Third round of the season and disaster struck at Brighton. When Hubba phoned on Friday to confirm timeslots, carts and payments they told him there was no booking for the great MGC. Luckily for Hubba, he had taken some sound advice dished out by the previous organiser and current consultant, Barra and he’d managed to get all bookings in writing not just verbal.
However, as much as that proved his work was above board, the proshop told him that they had lost our booking and so we couldn’t play at our tee off time of 8.00 am. The only offer he could get was a 6.15 start. With Hubba once again flapping, he leaned on Barra yet to rally the troops to pull it together, where the wee man stepped up to the plate admirably.
The earlier start proved too much for the office workers in the membership and so it was that only 8 players made the trip, Barra, Joe, Girdy, Hubba, Koala, Baby Koala, Billy A. and Macster.
Once there, it was business as usual, the weather was fine and the course, although short still threw up its own challenges. The first group consisted of Joe, Barra, and the two marsupials Koala and Baby Koala.
Baby Koala was to set an early pace, which proved too much for his fellow partners, after flushing 8 pars and sitting on 43 points after 16 holes the big BK pulled out the cigars and decided he had enough in the bag to take the jacket and duly entered 2 outs to finish his round.
What Baby Koala hadn’t factored in was the emergence of the high handicapped Billy Mac (49) finding his golf mojo on the short track. With 24 points at the turn, this was a man on a mission. With the impending expulsion from the club should he reach the embarrassing handicap of 50, the man from Paisley wasn’t going down without a fight.
With 24 points on the card after 9, on his way to the 10th, Macster took a wrong turn in the cart and got stuck at the side of the proshop, nearly taking out a young lad coming out the toilets. Macster never quite recovered from this and carded 18 for the back 9, one point short of glory finishing on 42.
The second group, along with Macster was Girdy, Hubba and Billy Armour. The marking of Macster’s card with 3 shots per hole on most occasions, proved too much for Girdy to comprehend and he simply struggled to concentrate for the duration, costing him a fair crack for the Tweed. Hubba was still in allsorts from the fiasco of the booking, that he requested to go in Barra’s group as “he brings a calmness to me like no other”. This was denied and as a result the big man’s game was no more than average at best.
Controversy was mainly confined to group 2, where Macster was seen driving up and down the 14th fairway looking for his ball, over a range of 150m, to no avail. This meant he had a no score, claiming that “someone stole my ball and cost me the championship”.
Billy Armour was also in amongst the controversy, as he putted his ball into Billy Mac’s for a 2 shot penalty. This didn’t sit well with Chalmer and although he was left floundering at the bottom of the field with a paltry 26 points, 5 off the pace, he still felt an injustice had been done. This injustice only led to Chalmer abusing Macster for the rest of the round and the rest of the day, luckily for Macster his ears are painted on and heard hee-haw.
Special mention to Joe who claimed to have played ‘shot of the day’ on his knees out of the bushes, then took the bark off his napper getting to his feet. Then Joe also played ‘shot of the day’ when he chipped one out from under a tree log over the freshly cut grass mounds back onto the fairway. The great man wasn’t done there when he finally played ‘shot of the day’ when he chipped in from 80 metres. Fantastic stuff to watch as he finished 3rd last in the field.
Nearest the pins turned out to be a field day for the club pro Girdy, taking home the goods on 3, 8, 11 and 17. Baby Koala got the 6th and Joe the 13th.
Handicap adjustments; Baby Koala 23 to 21 and Billy Armour 16 to 17.
Back at the club, Chalmer just couldn’t let it go and was still paying out on the Macster as he and Baby Koala dished up a fine main meal and dessert to the lads.
The next game at Sandringham will be a pairs event. With all the seeded names in the hat it was decided that Macster could do the draw seeing as he managed to secure his membership until Christmas at least. With the first seven teams announced the only two names left to make the last team were Chalmer and Macster. The laughter was deafening and tipped Chalmer over the edge to finish off a disastrous day for the poor man. Macster did state he wasn’t too thrilled either at getting paired up with the club’s latest NAGA holder.
Finally, with Redder not playing this week, even though the big man failed to leave his sacred ledger, it was left to Barra to pick up the pieces for photo shoots and reporting duties. Fair to say he excelled in that department also.
You’re welcome.