Knott End 2021 Match Report
It was the eighth round of the Parrots Golf Society at Knott End last Wednesday. All things were good, the day was dry and warm, the course was in good nick, the birds were singing, there was food available, Mike got there on time, there was hardly a mention of Scousers on the 16th from years gone by ….. and there were some amazing scores!!
The trend of the ‘afternoon gang’ reached record levels as there were just 8 players for the 9 holes in the morning, with a whopping additional 11 playing the afternoon only.
Now it seems that my golf must be of such high quality these days that whoever I play with, raises their game and often posts exception scores, and so it again proved! In the morning, Steve Fineman amassed an excellent score of 22pts with nothing worse than bogey. Not bad for a fella who must have the shortest backswing on the tour!! But well done Steve, who took the morning prize, from his mate Ian Hodgin who was 3pts behind.
After the masses arrived at lunch and Mike had sorted out who was paying what (afternooners only, members, reciprocals etc …. good job he’s good with maths!!) it was a quick turnaround for food before the afternoon round (not helped by the bizarre procedure in Knott End’s bar of taking one person’s food and drink order, relaying that to the kitchen, serving the drink, taking payment and then moving on to the next customer at the same table!)
And what an afternoon’s golf we had! Only 2 players had scores lower than 30pts … amazing … and NINE players had scores of 36pts or better (the handicap secretary was rubbing his hands before having a field day afterwards with the calculator!). 36pts from morning champ Steve and a rejuvenated Geoff Moyle; 37pts from Mike, 38pts from a recovering Marky T and 39pts from Ian Hodgin and Derek Abrahams were, amazingly, the also rans today!!
Referring you to my earlier comments, I played in the afternoon with a fella who was level par gross as he stood on the 13th tee. He had amassed 32pts already to that point, including 3 birdies (one of which was on the daunting Par 3 2nd, where he put a driver to about 12ft), but sadly four 1 pointers on the way in (those damn back to back Par 3’s!!) left him with a final score of just (just, ha!!) 40pts. An excellent round of golf from a man in form, Jimmy Clayton, well done Jim! But, it didn’t even get him into the prize money ….!
In the first group out, playing on his home course, it was the day for that most mercurial of golfers, Trevor Middleton, to put one of his wonder scores in, with a magnificent 43pts. Well done Trevor, but this was still not enough to take the win … what’s going on!
In the last group out, there was one half of the chuckle brothers from Bentham, who had not been chuckling much at the low scores he had been posting in recent weeks in the society or at Fleetwood. But something amazing happened to Mel Johnson last Wednesday at Knott End, as he scored a stunning 45pts, shooting a gross score of 79 in the process! Well done Mel, an excellent round, and not only did it win the day for Mel, it has propelled him straight to the top of the leaderboard!!
The said leaderboard has been updated to reflect this, together with all the many handicap updates, but the key handicap changes are as follows :-
Mel Johnson 19 to 17
Trevor Middleton 23 to 21
Jim Clayton 11 to 10
Ian Hodgin 22 to 20
Derek Abrahams 16 to 15
Mike Barnes 17 to 16
Steve Fineman 17 to 16
Mark Thomas 19 to 18
Geoff Moyle 28 to 27
Dave Baird 15 to 16
The next Parrots day outing is at Accrington (who are they?!) on Wednesday 14th July. Hope to see you all there.
Glenn
