The controversy
As the final group walked into the clubhouse at the Menzies, it was clear that we weren’t going to be retiring to our private room for the rice and curry. As Bruce had make it abundantly clear, this was apparently the most important day in rugby history, and he was very unhappy at the prospect of not seeing every sweaty moment of England against France – so the final fourball walked in to see the rest of the society gathered in front of the TV with their focus on anything but the golf, mostly.
A quick discussion of the scorecards seemed to indicate, to the universal acclaim of all, that Big Nelly had won his first event by posting a very respectable 35 points – a couple ahead of the best scores in the final group. Because I’ve had some issues in the past when entering the scores, I took the opportunity of the wait for the food to go over the cards – proper Donking. As you might expect, I started with Neil’s card, which had been marked by Bruce – and it didn’t take long to spot a problem – there were two five point holes, back to back on the front nine, highly unusual golf. Even with two shots, this would need back to back gross birdies, but it turned out Neil had carded back to back gross pars – very respectable and worth 8 points with his shots, but this meant his total for the round was 33 points, the same as what I had just posted – and so we were in a countback situation again at the Gibbon. In 2014, I lost out to a final nine blitz from Bruce, this time I won the event thanks to consistent scoring across the 18 holes, whereas Nelly had scored well on the front.
The Event
As usual, the Gibbon is one of the less well advertised and notified events of the tour – often being promoted in the middle of someone else’s email trail if at all, so it was good to hear there would be ten entrants when it came down to it. It was a little odd to be teeing off at quarter to one on a March afternoon – we would be chasing the sunset in the final group.
Also as usual, there was a nice room set aside for us, with a nice bit of bacon – even special treatment for Nozzer – who was also forced to have a special evening meal from ‘Chef’. We gathered and set off, unusually agreed to let Bruce go in the first group so he didn’t walk off the course to watch his precious rugby.
I can only really talk to what happened in my four, with Gregs, Ads and Boycie – but the scored posted in the other threeballs show that, apart from big Nelly, there wasn’t a lot of heavy scoring – three of us scored 33 or 32 – seven of us scored between 23 and 26.
In the final fourball, I had a good day on the five par threes, playing them level gross, with a birdie, a three put and a chip that lipped out – but that doesn’t help your score much if you’re off 12. My usual scoring comes on the par 5’s, but I blobbed the first and sixteenth after being in good positions – it looks like I won the even with some solid par golf for five or six holes around the turn. Boycie almost caught me though, with a strong finish, and had a four footer on the last that would have seen him turn out the winner on countback. But as he did at the Amy, he missed the putt, and then shamefully admitted he was happy not to have won because he didn’t want his handicap cut!
It is interesting to note that once Millers put the other 11 clubs in his bag, he has no idea how to put a score together – he shot 95 as compared to 89 at the Spittle.
Other gross scores of note – Boycie broke 90 – shooting 89. Nelly went from 120 at the Spittle to 98 at the Gibbon – and my winning round was an 85.
I’m also working on a ‘lead tracker’, it need a bit more work, but essentially;
- Big Nelly was in the lead after the first through the fifth,
- at which point Millers was in the lead for a couple of holes,
- then Nelly again from the eighth to the thirteenth
- on thirteen, I took the lead until seventeen,
- when Nelly took it back for a hole
- and we finished even
Results
So, to the formal details.
The 2015 Gibbon Champ, holder of the Sweaty Cap, is the Donk
The Runner Up and recipient, probably, of a piece of crap glassware, is Big Nelly
The Big Dog, with a drive of 260 yards according to my new golf watch, was won by Bruce – his ninth dog, still a long way back from Ronno
The Shark, with the only shot to hit the green, was the Donk, his twelfth.
The Winner of the Gibbon Straightest Drive, and recipient of the Suisse, was Woolly – who looked like he’d shinned his drive, but it was within a driver’s length of the line.
The Gibbon foot and half, for the second year in succession, was filled with Guinness for the President – who had been garrulous on the drive to Stratford that he was feeling good about his golf – but he was only last on countback vs. Adam
