[Lost Minutes of the Third Major
held by the Last Hoorah Golf Society at Nizels G.C]
__________________________________
DATE: 01/08/06
TOUR EVENT #8 of 2006
__________________________________
Sadly
the official event organiser (the less than honourably Sammy) has failed
miserably to prepare and provide the relating minutes to this event, but the
following notes have been painstakingly retrieved and supplied by none other
than the new RJ, aka Eddie whose generosity in time and spirit must be further
commended
In attendance:-
Rocky Red Jacket-present incumbent, winner of 2 majors
Lucky, the snake charmer, Asbo, eagle-slayer of Ashdown Forest
The portable one they call Louis V. former member of Nizels Nazi Youth
A doctor of Eagles and pretender to the jacket
In short:
The quorum to awe ‘em,
…the four they all adore.)
The day dawned promisingly over the garden of England. It was, in short,
the sort of day when all of Nature cried “Fore!” As the summer sun burnt off
the early mist, a trail was blazed through those blue remembered hills to
Nizels and the 3rd major of the season. The young blood, tenderfoot Barnes
chose the course where as a youth he was in his pomp. Nizels for the record was
laid out in 1992 to a Paul Way design in rolling parkland in the grounds of a
Georgian shooting box recently restored.
All wise money was on the local talent but they were not reckoning on
the curse of the Organiser which has left many a dream of victory just that , a
dream unfulfilled.
E1 arrived brow bloodied after being done in at Dunkerque to find R.J.
and E2 duelling on the putting green. All was cut and thrust, bravado and
bonhomie. A pregnant pause and the Valise was checked in, off the conveyor belt
and ready to tee it up. And so to the first…
3 indifferent tee shots and the mother of all pushes found Barnes
struggling from the off. One poor shot
bred another and before you could say “ Cock” stentorously, the head was bowed
and the wheels on his pull-out trolley were buckled. Meantimes, on the dance
floor R.J. hunched over his putter wafted one in contemptuously for par. For a
change, the receding Eagle’s putter behaved itself and dispensed his pill to
the bottom of the cup. Hole 2 was a tester; twisting left and right from a
blind tee shot, the green well-bunkered. This time the hitherto sleeping
Maharajah awoke with a fine display of drive, fairway wood and wedge leaving
him 2 putts for par. How easy he makes it look sometimes. The Dr took an
unscheduled walk in the woods to draw with McOsler with bogey. The third looked
simple enough but the approach over water asked a lot. All made par save Lucky.
The next was an easy par 5 with which sadly Nizels abounds. HO and NM drove to
the left while PB and Dr found the cut stuff. From there, the Doc took 9 iron
to be just short and scrambled the first of 4 birdies. Murmurs between HO and
NM seemed to confirm that E1 and his putter were at last as one.
RJ took the next ( a testing par
3 ) with a solid par before we turned round to face Nizels’ hardest challenge
which NM and DA parred for 3 pts apiece. Then something quite weird occurred.
All saw their tee shots land and duly went after them. RJ stood over his and
played safely over the lake. The Doctor could not believe his luck as the ball
perched perilously close to the water’s edge. As he took aim, he realised that
the squiggle on the ball was not the Eaglehead but the Red Jacket. There was nothing
for it but for DA to play from where Rocky had just and for R.J. to be
penalised. Never in the history of the L.H.G.S. has something quite as
bewildering occurred. But there was more to come as Aspey fluked his chip into
the hole from 35 feet for a most unorthodox birdie (#2).Some people have all
the luck ( generally the ones who spend way too much of their time dedicated to
the game-even writing the Minutes to a game for someone else ). At the turn,
the receding Eagle had pushed his luck to the limit at 1 over and 23 pts. The
Maharajah was hand-in-hand with Sammy whilst RJ was tailend Charlie.
The back 9 began with yet another par 5. E1’s putt just missed for a
birdie but a safe par sufficed. On the next hole ( a long par 3) Nick’s sand
shot nearly went in! Whilst the 12th saw yet another birdie from DA’s hot
putter ( you are all entitled to yawn loudly at this point but such is the
privilege of penning another’s player’s minutes!) Clearly, this was all too
much as he dropped 3 strokes in the next 2 holes but yet another birdie on
a par 5 helped steady the ship. Barnes
also made a solid par but Rocky having lost one off the tee was living up to
his soubriquet. But as we know, you can never write off this wily competitor as
was shown by his succession of pars to finish on. The keen lepidopterist was
rewarded by a view, on the delightful 16th, of a comma sunning itself in this
oak-fringed oasis. Ah.
And so to the 17th were DA’s luck ran out as his drive down the middle
ended in a divot as HO picked up another par. The last saw E1 push badly as the
rest of the soc. muttered something about playing for one’s handicap. A double
bogey followed whilst Nick and Harvey made par. The stats revealed that RJ came
in last with 33 pts , Maharajah and Valise Vuiton drew for second on 34 pts
whilst the day was won by the Doc. with a gross 6 over and 42 pts. Looking back
on his first major triumph I breathed a due sense of relief. Ah Monty, Monty
would that you could feel that too.
And so to the vital statistics ...
|
|
HO |
PB |
DA |
NM |
|
Front Nine
(stableford) |
17 |
18 |
23 |
18 |
|
Back Nine
(stableford) |
16 |
16 |
19 |
16 |
|
Overall
(stableford) |
33 |
34 |
42 |
34 |
|
Gross score (par
70) |
86 |
88 |
78 |
89 |
|
Gross score on
par 3’s (3) |
+1 |
+3 |
+4 |
+4 |
|
Eagles !!! |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Birdies |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
|
Putts |
33 |
36 |
31 |
38 |
The winners for
the meeting were therefore as follows:
Front Nine: DA 23
points
Back Nine: DA 19 points
Overall: DA 42 points
Par 3’s: HO +1 (4 holes)
Eagles / Birdies: DA 4
Putts DA 31 putts
The money stakes were as follows:
HO £4
PB £0
DA £20
NM £0
Player
|
Exact H/C
before
event |
Meddle
Score Today
|
Adj To H/C
|
New Exact H/C
|
New Playing H/C
|
OOM Before Game
|
OOM Points Today
|
OOM
After Game
|
|
HO |
10.7 |
+14 |
+0.6 |
11.3 |
11 |
54.5 |
2 |
56.5 |
|
PB |
14.4 |
+16 |
+0.6 |
15.0 |
15 |
22 |
9 |
31 |
|
DA |
11.5 |
+6 |
-1.2 |
10.3 |
10 |
44 |
20 |
64 |
|
NM |
15.3 |
+17 |
+0.6 |
15.9 |
16 |
37.5 |
9 |
46.5 |