Less is more!

Well Saturday was an interesting day for the dogs with a very large field, given the numbers away, with 20 turning out for our first 4 club s/ford competition in living memory. Barry & Margaret were back along with Bill and even Paul Rodgers who on reading last weeks email, booked his tickets in Houston, got on the plane and made the journey to the scene of his recent Kiss Me Kate episode to take part in the 4 club competition…. Good to see you Paul. Conversation in the club house before hand was all about the science of club selection. Despite all the science we managed to have one club temporarily stolen by a Ball boy with the result that Mike started the competition with three clubs before stolen article was returned.

Also fair to say that amongst the 20 were a significant number who sacrificed themselves in the name of club funds, turned up a few minutes behind the 11.45 deadline for being on the tee box, and spread there wealth in the form of fines. Treasury Teb is grateful (even though he paid as well).

Turning to the sporting events… In terms of play, things got slightly cut short by a heavy storm that swept though mid afternoon and didn’t let up. A couple of groups had been sheltering at the little café (?) between the 13th and 14th for about 45 minutes when Leo came wandering out of the woods and joined us. We think he had been struck by lightening and was simply going in circles in a daze looking for his female playing partners who had abandoned him to the elements. (He had been playing the 16th ?)

The Balls:

First order of the day, nearest the pin on the 12th which went to Mike Tarry knocking yours truly out of pole position. Well done Mike who picks up a couple of clean shinny ones.

To the S/ford scoring. With all 5 groups managing to complete through the 12th scoring was taken up to that point and it has to be said that despite the limitation on clubs scoring was significantly better on average than normal weeks……. a couple of exceptions do exist however. There was a real dog scrap at the bottom of the field with Pascale, Khor and Ian Wright all doing there best to win the steamy replica at various stages of the day. Ultimately Ian, clearly concerned about the HSE implications of waving golf sticks about in the face of the impending storm, came out triumphant with 8 points through 12 and is DSOTW. Ian, expect a wee present in your office.

At the other end there was a whole batch of players in the 18 – 22 point range through 12 which is pretty steady golf by normal standards before we come to those competing for the balls. In 4th place on 23 points but loosing out on count back was Rob Jones. (It should be noted TD, that Rob was also fined for scoring 5 points and 4 points on the first and second holes respectively) Third place balls went to wee Douglas also with 23 points. Second place went to Gary, who with not much else to do this week must have spent all his time practicing and achieved a very respectable 24 points but loosing out on count back to Greg Boulden who is LOTPOTW. Well done to all.

Normally at this point we would be saying.. ’Matahari do your stuff’ but general consensus of the quorum attending was to move to the R&A based handicap program that Kim and a couple of the girls have been investigating and maintaining over the past few weeks. A general upward shift in handicaps is the result but there are one or two exceptions. (Kim & Pascale to distribute latest program handicap sheets this week). System should normalise itself over the coming weeks and scoring should generally be higher. Fresh handicap sheets will be made available during the week by email and on the tee box on Saturday.

Next week Top Dog will be back at the front of the sledge after his R&R in Greece and will no doubt be in good shape from all that relaxation !

Next Week, Same time, Same Place (11.45 on the tee box or call Alan if think you will be late)

3PP