There was a little boy called Noz. Noz’s greatest dream was to vanquish his friends in a game called golf. He had been plotting and scheming for many months how to win the coveted Green Jacket and the mystery treasure that would await him for topping the Order of Merit.
And so it came to pass that he faced his greatest challenge – Sunday morning of the Claret Jug, playing his nearest rivals, needing to concentrate on a course none of the players had ever seen, alleged to contain horrors such as temporary greens and many holes favouring the evil Troll Aust, who had cleverly managed to make sure he had one of his mighty sleeps the night before the special day.
But little Noz needn’t have worried, his golf remained solid – as he admitted to his playing partners, he now felt like a proper golfer. Whilst he missed the nostalgic days of getting 4 points for scoring par on a short hole, he was loving his Pro V1X’s and all the adulation from his peers.
Playing alongside a rag tag mob of colleagues and enemies, Noz remained suspiciously quiet. Where was the banter and persecution of his #1 rival, the poor Web Donkey? Where was the non-stop chatter with the ever-mercurial Tour Director? How could he not have Nozzed on for hours about the bizarro performance of the Cracker Fountain Kiss Machine Millers the previous night?
Little Noz didn’t do any of this, he let his golf speak for itself. Having witnessed a similar display of magical dreams coming true for the similarly obsessed President in the final group of the previous Jug, the WD knew his fate was not to win the title, and Noz didn’t begin to believe until, after 5 or 6 pars in a row, he watched his closest rival stuff one in the lake on the challenge that was the nearest the pin. At this point, his quiet dignity began to slip a little and the chirping that had threatened the bonhomie of the group after Noz won the coveted Hulk a few holes previously began in earnest. He had knocked one inside of poor bereft titleless, spot prizeless Bacon and was beginning to believe he would soon be crowned the King of WHV Land for the next year. No matter that the WD knocked his provisional to 2 feet, or that Millers pulled out 2 miraculous birdies on the way in, little Noz was going to win.
The quiet dignity slipped and the old Noz began to appear through the cracks. He was understandably excited, but surely this didn’t allow him to go tramping round the course bellowing at other groups whilst his goodly playing partners were in the address position?
Also, it wasn’t until he’d parred the 16th that we told him that every point he was scoring was cutting his playing handicap for the next year. Lo and behold, little Noz, going for the round of his life, came home 7 and 7, blob and blob. Normal golfers would accept this as a little suspicious, but they were tough holes, Noz had already won by 10 shots and surely the man who persecuted another player from the 12th hole of the Amy Austin under suspicion of nursing his score home 7 and 7 having recorded 35 points on the mighty Nicklaus track would never consider committing the same crime he accuses others of?
I will leave my readers to draw their own conclusions. Suffice to say, Little Noz rode home in his carriage that night to show his Queen that he had indeed won the lot and that the Wedding did not need to be called off. Plus he had an extra £105 in his pocket to go towards the grand ball he would be funding as King of WHV.
The End
PS – As I am shortly heading off to Barcelona for a metering conference, it will not be until Friday that I get much chance to post the cards from the weekend. I will make sure that I get my Amy Austin report out on time, and publish some summaries of the Jug Scores, but I want my WHV Open coverage to be exceptional, and I have some good photos and videos to share. I also hear that the masterclass is fantastic.
Kudos to the President for such a good weekend, well done to Noz for all his glorious winnings and for getting himself down from 26 to somewhere near 15 in a single season (I doubt it will stop him chirruping about other players having false handicaps, but hey, he’s never happy if everything is good and he’s not winning), and well done to Ron – his flurry of birdies may have resulted in a Runners Up spot in the Jug, but that also means he’ll be off +1 for the 2010 tour.
