Match Report Windermere Golf Club 2017
The 9th round of the Parrots Golf Society for 2017 saw the group make the visit to the now popular Windermere GC, with the weather once again matching the magnificent scenery. Although there was a little rain in the morning, the afternoons main event was dry and sunny for the main part.
I thought I would leave writing this report until after The Open at Royal Birkdale had been concluded to see if there were any similarities in how the day turned out. I wasted my time there, what could compare to the drama at Royal Birkdale from the 13th hole onwards?! Well done Jordon Spieth, an amazing show of ‘intestinal fortitude’, as Dan walker put it on Mondays BBC Breakfast.
But there was drama of a different sort at Windermere. Due to recovery from a bad back, I only made it for the afternoon round, bringing Martin Greenaway with me, and with John Cottam only joining for the afternoon, being on holiday at Newby Bridge, that made 11 players in the morning and 14 in the afternoon. Arriving at lunchtime then, it seems we had already missed some of those dramatic events.
There is an old philosophical question that goes ‘If a tree falls over in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?’ Well Mike has a new version of that question. ‘If an email is sent and nobody reads it, are its content agreed upon by the receiver?’ Windermere GC say yes, Mike Barnes says No, you choose!
It seems the club’s power was going to be switched off at some point during our visit, affecting the clubs ability to provide food and drink, and their e-mail had proposed to provide soup and sandwiches. Cue a bizarre first tee exchange between golf club staff and Mike over the aforementioned philosophical question!! The result being that most of the party went to the pub at lunchtime, which, fortunately, had the quickest turnaround of food orders in Cumbrian history in order to get the lads back on the first tee for the afternoon in time.
The morning’s golf, couldn’t quite compete with that excitement, but bringing some calm to the situation, Bill Pye took the honours with a very good 18 pts, just pipping Stuart Weston by a single point. So well done to Bill.
First out in the afternoon were, Mike, Martin and Mel. These guys must have had a great game. All scores in this group were in the 30’s (a rarity for the Parrots this year!), despite all three of them blobing the 17th hole. Mel was the unlucky last in this group with 31pts. Martin was leading Mike by a single point on the last tee with 33pts, having recorded two birdies. But Martin didn’t score on the 18th either, allowing Mike to leapfrog him, with a 4 for 2 himself, to finish with 34pts, his best score of the season.
Second out were Stuart, Phil and TJ. A disappointing 26pts for Phil, given that he had scored 18pts for the front 9. But 31pts apiece from Stuart and TJ, brought the 30’s total already to five, despite this threeball also all blobing the 17th hole.
In recent weeks it has seemed a formality for JP to take top spot, having got four good scores in by Portal, but it hasn’t happened. Today was Frank Healy’s fifth game, effectively in the same position as JP. So it was ironic that I played together with both of them today, with Simon Gledhill making up our fourball. The front 9’s were close if not spectacular, with Simon and I tying on 16pts apiece. But within two holes of the back nine, the game was blown completely apart. Nobody hit the green on the long Par 3 10th, but from down below the green, Si never saw his chip shot roll inevitably towards and in the hole for an unlikely birdie. He followed this on the short Par 4 11th, with a great drive that reached greenside, and two putts later had back to back birdies for a total of 8pts!! Great play. Poor back nine’s from the pretenders to the throne saw JP finish on just 19 pts with Frank not much better off on 23pts, with both missing out on that table topping round yet again.
A good finish saw myself join the 30’s club with yet another 31pts, but spurred on by that start, Simon finished the back nine with 20pts (despite blobing the last!) to take the clubhouse lead with 36pts.
Could the final fourball challenge that? Not in the cases of Bill, Jim and Pete, who only managed 23, 25 and 28pts respectively. So what of last years champion, John Cottam? Again a modest 16pt front nine suggested promise, but despite playing the four back nine Par 3’s to one under gross, a great effort, John fell short of Simon’s score by just one point, leaving him with second place and pushing Mike out of the prize money once again!
Incidentally, the final blob count for the 17th hole ended up at 9 of 14 players! Was it really that tough?!
So well done to Simon, an excellent score, in what is a barren season in the Parrots for scores of 36pts plus, and a first win for him in the society.
Handicap changes from Windermere are as follows :-
Simon Gledhill 20 to 18
Mike Barnes 14 to 13
John Patterson 7 to 8
Frank Healey 10 to 11
Phil Matthews 20 to 21
Bill Pye 27 to 28
The updated leaderboard has already been posted to the website by Phil. There is still a tie for top spot, but this time John Cottam has joined me for joint leadership, following his 2nd place 35pts, with Pete not able to beat his current discard.
The next outing for the Parrots is Preston on 2nd August, where I will be absent, as I will be on holiday in sunny Northumberland. Can the pretenders to the throne take their chance this time?
Glenn
