Remarkably, the British Summer showed itself just in time for the first major of 2014, the Brissle Horn. This lead to assertions from the sponsor that Weston Super-mare would be rammed, and that travellers from Solihull would be best advised to leave ‘plenty of travel time’ to ensure they wouldn’t miss the 3pm twilight tee off. In typical fashion, the Knowle contingent set about planning some 7am departure, with Mike even suggesting making a night of it the day before. The Solihull brigade were more circumspect, planning to leave around noon to arrive with plenty of time for lunch, and in order to avoid Wifely issues for burning an entire Saturday – morning, noon and night – on golf. There were sensible pleas from Noz with regard to a later Knowle start in order to allow Nicola to set up the breakfast buffet, but also that we should gather earlier to spend some quality time with Rob and Pete – very admirable, and so we were well met at around 1pm in the car park of the golf course, with no traffic or parking issues.
As the event included no nosebag, the suggestion was to go get fish and chips on the seafront. This involved quite a walk down the promenade, and it took the TD all of around 30 yards to be down to his under crackers – and we were lucky he kept them on.
Arriving at the ‘heat’ of WSM, a first for many members, we witnessed an enormous snaking queue at a fish and chip window – disheartening, but surely a sign of quality and value from the vendor. However, the sponsor took us to an interesting looking Quadrophenia style caff who had some strange prison style buffet offering – protein plus starch plus veg, or fish chips mushy peas, or fish chips beans (bad call Baxter), orders such as fish and chips no veg confused the ‘chef’ as did the ‘double fish’ ordered by the TD.
Suffice to say that the food was not good – and also that some of the members need to be taken to a proper chippy to understand what batter should look and taste like – if we ever get to St Andrews, there is a world leading chip shop in Anstruther – that even does gluten free batter for Noz.
After an ice cream for some and despite pleas to the contrary, none of the boys were that interested in getting on the Weston promenade ‘train’ that Rob wanted us to use – besides, if he had got us onto that, he’d have missed the Gilf in a thong that so delighted Noz and himself.
Back at the course, and after more hanging around, it was time to play.
This was billed as ‘proper’ links golf, and a possible dress rehearsal for what awaits us at the Jug weekend. I’m not sure that Kent in October will be anywhere near as benign as WSM, but the bunkers were harsh, the course demanded a chase and run every now and again, and we all seemed to enjoy it. I had played on Friday with a boy from Bristol and he claimed it was ‘pretty sh!t’ – not quite Widney by the Sea, but certainly not a test of golf, and not a challenging layout really.
In the front group, Bruce, Noz and the TD all seemed to have had a reasonable day – Noz turned out a solid 36 points on a course which favoured his Driver and Five Iron tactics – Bruce was probably too long for most holes, and seems incapable of course management and using anything other than the big furniture to plot his way around. As for the TD, I’m not sure what happened, he was probably too distracted by his second piece of battered cod to make a run on the leaders.
In what might constitute the most blatant attempt to win by attrition we’ve seen in a WHV event, the President (who was to have a truly terrible day of golf) was hacking his way through the gorse on the first – hitting his third or fourth shot within 100 yards of the tee. I was ahead of him – 50 or 60 yards, and maybe 30 yards offline from the green. I saw the chopping swing at the ball and then the tracer bullet coming straight at me. I made a bad call on the trajectory – as the split second step to the left was matched by a characteristic slice from Dougal, and was coming straight for my gentleman bits. At the last second I lept and split my legs as much as I can – big lad that I am – and was clipped on the inner thigh about 4 inches south of the source of the Donk Family name. Twas but a flesh wound, but I was happy I had Ibuprofen in the bag to ease the stinging. It probably helped me concentrate a little more, but I didn’t start well.
In the 2nd group, the work of the Prof Ash to antagonise the sponsor was going remarkably well, from the complete lack of care for his clubs – driver in particular – to his penchant for letting most of them hang perilously close to falling out of his bag as he carried them round.
In a very sweet twist of fate, on the walk from green to tee, a club did fall from a bag that was being negligently stewarded – and Rob was absent one putter. At the next green, I saw him look and then walk to a putt with an iron – he had assumed that Pete (who was in the long stuff) had snaffled it – he was genuinely surprised when I pulled it from my bag that, for the first time ever in his long and esteemed (ahem) golfing career, he’d left a club behind.
The 2nd group had a small element of side wagering – always important to record in match reports – for nearest the pin on the 5 par 3’s.
Rob won the first 2, Pete the next, then the Donk, and the last long par 3 was too much of a challenge for us – so Baxter ended up paying the most out, although I’m not sure that we actually got the payments right – £4 staked on 5 holes should surely lead to more than a couple of pound coins being swapped.
Pete also managed to lose a fiver to Rob, at reasonable odds, on his ability to card a par at the last par 3.
Pete and Dougal were tit for tat all day on the wooden spoon, with a couple of big holes for Pete seeing him avoid last place by a point with 18.
For a time, it was close between the Captain and the Idiot, but once again, his willingness to give up on what he perceives to be lost causes speaks more of him being used to not having a shot on most holes, when in fact he now does, and his handicap continues to creep up – he tactically ended up with 31 points, just enough to get his handicap up again.
I played some solid golf – couple of chip ins, a birdie on the easy par five, only a couple of three stabs and a bag full of pars coming home to 40 points – I’ll be off 16 at the next event.
There was, again, controversy surrounding Bruce and the big dog. He boomed a drive out to nearly 300 yards on the last, only to fall foul of a split fairway. He asserted that only an Idiot would choose to put a dog on a hole with a split fairway. This is true, but I don’t think the sponsor remembered the split, and it is inconsequential when we’ve had big dogs on some ridiculously inappropriate holes in the past – the 18th at Stonebridge in the first Skins that Mike won with a shinned 3 iron? In the event, I drove it to within inches of the split, a healthy 278 yards according to my GPS, and retained the Dog I won at the Skins.
So the facts and the figures from the day (although the TD has yet to confirm the prizes, especially strange as he almost forgot to collect the entry fees);
Victor – Captain – £15
Runner Up – Noz – £10
Big Dog – Captain – £5
Shark – TD – £5
At this moment, the camera was passed to Rob, who managed to change the settings so that all subsequent pictures were bleeding hopeless.
A long drive home, with a pit stop for Bruce’s bladder, and a brief sojourn in the mighty Shirley Kebab House saw most people back in time to watch the highlights of a spectacular FA Cup Final – odd that a WHV event should coincide with such a key day in the nation’s sporting calendar.
Bring on the Captain’s matchplay – 27 holes of the purest form of golf round the three loops at Cleobury Mortimer – mano a mano – 21st June, with social support by the TD afterwards
Players have the ability to buy upgrades and improvements between rounds
using in-game money earned during previous waves.