Friday, September 25, 2009

SMHPGGS Tour 2009

The centrepiece of this trip was to be the Golf Tour. I was astonished to find that this was the thirty-first consecutive St Mary’s Hospital Post Graduate Golf Society tour. To say I was a little late to join in the festivities is an understatement of the greatest magnitude.

Three of us joined a fourth (who was best man at my wedding) to make a team for the drive from Winchester to Blackpool. Daily Telegraph general knowledge quiz crossword for entertainment in between all the ‘What ever happened to……’ and ‘Do you remember when……….’ moments. ‘A device used in orthodontic practice – 8 letters’ A text from a car doing 80 mph up the M6 to daughter in Melbourne has the answer in under two minutes. Retainer, in case you are wondering. Pub lunch (more on pubs later) and we stop off just outside Bolton for a game of golf at Darwen. We are about to play nine rounds in five days and so we stop for another on the way up. I was much relieved to learn that I had not turned into a right hander now I am in the northern hemisphere and I could still bring the head of the club into contact with the ball in a sort of useful way on most occasions. However all this rudimentary skill was not enough to stop me losing £20. This is going to be an expensive week.

Arrive in Blackpool (more of this later as well) to be greeted by the Fuhrer. I thought the bloke meeting us in the car park of the very nice Ramsey Hotel was my old friend Whitmore but it was soon made apparent that in his new guise he had total control over my life for the next five days. Things are the same and things are different. All the blokes from my past were instantly recognisable physically give or take the odd grey hair (well quite a lot really) and a bit of condition in the late summer of our lives, but instead of arriving by mini ute, clapped out Austin 1100 or stout boots we all rolled up in Mercedes, Jaguars and even a Porsche for the mini ute owner. However the insides of all these blokes has not changed in forty years. Bloody marvellous.

The week was one of golf directed by arcane ritual. This was as excellent as it was it was endlessly amusing. The centrepiece of all this was ‘The Draw’. Whenever there was a lull in the week’s proceedings everyone agreed we needed a draw. In charge of this was the Draw Fuhrer who had unfortunately left the Draw Machine at home. Not to be outflanked by this seemingly fatal error he produced a pack of cards and we were allocated (by a draw, naturally) a card that guided our fate for the week. On the back of losing £20 in Bolton things took an upward turn when I became the Ace of Spades for five days. How good is that?

Every game to be played in the next five days was part of a tournament, a tournament within a tournament, or a tournament within a tournament within a tournament. There might have been another layer as well but I got a bit lost. Apparently you start to get the hang of it after fifteen years or so. So you were either playing for the Cup (the premier trophy – I think), the Plate, the Saucer, the Eggcup, the Spoon (which had been lost), the Hat, the Sweater (which was an umbrella) or the Eagle (who had recently had his wings glued back on). If you lost in the first round of the Cup you went into the Plate unless you were a lucky re-entrant (dictated by a draw, of course) when you went back into the Cup. If you lost again I think you went straight into the semi-final of the Saucer but I found this piece of crockery the hardest to get my head around. Once you had had a draw for the first matches of the day you went and played them. Then there was the lunchtime collation of results, counting of Stableford points and birdie tally. Handicaps could be adjusted by the Fuhrer at anytime and it was not unusual for blokes to play off two handicaps in the same day. Two rounds a day with the ‘serious’ competitive stuff in the morning and the slap and tickle (GPs vs Consultants, Over 59 vs Under 59, Team Powerball etc.) in the afternoon. This was usually foursomes bearing in mind that two full rounds for five days at our stage of life is a little wearing.

Three courses lined up for the five days. Old St Annes Links, Blackpool North Shore and, the jewel in the crown, Royal Lytham and St Annes where we were also to stay in the Dormy House. Old St Annes Links was just gearing up for the Fylde Open and sported the best greens I have ever played on. Fantastic stuff where you really could just roll the ball and if it didn’t go where you wanted it to you had no one to blame but yourself. Four rounds here with the sweet aroma of aviation spirit wafting over the course from the adjacent Blackpool Airport. Blackpoll North shore was a lot trickier than it first looked and had the added bonus of being free for me as I had reciprocal rights from my home club in Auckland.

Royal Lytham.

This is the first proper championship course I have ever played on; the 2012 British Open is to be played here. It is basically far too difficult for one of my meagre abilities; and this off the Visitors tees. Off the Championship tees it is beyond my comprehension. The course sports 209 bunkers. That is in excess of ten per hole – every hole.

One of us asked the Club Pro for some advice as to a trouble free round. ‘Stay out of the bunkers’ was all he needed to say. There is not only a surfeit of the damned things, but each and every one is evil. They are universally deep with vertical sod faces and filled with sand having the consistency of talcum powder that I found exceedingly hard to play a controlled shot from. A ball pitching in the face just stays there and a ‘fried egg’ was quite the norm. On more than one occasion I played out of a fairway bunker backwards and twice played for position inside a greenside bunker.

If you avoid the bunkers there is the rough. This is the sort of stuff where only large striped animals and errant golf balls flourish. Go in there and the chances of finding your ball are approaching zero. One of our group bought a ‘Stroke Saver’ course guide. Complete waste of £9 – every hole just indicated loads of bunkers and loads of rough. Nine quid’s worth of the bleeding obvious.

First hole on this monster is a medium length par three which I promptly birdied by chipping in from the fringe. Can only go downhill from here and it certainly did.

How did I fare in all this? Whilst flying over Uzbekistan my abiding thought was ‘I hope I don’t make a complete arse of myself and it would be nice to win a match’. I arrived with a Club handicap of 15 with a New Zealand derived ‘Slope’ of 14.3. The Fuhrer would have none of this true reflection of my playing ability (or, more like, lack thereof) and decreed I would play off 14. This was obviously not open to protest or negotiation what with him being the Fuhrer and everything. I failed to be either good enough or bad enough all week to have this altered in either direction. So I spent the week (especially the Lytham days) playing from a handicap that was flattering at best.. Despite this I beat the best man at my wedding on an extra hole to progress to the second round of The Cup. Here I saw off Mary who was really a bloke to get into the semi final. This had me drawn to meet the best golfer during our undergraduate days and still playing off four; this over the as yet unplayed and very scary Lytham course. Well it has been a good run and I haven’t completely stuffed the week up. For reasons I can’t really understand I beat him three and two. Hellfire I’m in the final of the Cup. The Plate, Saucer and Egg Cup are no longer open to me.

Final over the Lytham course on the final morning against one of my best mates playing off four. I double bogey the first to his par. I can see where this is going. But no. He plays dreadfully for the next nine holes and I play OK and I get myself five up. He then plays OK/well and I play dreadfully so we stand on the last all square. This is the stuff of dreams.

Seriously, I have never experienced anything like it. Standing on the eighteenth tee of a Championship course with the week’s golf hinging on the next ten minutes and all I can see in front of me is bunkers. No giving or receiving of strokes; good old-fashioned ‘who hits the ball the least number of times to get the ball in the hole wins’. Pip’s honour and he slices a drive into a gorse thicket surrounding the Club flagpole. This, if anything makes it worse. I should win from here, but I have been playing like a drain for the last hour being unable to hit a decent shot with any club in the bag and all I can see in front of me is sand. The bunkers are getting bigger and moving closer together as I watch. Harden up, man, and hit the bloody thing. Slightly cut a drive my usual powder puff distance and, wonder of wonders, the ball is above ground at the left edge of the fairway. We go and look for Pip’s ball and he has got it into the only playable lie for about twenty metres in any direction. He plays a great shot to be about twenty feet short of the green. I wander over to my ball and I look at the green to see, well, sand. A different set of bunkers from those that confronted me five minutes ago but they still contain the same stuff. Take the trusty 23˚ rescue club and have a wazz. Please let this be reasonable. Look up and there is the NXT-Tour flying straight as an arrow towards………the flag. Bloody hell, where did that come from? I couldn’t stop a ball on these greens all week and this was no different. It pitches just short of the flag and rolls forty feet past. Pip putts up to about eight feet and I knock mine to five feet leaving myself with, mercifully, an uphill putt. His putt. Nasty length with a bit of right to left in it. Straight down the orifice. Well this it then. I decided not to look for breaks that weren’t there and just walked up to and hit it. Best putt I hit all week. Dead centre down to the last Angström unit. All square after eighteen. Best hole of golf I have ever played. I couldn’t give a rat’s arse what happens now. Share the trophy, play more, lose on a count back – who cares? I’m now a psychological basket case. But Pip is made of sterner stuff; he’s been a great sportsman forever. We play the eighteenth again and Pip’s four beats my five. I am not the first and won’t be the last to lose a match over the closing holes of Royal Lytham.

Runner up over the week in the knockout matchplay was beyond my most optimistic hopes. The amount of fun I had for five days also exceeded my wildest expectations by the length of the straight. This was industrial grade enjoyment. The friends you make at university are surely the best friends you’ll ever have. Although we all looked a little different from the exterior the insides were unaltered and the interplay between the members of the group was vintage 1972. Tales of the Darts Club Library, Shneerson’s 150 holes in a day with only a bottle of Scotch and a packet of ginger nuts for sustenance, long forgotten and largely unfortunate choices of girlfriends, Santini’s, beer (lots of beer), Wilson House etc., etc. Pure gold.

South West Ireland next year. Do I want a re-match? Hell yes.

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