MINUTES OF THE LAST HOORAH GOLF SOCIETY
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DATE: 15 MARCH 2007
TOUR EVENT: #2 of 2007 – CARRY ON
GOLFING
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Attendees:
The
Eagle of Dale Hill, E1,RJ 06 and BOTM (Jan)
The
Eagle of Ashdown Forest, E2, Asbo, Snakecharmer
The
Eagle of Pyecombe, the Thong with a Song
The
Eagle of Kingsbarns, RJ 05, Go4
The
Dragonslayer of Royal St Georges, aka Valise le bagman
…AND
making his first guest appearance, NO, Mr Nosler, Laddie McOsler
Regular readers of this column will be aware
that it is customary for certain members of this great society to begin the
minutes by rehearsing some great and profound saying by a noted golfing
Victorian man of the cloth, who whilst striding the sprawling links fairways of
this great island, does God’s great work and spreads the Lord’s gospel of
truth.
I, on the other hand, am too busy.
And so it is with haste that I shall rattle
through the minutes of the Knole Park extravaganza. With so much to report it is tough to know where to begin. The day started inauspiciously with the
first buffoonish act of the day.
The scene is set with our hero Mr Aspey
tearing up the M25 in the golf mobile with his trusted sidekick, Valise by his
side.
“I know the way” cries his sidekick, “don’t
take the Bromley turning, keep going to Sevenoaks”.
“Ok maestro”, he replies. “It’s your cadgers on the line”
The initiated amongst you will hardly need what happened next to be spelt out. As we spun around the bend, we were confronted with more bollards blocking our route than were used for crowd control purposes at the recent Take That concert, and our hero and his sidekick were forced along the M20 in the wrong direction onto Paddock Wood for a slight detour en route to this great event. (Thankfully, the BOTM award was to be spared a return to Barnes’ locker by HO who had already bagged it by dedicating literally hours to working out how we would split the 5 members up when we were always a 6-ball, by subsequently pouring ½ a pint of black coffee into the tea pot and by sincerely pointing out the obvious when he was heard to say with regard to Sundridge Park GC, “two courses…you know what that means…36 holes!!” – quel buffoon (congratulations old chap.)
On arriving at the Club, it was an honour
and a pleasure to be greeted by that stalwart of Kentish golf Mr Nosler. Wearing the Osler ‘public school good looks’
gene with graceful ease, the old dears on the first tee were seen to swoon and
gasp when he was joined by his younger brother, Go4 as they saw reunited on the
putting green the 1st and 2nd prize winners of the “Home
Counties Housewife’s Choice for Boyish Good Looks, Rosey Complexion and
Elegantly Greying Temples Award 2006”.
In fact that was not the only occasion on which the crowd on the 1st
were awestruck as Nosler then faultlessly, and with the minimum of fuss,
screwed a 3-iron onto the front edge on the 190-yard par 3 opener. More than one eyebrow was raised at his 18
handicap as he charged around the front nine chalking up 20 points and the
undying respect of his partners for the day, DA and PB.
At this point, a mention for our poor elfish
member, Thongy. Having remarked to his
long time friend and sparring partner PB after the game that, in reference to
his first shot of the day, “I went long and left” (a fact PB was all too aware
off as the fucking thing whistled past his knee!), he proceeded to flip up a
lob wedge over a hump and down the sloping green in the style of Tiger Woods at
the 16th at Augusta and watch in stunned silence as the ball
trickled into the hole for a birdie to take him 1 under gross and to rack up 4
nifty points. To say that he then
somehow contrived to only make a further 18 points in total over the following
17 holes is testament to the amazing vagaries of the game. In recording the lowest ever Hoorah points
tally, and becoming the first ever player to fail to make double figures over 9
holes, we salute the small man and we do hope you manage to hold onto your card
for next season. To miss out on your
comedy would be a shame – you are too good a player to spend another season on
the Challenge Tour.
Particular thanks also go out to Thongy from
E1 who showed the society that his erstwhile nickname “WD40” was still well
deserved. All was going relatively well
until the 13th tee. Having
been told that driver would reach the pond and that it was not necessary to hit
a driver on the 325-yard par 4, he did of course smash driver straight into the
middle of the pond before skulling his 3rd shot over the back of the
green and sinking without trace in carding an ugly 7. This was nothing however compared to the next hole. Having seen PB and NO go wildly out of
bounds right off the tee, and with the virgin fairway at his mercy, he crushed
exactly the sort of low penetrating draw up the left hand side that was
required to avoid the OOB. With the
ball nicely on the short stuff, he was faced with a 165-yard downhill approach
to an untouched green. Inexplicably
deciding to take 2-iron, he let fly to the cries of “FOREEEEE RIGHT”. In stunned amazement NO crouched like a
Tiger waiting to pounce, hands on head ducking the flight of the ball. Little did he know however that the good
Doctor had thinned the life out it and that it was flying along the turf at
Mach 7 straight to NO’s left knee.
Crouching was to do him no good at all as he looked up only to see the
ball fly between his legs and come to rest safely in a nice patch of mud. 2 duffed chips later, and having had to hole
a 6 footer for a 7, he contrived to make the most hilarious triple bogey from
the middle of the fairway ever witnessed by the society. This debacle was followed by three more
blobs on the back nine and, were it not for the most extraordinary display from
young East, the Doctor himself would have picked up the honour of the lowest
ever points tally on the tour with a meagre (but amusing) 26. A post mortem
tally-up of the gross par 3 scores gave DA a surprising hand-out of booty and
something to cover his petrol. In the meantime he should perhaps take him down
to his GP for a booster shot of WD40.
Of the triumvirate brining up the rear,
whilst the Thong was piling up a staggering 18% of his total points on the
first hole before slipping into obscurity, NM posted a sturdy and HOOM worthy
round carding a winning 34 points (on countback from PB) to confirm his credentials
as the “fastest of the blocks”. NM won the overall daily comp prize but shares
the HOOM points with PB (4.5 each). Rarely in trouble at any point, and with a
sublime birdie 2 at the long par 3 - 16th, only a tally of 38 putts
spoilt another handicap cutting round, hard on the Hindhead heels. The jury
remains out on the claw-grip putting technique he adopted whilst on his winter
tour to Dubai.
HO’s solid opening tee-shot to the heart of
the long par 3 - 1st hole was sadly not to herald a charge up the
HOOM ladder as it was followed by 3 woeful putts and a further three - 3 putts
on the front nine; of particular note was his karaoke performance at the
shorter par 3 – 5th hole. A push to the right, a skull through the
green, and a shank which ran almost all the way down the hill to the ladies
tee-box followed by HO hotfooting it with pitching wedge in hand, to the tuts
from the onlooking ladies’ fourball, left an ugly 6 on the card. With an
improved mental fortitude than in days of yore, he kept his chin up to grab a
birdie at the par 5 - 9th
and a solid 19 points on the way home to nick the back 9 prize.
At this point it remains only to record what
are likely to be the 2 strangest occurrences in a HOOM event for some time to
come.
Firstly came the bizarre and inexplicable
decision of NM to start playing the sitar in the club house over
breakfast. Nobody knows why. Perhaps it is just too much sometimes for
him to repress his Brahmin roots.
Secondly came the “Affair of the Flatulent
Doe” as it shall go down in the annals of HOOM lore. The tale goes something like this. Imagine if you will the 5th hole. A mighty 180-yard par 3 up the hill. A fine strike with a longish iron is
required. Anything less than a perfect
strike will see your ball nestle into the bank and roll all the way down to the
red tees leaving you 150-yards still to go.
PB had the honour. He checked
the yardage and pulled out a 5-iron. He
teed it up. He settled. The crowd went silent. He took the club away smoothly ready to
sweep the ball cleanly onto the green.
At this point it all went wrong.
At the top of the backswing a beautiful Spring Deer was seen to cock her
hindmost left leg from amidst the crowd of onlooking deer and let go such great
fruits of flaffy woof woofs as has never been seen since Johnny Fartpants had a
baked bean and fruit & fibre vindaloo for tea. Needless to say this somewhat put PB off his stride as the ball
flew of the toe almost killing said Deer, and sending his nice shiny new
Callaway up and into the bracken. Quel
chance!?
What a day, ranking highly amongst Hoorah
classics!
And
so it is with regret that I must sign off with the customary “Over to you, GO4
aka Stato.”
The Dragonslayer of St Georges aka
Valise.
Knole Park – 15 March 2007
|
|
HO |
PB |
DA |
NM |
PE |
NO |
|
Front Nine (stableford) |
13 |
19 |
16 |
17 |
14 |
20 |
|
Back Nine (stableford) |
19 |
15 |
10 |
17 |
8 |
13 |
|
Overall (stableford) |
32 |
34 |
26 |
34 |
22 |
33 |
|
Gross score (par 70) |
87 |
88 |
94 |
87 |
95 |
91 |
|
Meddle score |
+17 |
+28 |
+24 |
+17 |
+25 |
+21 |
|
Gross score on par 3’s (6) |
+7 |
+6 |
+3 |
+6 |
+6 |
+5 |
|
Eagles !!! |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Birdies |
1 |
- |
- |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
FIR (12) |
6 |
8 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
5 |
|
GIR |
5 |
4 |
4 |
6 |
2 |
5 |
|
Putts |
37 |
38 |
35 |
38 |
38 |
31 |
The winners for the meeting were therefore as
follows:
|
Front Nine |
NO |
20
pts |
|
Back Nine |
HO |
19
pts |
|
Overall |
NM |
34
pts (c/b from PB) |
|
Par 3’s |
DA |
+3 |
|
Eagles / Birdies |
HO/NM/PE/NO |
1 |
|
Putts |
NO |
31 |
The
money stakes were as follows (£6 for each comp, £36 total in the pot):
HO
£7
PB £0
DA £6
NM £7
PE
£1
NO £13
£2
left over, £1 of which owed to PB from Hindhead, leaving £1 in the pot
Player
|
Exact H/C
before
event |
Meddle
Score Today
|
Adj To H/C
|
New Exact H/C
|
New Playing H/C
|
HOOM Before Game
|
HOOM Points Today
|
HOOM
After Game
|
|
HO |
11.5 |
+17 |
+1.0 |
12.5 |
13 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
|
PB |
15.6 |
+18 |
+0.6 |
16.2 |
16 |
4 |
4.5 |
8.5 |
|
DA |
12.3 |
+24 |
+2.4 |
14.7 |
15 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
|
NM |
14.7 |
+17 |
+0.6 |
15.3 |
15 |
5 |
4.5 |
9.5 |
|
PE |
12.2 |
+25 |
+2.6 |
14.8 |
15 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
NO |
18.0 |
+21 |
0.9 |
18.0 (max) |
|
(g) |
(g) |
(g) |