A lucky 13 golfers (plus one walking wounded) warmed to the midsummer conditions at Bird Hills last Sunday for our first Kings Church Golf Society venture of 2010. Although the weather was ideal and the course not too challenging, the scoring was more a reflection of post-winter rustiness than post-Masters Mickelson-ness.
The pace was set early by those players clearly in-form, benefitting from an excess of winter practice compared to the stragglers behind them. The returning Steve Crosson-Smith picked up a regulation 18 points from the front 9, with Ben Crane, Tony Wilson and Iain Baker bettering that by one point. But out in front, Ian Tatton and Wayne WIlliams each stormed the first half of the course.
The scores coming home were generally a little better, with the likes of Jonathan Newport, Frank Nuovo, Graham Stewart, Nathan Miles, David Payne and yours truly taking the front nine to shake off the winter's lethargy. Nathan improved enough to finally share fifth place with Iain Baker on 36 points, and Ben Crane beat that by two to take 4th. In third place, with 39 points, was Tony Wilson. Ian Tatton mirrored his first-half 22 with a second-half 22 to come home second. And our winner also matched his own first half score, Wayne Williams' exemplary round notching up 46 points in total to take the first winner's prize of the season.
In fact, were it not for the saving grace of our one-prize-per-player rule, Wayne's world would have been complete with a clean sweep of all the prizes. His pitch to the short 15th was one of only two to finish on the green (Ian Tatton's being the other) for the Nearest the Pin award, while his drive down the hill on 17 was about five yards further than that of Frank Nuovo and two yards beyond my own rather surprising effort. The Trott Driver is as rare a sight as a popular Labour politician round these parts - not for me the old golfing adage "Swing hard - in case you hit it".
To celebrate the anticipated inauguration of Ben Crane as the Society's official record-keeper (sponsored by Pitney Bowes, who have allegedly spent years developing a special app that records the numbers of putts you take, even if you pick up after your ninth attempt at the hole), we ran a Putter of the Day competition. Unfortunately, Ben and I may not have been clear enough in our instructions as a few players (who I won't embarrass by naming but shall instead use the initials DP and SCS) thought the prize would be for the MOST putts taken, not the fewest. [To be fair, a casual glance at my own scorecard may have given you the same impression. It's a well known fact that real golfers don't cry when they line up their fourth putt.]
In any case, Messrs Newport, WIlliams and Miles each took only 34 putts for the round. But our winner, by a considerable margin on an afternoon when his driving was Buemi but his short game was most certainly on the Button, was Iain "Up and Down" Baker. Iain he required only 29 putts for the first 17 holes - and none at all on the 18th! As Dean Martin said, "If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt."
OK that's enough tomfoolery for this week. Attached to this message are a few pics of our day in the sun, taken by the allegedly-professional photographer hired by the Society at very little expense. You'll note in one of these snaps, Jonathan Newport adhering to one of the game's favourite sayings. No, not "play it as it lies" - I mean "wear it if it clashes".
