by eight minute intervals. In order to secure an early tee-time, players must log onto an online booking portal (BRS) from 7.15pm on the Thursday evening nine days prior. Sounds straightforward right? Well not when four dozen hopefuls are chasing the same early start times, all of us fingers poised over computers, tablets and phones, counting down the seconds until the moment of truth arrives.
If you’re lucky, you’ll press the button at precisely 19:15:01 and succeed in booking a slot but often you’ll have been beaten to it by a millisecond. It’s something of a lottery. Gone are the days when you’d fetch yourself up to the course at the crack of dawn and place your golf ball in a chute, effectively acting as a queueing system. 7am would tick around and the owner of the first ball in the chute would gleefully tee off first, then the second owner and so on. Then we introduced a system whereby Saturday tee-sheets were completed only by individuals who’d turned up in person to the clubhouse on a Friday evening to write their names down. All very well, unless you work away and don’t get home of a Friday evening much before last orders. Still, the booking system gets quieter by the end of June when folk start going on holiday or taking a break from the game after weeks of golfing ineptitude finds their gardening more attractive all of a sudden.
Those able to play on both Saturday and Sunday last weekend fought to qualify for the DF Leslie knockout competition and the names of the successful few I furnish you with below. For my part I only played on the Saturday, notching a respectable 75 despite putting as if wearing a blindfold. On Sunday I was busy watching my 13 year old lad Ernie win the league with Montrose Youth FC, at least one Russon has sporting ability I suppose.
Results
Craig Irvine 132
Kevin Riddell 138
Ross McAllan 144
Neil Irvine 145
Michael Wood 146
Jason Barbour 147
David Cruikshank 147
Barry McGillivray 147
Dylan Bruce 147
Gary Taylor 150
Iain MacLeod 150
Chris Taylor 152
Graham Sangster 156
Neil Fowler 158
Brian Davie 161
Gary Daun 167
Ian Carnie 180