It wasn’t until I’d pretty much driven the President all the way to Barnet that he admitted he and Pete weren’t sure that the event would take place. Suffice to say that confidence levels in the booking and consistency of the staff was pretty low.
It turned out, once again, to be one of the most complicated days on tour, and also one of the most enjoyable. We saw some old friends – Aust’s money laundering business is just five minutes from the Shire, and we managed to talk Ron into coming to defend his title. I’m not sure it is the golf or companionship that attracts him to this event, more likely the ridiculous never ending options to wager. We also got to see Woolly again – wasting away to skin and bone.
We had an excellent bacon roll (but didn’t have Bacon to enjoy it – he was MIA at short notice), served by a very excellent and distracting waitress.
Then the PEDRO began – drawing cards to get a wagering slot with the sponsor, and to determine who went into the big money final group. We knew that Ron would buy his way into the group, with Noz and Doug just beating Bruce to the other slots. It was fair to say that Pete took a lot of action because he was providing value – unlike Gamble Gibbon during its’ swansong.
Onto the golf – the Shire makes a big deal of the fact it is the only Seve designed track in the UK – he is everywhere. And they like their S shaped lake on the last, and the fact they have a six, six and six layout. I went off in the first group with Woolly and Millers, both of whom shinned their drives into trouble in front of the field at the first – I managed to knock in a solid nine iron to 15 feet, and then managed to hole the putt for a strong start. After a bit of a gimmicky start to the layout, it actually turned into a pretty normal golf course – far from easy, and with a lot of variety in the holes.
After murdering the back nine at the Warwickshire, I did a pretty good job on the front nine at the Shire. I was out played by my partners on the back nine, and spluttered in with less than ideal 1 pointers on the 17th and 18th – including a disappointing 3 stab at the last – to finish with 35 points.
We stood and watched the next group come in – Bruce, Gregs and Aust and only Aust finished the hole, he also managed to miss a 4 footer on the last to three stab himself – I’m guessing he was less than happy to learn he finished a point behind me for clubhouse lead. I think there was some compensation for him when he picked up the big dog – we had originally tried to do this on one of the toughest driving holes we’ve ever seen – a blind drive into a fairway that narrowed to about 20 feet right around 270 yards with lots of bunkers there to catch anything less than perfect. So we recalibrated for the 18th – uphill and not really a driver hole for the proper hitters given the risk of the Seve lake.
As the final group came in, we learnt that Pete had not carried forward his strong showing at the Download, and was last by a distance, and presumably not ‘up’ for the PEDRO nearest the pins. Noz and Ron broke 30, and Bruce was pleased to have backed himself for the shark, to then knock it stiff. He’d also bagged an eagle. Ron had some birdies, as did Millers (to win a bet) and Woolly (to ruin a bet of mine).
At the conclusion of the golf, the sponsor revealed the spectacular new PEDRO trophy – truly a wonderful addition to our stable of assets. At the moment, Donk Heights is home to the PEDRO Glass Wonder, the Giant Golden Download Trophy, the Copper Brissle Horn and the Amy Austin. I also have the Spoon.
Following the golf, the hardest donking moment of the tour began – the virtual matchplay sweepstake thing – keeping track of wagers, scores and simulated matchplay moments isn’t easy, but we got there.
I think overall thePEDRO@theShire was an enormous success, with Pete staging the most complicated and engaging event. We even got to see side action like a sprint off that was a dead heat, and a ball toss onto the putting green. There were lots of happy punters, and general satisfaction levels were high – I suspect he’d have scored off the chart if we were still doing our post round reviews. The only thing missing from a perfect day, apart from Bacon and a couple of the others, was some nosebag.
On to the Open Championship Links course major bonanza – I have a strong lead in the OoM, but there are so many entrants for the Major Amy and the WHV Open that pretty much anyone could overhaul me – Noz would have to win the Amy and me to finish in the also rans to take the Yellow for the Jug. It’s going to be an interesting weekend.
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Good blog post. Things i would like to bring up is that pc memory needs to be purchased in case your computer can no longer cope with what you do by using it. One can deploy two RAM memory boards with 1GB each, for instance, but not certainly one of 1GB and one of 2GB. One should look for the maker’s documentation for one’s PC to make certain what type of storage is essential.