Whitefield 2022 Match Report
Already we're on the 8th Parrot's outing of the season, and the race to Bentham is approaching its zenith !
After the North-West had been hit by hurricane force winds all week, we arrived at Whitefield to be met by glorious sunshine and a very light breeze. Perfect conditions for golf, because, as we all know, some golf societies promise good weather whereas others just deliver it !
Talking of the benefits of The Parrot's, how many other golf societies manage to squeeze a word like 'zenith' into the opening line of their reports ?
In this report, unusually, I won't be discussing the sex lives of minor T.V. celebrities, my contempt for Philip Schofield, or even the mental health issues of some of our members, but instead sticking mainly to talking about golf.
In life you should learn by your mistakes. Unfortunately, I've never had that ability, and this led to me letting Gareth plot the route for our morning 10 holes. I've made exactly the same mistake before, but, probably due to my advancing years, had forgotten this entirely ! Anyway, Gareth said it should be the first 9 holes followed by the 18th hole ... it should have been the first 8 ! We duly played the first 9, and then Gareth led us on a long trek through the surrounding countryside. I'm sure some of the umpteen fairways we crossed belonged to nearby Bury Golf Club, but can't be absolutely certain. All's well that ends well though and after an hour or two walking we duly arrived at the 18th tee.
Nothing much more to report from the morning... some couldn't play 10 holes 'cos of course traffic....Derek looked like he'd won, but I'd inadvertently given a false ruling which gained him a point. Deducting this point and with 4 players playing only 9 holes meant we all had pretty much the same score, so we decided to bin the morning prize and have an extra NTP in the afternoon. Andy Nurse was in Heaven !
In all the years we have played at Whitefield only 2 players have bettered their handicap with a score of over 36 points, such is the difficulty of the course. One of them was a bloke from the Midlands who hits the ball further than Bryson DeChambeau, but plays off about 20. The other was a person you've all met before....Mr Y. Truly ! Would the course prove any easier today for the 21 players who set out on the afternoon round ? Only time would tell !
Group one consisted of 3 players who had turned up for the afternoon round only. Glenn W., Trevor and Geoffrey. Some people think Glenn does all the work for The Parrot's, and I'm just a figurehead, but I prefer to equate it in military terms with me as a General and Glenn as a willing but limited lance-corporal. He has recently suffered the double whammy of a bad back and Covid, but you discount The Wellard at your peril ( or so he likes to think ). As I said they arrived late and when group 2 finished they had already gone ....it was like they never existed ! Their scores barely disproved this theory with 26 for the undiscounted Wellard, 21 for Trevor and a season's best 25 for Geoffrey. Ironically, they could have left half an hour earlier as they only scored 2 points between them on the last 2 holes !
Group 2 was Dave B, Pete W and featured the welcome return of former physician Martin Cook. 18 points going out saw the first 30 point score of the day from Pete with Dave and Martin scoring 22 and 27 respectively.
Group 3 saw another 30 point score. Very commendable from Derek as he had his day ruined, at lunchtime, by the news of Boris's resignation I'm sure Paul's 29 points featured some Fine shots, but was ruined by blobs on 6 and 9.
Talking of blobs, group 4 had a bit of a blobathon with 15 between them. No-one managed to score 30 points with Bill scoring 20, Stevie Ireland 28, Pete Corsby 28 and Mike Lovell just sneaking the cash in the group with 29 points. Despite this, Mike was one of many who loved the course, and I have to say both the greens and the fairways were gorgeous.
My group was out next, and after a 4 point birdie on the first I could see recently retired banker, Andy Nurse, had worked out that if I carried on at that rate I would score 72 (18x4) points ! After a 3 point par on the second, I could see he was still worried as he would have revised my potential score to 63 points (9x7). However, he was soon able to knock 45 points off that estimate after seeing me knob my tee shot into the pond 10 yards in front of the third tee. I ended up with 29 points, despite the fact my playing opponent, Frankie, makes Paul Fineman look like Father Christmas when it comes to 'gimme's'. On most of my completion putts I HAD to have the flag out as it was impeding my putting stroke ! The one good putt I did hole was met by a cry of "We never expected that !" from a particularly rude individual who shall remain nameless. Overall leader, Andy scored 27, Tony had a 16 point back 9 for 30 and Frankie, aided by many generous gimme's from his opponents, put himself into contention with a 31 pointer.
In every football world cup there is a 'group of death', and at Whitefield we had our very own version of this so-called group. Gareth, Stu, Stevie F and Alan had won between them 6 of the 7 completed Parrot's outings this year....surely the winner had to come from this group ! Gareth continuing where he left off at Chorley had a day's best 21 points going out closely followed by Alan with 19. Stu had 16 and Steve had 14. However, they all struggled coming back ( as did most of us on the day ). With a couple of holes left Gareth shouted over to me that he was 'doing a Barnsey' ....this could have meant various things, but, on this occasion, meant a massive collapse on the back 9. He scored 11 points. Bereft of Fine shots, Steve scored 10pts, Stu 13 and Alan also 13. This gave totals of 32 points to both Gareth and Alan. Second place on the day to Alan on countback.
So who's won ? Those readers who have been paying attention ( i.e. none of you ) will realise that I only mentioned 2 names in group 3. Who was this mysterious third person ? Well, if he'd have g.one to my school he would surely have had the nickname 'Ragster' ...Stand up Glenn Riches ! Playing off 9, he scored 18 going out and a best of the day 17 coming back giving him victory by a clear 3 points. Well done mate !
Three NTP's on the day. Stevie Fineman on the third, Gareth on the fifth and although 21 players tried, no-one succeeded in hitting the 400 yard par 3 17th. I was left with the dilemma of what to do with the prize money for that hole....I considered giving it to Andy for his psychological well-being, but soon shelved that idea and bought myself a pint.
Handicap changes from Whitefield :-
Andy Nurse 5 to 6 (he's fallible!)
Glenn Riches 9 to 8 (one game only)
Mike Lovell 11 to 12
Steve Fineman 13 to 14
Alan Watson 17 to 16
Dave Baird 18 to 19
Steve Ireland 18 to 19
Martin Cook 19 to 20
Trevor Middleton 20 to 21
Next outing is Wednesday 20th July at Rossendale. Much easier scoring there....I scored 41 last year with six 3 putts (just saying, Tony). Hope to see you all there.
Cheers,
Mike
