Early Birds Christmas Cup 2020 - Saturday 12 December 2020

The Annual Early Birds Christmas Cup set off in typical Christmas Cup conditions, grey and cold with a chance of rain. The players though were in good spirits being allowed out for only the second week since lockdown II. Light winds and boggy conditions would make for an interesting day on the course.

Thanks to Jock Hunter, winner of the last two Christmas Cup competitions, for organising the competition including some fabulous prizes. It's a shame the Christmas dinner will be an Easter affair but this has been a fudged up year and having our Christmas Turkey at Easter will seem in keeping with the crazyness we've had to endure this year. Well done Jock.

Agreeing things at the 11th hour is the fashion these days so it seems only right that we didn't finally agree the rules for the game until the first group were on the tee. Fairways and bunkers preferred lies otherwise all standard rules apply. Seems we've been taking lessons from BoJo in this regard!

This report wouldn't be this report without a few shout outs for interesting incidents and I thank James Miller for his contributions. 

Firstly dear old Martin Deery was nearly and ex-dear this week after a near miss from an the first tee. He assumed, incorrectly, that the ball had been hit from an over-eager group on the first tee following them and he was about to give them a piece of his mind before realising that the shouts had come from the 6th tee. I managed to reach the 6th fairway from the 1st tee last week so maybe they'll introduce another internal OOB before long for protection of our slightly less alert players. Anyway, Martin lives to fight another day!

Next we have the story of James on the 9th hole. Before I get into this story I must set some context. James wanted this Trophy this year to add to his impressive collection. I believe he is still smarting from not bagging this trophy in 2019 despite bagging almost every other prize available. He wanted it so bad that he organised a practice round on Friday and decided that the best way to achieve birdie on the 9th is to go for eagle. Of course we all know that the best way to get an eagle on 9 is to drive the green and put out so James decided why not give that a go. He came close on Friday so the omens were good. Come the day of the Cup his confidence was high and he was ready for action. Unlike Friday, there was a NTP prize on offer so an added incentive! James duly drove the green and was all setup to put for Eagle. Jock took the more conventional approach of taking two shots to make the green and landed 1 1/2 feet from the pin. This made James nervous that not only would he miss his eagle chance, he would end up outside Jock and miss out on the NTP prize. He was right on one count and his eagle chance was missed but he did finish 22 cm from the hole JUST beating jock for nearest in 2. James thought he'd have a go at the more conventional route on the 18th hole leaving himself an 8 iron into the green after what I can only assume was a badly duffed tee shot? James was trying so hard to make the green that he literally lost his head (8 iron club head that is.) Thankfully no-one was hurt in the process of the making of this story! James still has a few more games to make the Early Birds 2020 Eagles Club which so far consists of myself and Steve Reynolds. Good luck James and thanks for the report.

Duncan couldn't wait for the report, suggesting on WhatsApp that he should be due a special prize for chipping in for birdie on the 4th hole. You have to ask yourself Duncan, do you really think that missing the green on the second shot deserves a prize?  

Roger outdid Peter Creighton on the 8th hole this week, hitting a far shorter drive than Pete managed. Tony thought about demonstrating that he could hit further than Roger's with a putter before deciding against it. Roger thought Tony had taken his tee shot and proceeded to take his second shot as Tony was teeing up (with the correct club this time.) As you can imagine this was talked about for quite a bit for the next while.

Onto the results. 

There were prizes this year for the winner, runner-up, front 9, back 9, nearest the pin on 3 and 14 and nearest the pin in 2 for 9 and 18. There was some confusion caused by the email jock sent out suggesting that there was nearest the pin on hole 391418, a hole I've never played before. It was clearer when I was shown the printed document and I must admit to being a little deflated that I was not to witness this secret mysterious hole today. There were also a couple of mystery prizes on offer. 

Birdies today for Duncan (4 of course) James (8 and of course the nearly eagle on 9)  Steve on 9 and Roger on 3. Roger was the closest of our group to making the green on 3 and suggested perhaps we should measure as it was near the green after all. We were determined not to use the tape measure and did really well in that regard until the 14th which I'll come to. Well done guys. 

Our overall winner today was Richard Hyne. Richard managed 40 out and 40 in to score a gross 80 and a stableford score of 38 or 39 depending if you took the handicap cut from Thursday or Friday. Either way it was enough to take the top prize of a bottle of plonk. Well done Richard.

In second place with a well scrambled net par 36 was Duncan Miller. Duncan managed to save net par despite a blob and two 1 pointers to open the back 9. Well done Duncan, you are a master escape artist.

The Front 9 went to Steady Reynolds. Steve decided he'd done enough on the front 9 and went to sit in the club house for the back 9. Oh, sorry, correction, he did play on the back 9 it just doesn't look like it on the score card! Well done Steve.

The back 9 went to Pete Laurence who I suspect was in a hurry to get finished and get home into the warm so raced home with 6 pars on the back 9. Well done Peter. 

NTP on 3 went to Paul "the champ" Gardner. Well done Paul, I'm looking forward to some decent scores when we get back to playing summer league together next year. 

NTP in two on 9 went to James "nearly eagle" Miller. Well done James, make it unbeatable next time.

NTP on 14 went to yours truly. 18 ft 3 inches. It was a sublime tee shot and deserved the honours, at least that's what I heard ;-)

NTP in two on 18 went to Mr Nobody. Apparently he played in a group of none which went out before the first group but after the last group. 

A special prize was given to the winning team which went to Richard, John James and Martin Deery. I've heard that Richard has a sore back today from carrying. Well done guys.

Another special prize went to the lowest average score team which was myself, Roger Small, Andy Simpkin and Tony Froud. Our team decided early on that discussion was more enjoyable than golf and proceeded to prove the point for the entire round. Tony was of course the top talker but also the top golfer and was the only one to break 30. I am considering looking into capturing the details to allow me to determine if there is a correlation between playing partners and scores as I believe the results would be unsurprising. 

The final prize went to Roger Small for the lowest average driving distance of the round. A good drive for Roger on the day was past the ladies tee. This could've been due to him injuring himself on the fourth tee as he tried so hard to hit the ball that he nearly fell over. "If it's any consolation Roger it was painful to watch" I said after he took the shot. Well done Roger, very entertaining stuff.

Well done to all for a fun day on the course. Thankyou again to Jock for organising. Finally well done to our winner. Richard, you have the honour of organising next year's event which hopefully will be rounded off with a nice meal in the club house.