Welcome to round
3 of the Russon/Douglas winter league farrago. While the morning starters
enjoyed dry and benign conditions, we spent the entire round wearing full
waterproofs in unrelenting rain and back 9 fog. Thankfully however, one of us
was up for the fight...but the less said about the other herbert the better.
Keith greeted me on
the first tee with a grudging grunt.
“ How you doing?” I
ventured.
“ Canna believe you
talked me into this winter league sh#te” came the reply.
“ Looking forward to
the game?” I countered.
“ Nae really, couldna
hink o onyhin worse” he replied.
Upon such
inspirational exchanges are successful partnerships made.
Little did I know
that Keith’s mood had in fact peaked and would worsen from this point
on. Brandishing a brand new Titleist Pro-V, he proudly showed me a red sheep
he’d diligently drawn upon it, a testimony to his Sheepo nickname. He
was well chuffed with this creation, jutting his chin out as he teed it up on
the first hole beneath the clubhouse window. Thankfully he’d taken a photo of
the ball (see above) because ten seconds later the object was making it’s way
down the cliff to the north sea, a horrible slice
sending it to an instant death. His language ripened as he skulked back towards
the ball pocket of his bag for a reload while I turned my attention towards my
opening drive. As a portent of things to come, I duly drilled my ball down the
middle to within a flick of the green, taking care of business while my partner
fluffed his lines. Every partnership has a dominant character and a follower,
first string and second string, today Keith was to be (and pardon the
vulgarity) my bitch. He might play off a handicap of 3, he may be renowned for
steady golf but sometimes it needs something a little more than ‘meat and
potatoes’ golf to sort the wheat from the chaff so I decided to take the bull
by the horns and deliver some fireworks (not literally, that would be
ludicrous, riding into Stoney on the back of a bull with rockets fizzing out of
my pockets? No thanks).
Cometh the hour,
cometh the man. With the conditions at Dreichter Scale 10, my partner could
only stand back in wonder as I brought the first eight holes to their knees,
birdieing 7 and 8 while parring the majority of others with a
nonchalance that made a mockery of my 10 handicap. I hoped this might inspire
Keith to a higher level but not a bit of it, he was playing second fiddle so
loudly that the club captain had to march onto the course and ask him to turn
the sound down. His streaky par on 9 provided only his second contribution to
our scorecard (I’d deliberately three putted the third to allow him some of the
limelight) and the back nine evidenced a similarly unequal distribution of contribution.
By the time we reached the 16th it was becoming a little
embarrassing, I was having to instigate conversation about the weather to
deflect attention from his pathetic inability to bring anything of value to the
party apart from holding the flag while I putted. There was an awkward moment as we
left the 15th green, he verbalised dissatisfaction at
having to mark the scorecard all of the way round, I suggested that it was the
least he could do given I was providing the numbers to be recorded. I was doing
the business, he wasn't. Had the roles been reversed and I were marking his
scores instead we’d have been facing the indignity of a three figure total. It
was a one man show for sure. Keith’s behaviour deteriorated as the round
progressed due chiefly to the humiliation he was suffering so to improve the
atmosphere, I kindly waited for him to hole his lengthy birdie putt on the 16th before
nudging in my own two footer for birdie, this way he could mark the birdie down as his and not mine since he was in first. Order was restored on the final two holes however as I
notched two solid pars while Keith arsed around like a hapless amateur, plonking
his drive at 17 on the railway line and shoving his tee shot on 18 closer to
the clubhouse than the green.
So to summarise, a
gross 65 achieved in abominable conditions before we adjourned to the bar
for a hard earned drink which Keith rightly purchased, the least he could do under the circumstances. I
congratulated him on the neatness of his handwriting, the card looked very
pretty with all of those low numbers I’d provided for him to record. “ F#ck off
Russon” came his reply . This is what I enjoy most about the winter league, the
warm camaraderie. As he drifted back to his motor with his tail between his
legs I bid him farewell but politely asked him to get a touch of practice in
before our next outing. I have to say his response wasn't encouraging, standing
as he did with the same number of fingers in the air as he had lost Sheepo
motiffed golf balls during his afore mentioned error strewn round of golf.
No comments:
Post a Comment