Scores for Saturday 5 September 2020

Apologies for the severe delay in publishing this week, I've been making friends with Mr Kidney Stone who joined me on Monday morning and has hopefully gone as I write this note. I wouldn't recommend his company, he's likely to stab you in the back or the side without any notice at all! Hopefully he's gone now but my guard is up!

I was absent from this weeks proceedings thanks to the Men's plate on Sunday and golf at Walton Heath on Friday. Walton Heath went quite well with me managing to use the same ball for 30 holes of golf and scoring 34 points and James Miller scoring 33 points and taking away the guest prize of a few bottles of fizz. A splendid time on a very challenging Surrey heath land course. The food was excellent also btw! Sunday didn't go so well as I asked my playing partner if it was a stableford competition and he incorrectly replied "Yes"

In my absence I have a couple of contributions from people who did play this weekend.

First from Martin Lythgoe

Martin D and I were in the dip in front of the 11th green. Martin played his shot, then I played mine. Both nicely both up to with 10 feet. And when got went to mark our ball, both Martins realised we had played each others balls! Two shot penalty each. 🙄🙄

A second from Duncan Miller

Starting on the practice green, James, Rog and Rich were on the 10th tee in the club champs. Reports were the course was playing hard. Rog had 7 putted on 2 and James was 8 over on the front.

Rich told me it's hard to hold the greens, land it short is the only way. 

So on 1, I took less club, landed it 15 yards short. So happy to have a putt of 14.9 yards, which I 3 putted. 

On the treacherous no. 2, I went into the rough on the high side. Bumped it out next to the pin and tapped in my par, easy. 

The greens I hit 3, 4 & 5 all of them checked or spun back, it wasn't until I hit the back of 8 that the ball decided to leap 15 yards further on. Coenraad was flying. What was this pre round advice? 

However, Martin L had suppressed his Spring Cup champion side and was now the lip out master. On one hole he hit the pin square at slow speed only for the hole to eject his ball randomly to the side. He had a shocking front 9 of 11 points. 

With Coenraad looking to post a 40 pointer it wasn't until the 14th tee we met group 2 playing the 11th and it seems Martin L would have been the man in that group. 

We joked with Coenraad he had it in the bag, so he duly popped his tee shot on the green and Tiger Woods Augusta style holed a birdie up and down the hill which took about 10 minutes to finish rolling into the hole. Amazing stuff. 

I spent my day seeing which holes I could place a ball on the fringe at one side and watch it roll off the other. 

Martin D will have to confirm the wording but the comedy moment of the round on the 10th tee recounting the scores. Martin 11, Duncan 15, me 15 and Coenraad doing a Coenraad (17). Coenraad, rejected this insult... No, I'm not really... last week (or at something) I had 21 on the front. I forget the rest as I was cracking up... Usually I'm on much more than this. 🤣

Note that Coenraad OB his tee shot on the last to avoid too much attention on his card.

Now the scores....

8 players this week, just enough to warrant a match report and secure entries for the POTY and RTDB tables. 

The average score this week was a miserable 26.38! Attributable no doubt to the super quick greens and the challenging championship setup of the course. Roger Gibbs will testify to the difficulty of the 2nd pin this week, 14 attempts in one day at the same hole. The definition of insanity is doing the same this repeatedly and expecting a different outcome! Well done Roger.

Our winner this week was Coenraad with 35 points. An almost perfect net par had it not been for the alleged handicap protection on the 18th. Well done Coenraad.

In second place with 33 points is Martin Deery. Well done Martin.

The front 9 was taken by Duncan with 14 points. I think this is a new record for actually winning something but it puts Duncan on his own at the top of the POTY table. Well done Duncan?

The back 9 was taken by Jock with a satisfying 19 points. Jock took a little while getting used to the course setup posting just 7 points by the turn before bossing the back 9. Well done Jock!