Match Report Preston Golf Club 2016
Eleven of us turned up for the prepenultimate (third last to you lot) outing of the Parrot's Golf Society in 2016.
At the last moment we were joined by what appeared to be two illegal immigrants on the first tee, but ,in fact, turned out to be T.J. and Phil dressed for a Summers day golf in North-West England! By the way didn't Ant and Dec used to be called T.J. and Phil in their former pop incarnation?
As we all know, some Golf Societies promise good weather, other Societies just deliver it, but even the best Golf Societies are subject to the vagaries of the B.B.C. weather forecasts, which promised the rain would be gone for our 10 o clock tee off time. This was not the case, and the first hour of our morning nine was played in incessant drizzle, making a tough course even more difficult.
The two John's, Patterson and Cottam, and Jim Clayton all played well above their ability to record scores of 17 points apiece. Very commendable on this demanding course, and they all finished joint second. Meanwhile on a different plateau entirely I, much to my horror, dropped a shot on the ninth! Having already dropped a shot on the third I finished on a 2 over gross 22 points. How could I finish ONLY five points clear of this bunch of journeymen golfers. Surely I couldn't play this badly again in the afternoon!
Special mention must be made of Martin Greenaway, who recorded the 39th best shot of the morning when holing a 138 yard 8 iron on the par 5 seventh to record an eagle 3 !
At lunch-time, as usual, the talk was of our morning rounds, and Geoffrey informed me he had scored the same number of points as there are on two triangles. Geoffrey had scored 7 points! For those of you contemplating where to send your children for the best seconday education, I can inform you that Geoffrey was educated at Millfied High School in Thornton.
I sat on my own and by using complicated algebraic calculus, probability theory and projection analysis, I was able to work out that as I had scored 22 points on the morning 9, I was going to score 44 points for the afternoon 18. Excellent news, as this would surely take me to the top of the overall leaderboard !
Melvin Johnson turned up for the afternoon round. Now, the Parrot's is a 27 hole Golf Society, and people are not encouraged to turn up just for the afternoon, as, in an ageing Golf Society, this gives a stamina advantage. However, Melvin's late arrival was welcomed by everyone, as it meant we all had 3 hours less of his very corny and oft repeated jokes!
So, to the afternoon. As Glenn will tell you, I am normally very competent at maths, but my calculations seem to go completely awry, as I returned only 28 points!!! I really hate effing golf!!! This turned out to be one of the better scores, and of the 14 of us only 4 returned scores in excess of 30 points. Someone who didn't achieve 30 points was Frank Healy, but special mention must be made of his birdie on the 16th. This steeply uphill 407 yard par 4 was playing into the wind, but Frank put his ball to 4 feet with a driver and a wedge and promptly holed the putt. In fourth place was Bill Pye with 31points ( put a decimal point between those 2 digits...spooky isn't it !)
T.J. started off like a house on fire ( don't panic Geoff, it's an idiom ), scoring four three pointers in his first 5 holes, and finishing on 32. Two players finished on 34 points.....the dreaded countback! Second place went to overall leader John Cottam, who actually increased his lead by 4 points, and is now beginning to look very secure at the top of the table, but, as we all know, one exceptional round by someone can make a big difference. Winner on the day, however, was the aforementioned japester, Melvin. He had an excellent back 9 of 19 points to just pip John. Well done Mel.
We reconvene in two weeks at Chorley. An excellent course, practically guaranteed excellent weather!
Hope to see you there
