Another one from Noz
Tournament: The Claret Jug
Timeline: Saturday, 13th October 2012 – Sunday, 14th October
Venue: Wokefield Park, nr Reading
Golf shoes : No worries
We were teeing off reasonably early on the Saturday, so everyone had breakfast, very nice bacon (you won’t hear me say positive things about Bacon often), and began their prep for the big one of the year. Campo arrived, Bruce threw the balls and we got the 2012 Claret Jug underway. There was some wonderful trousers being sported. Wokefield Park was an enjoyable course with some interesting holes that made you think carefully about club and shot selection, and rewarded consistent ball striking. The ninth was a god hole tempting you into driving over the water, or taking an iron and going round it. It was the kind of course that really allowed the cream to rise. I had spent some time at the driving range in the week preceding and seemed to have sorted out the errant driving that has ruined a number of rounds this year, I was confident having targeted the CJ all year, the possibility of Ireland or some even worse golfing backwater like Scotland was all the motivation that I needed. We should be going to a golfing mecca for the CJ2013, Portugal or Turkey. Everyone in my group played well and I had a very enjoyable day on the course.
Day one longest drive was taken by Baxter and the Shark was won by Bacon, Campo was the overnight clubhouse leader on 40 points, just pipping me on countback. The scoring was quite tight, and everyone was still in with a chance of winning it, (apart from the societies only cat Z golfer of course). The lead group on day 2 was made up of me, Idiot, Donk and Campo. This was bad news as 2 of the main Scotland!? protagonists were right in the mix.
For me the Saturday night of the Claret Jug is as important an event as the golf. The fines are handed out, and ordinarily at least 1 society member makes a fool of themselves. Last year we had Baco in the curry house, the year before it was Pete and the sausage speaker, every other year was Gregs. This year was no exception Milmore craftily and expertly talked himself into an extra Motown Reading, whilst trying to stitch up the only person he had supporting his bizarre case against Bruce. There were a number of other noteworthy incidents at the evening meal:
- The replacement of the extenda-fork and the introduction of the extenda-spoon. This was unexpected, at least by me, but how could I doubt Bruce. Campo really struggled with his duck breast whilst I quietly thanked the countback ruling from earlier in the day.
- The introduction of the Hulk Saturday night T-Shirt. It later transpired that Baxter had been carrying around the Hulk T-Shirt for 4 years waiting for this moment. He’s known for playing the long game and I am suspicious about his likely cat Z status early next season
- The connoisseurs cheese board. Quite simply the finest selection of cheese ever assembled. I tried every single cheese and they were all glorious. Pedro really surpassed himself, he really makes up for what he lacks on the golf course with his unwavering commitment to the society. (Apart from the short period of time after his sacking as Captain and him getting a girlfriend)
- The port. 2 fine bottles of port appeared on the table one undrunk bottle from last year provided by Gregs and the other procured from the Port museum in London no less! I’ve never seen such a hash made of opening a bottle of port as Pedro did with the finest bottle ever presented to the society. After much discussion one of the waitresses finally worked out what we needed. A strainer to get rid of the cork floating in Pedros port bottle. The strainer is now in Robs puma bag along with a number of other society assets and will be used for ball throwing at future claret jugs.
After dinner we again adjourned to the bar to drink port and brandy, it sounds quite grown up and sophisticated, but when you mix the port and brandy with a bottle of blue WKD in a pint glass and then neck it it really isn’t quite so grown up and sophisticated after all. It was at this point that things began to get interesting.
Greggers took 2 bets on holes in 1, giving him a combined liability of £1100, he then goaded himself into taking further crazy bets at all sorts of daft odds to try and keep up with generosity of Pedro Power. I had 40 quid in various bets, I assume others had similar. I knew things were going wrong when Gregs wrote Noz is a c bomb in the leather bound book after a request for him to stop playing tinny music on his new (now working, damn you T-Mobile) iphone 5. A hasty game of Doily Potting was arranged, it’s a dieing game but this years was a good one. Greggers took a large wager from Pete that Adam would win the pot, and he duly did, Pete bet on Adam for the 2nd game, and Adam did it again. Both Pete and Ad were 50 quid up and Gregs 50 quid down. I have to say it was the best possible result.
Once again things get hazy for me, I remember Baxter proudly showed me his phone, proving that he went to bed at 12:02am, I’m not sure I was as impressed as he was. As is often the case on the Saturday, everyone was in bed early apart from me and Pete. Petes phone had run out of juice and he hadn’t managed to talk to Kim all weekend. They had had a tiff before he left and not spoken since. I was deeply concerned to hear this news so did Pete a huge favour. I put the compatible battery from my phone into his so he had some juice, a good friend indeed. To prove what a good buddy I am to Pete I also gave Kim a quick call. She seemed pleased to hear from me, we’ve met once and I’ve phoned her after midnight twice, this time it was 1.30. I know this because she told me, a couple of times.
That’s my last memory of the Saturday night, me and Pete headed off to bed at about 3.
Sunday morning came and we were teeing off about 10.30am, this was bad news. Some nice Bacon (last time ever) again and a short 5 minute warm up and it was time to tee off. I missed a short putt on the first and got a 6 and cursed my late night, I was feeling a little shaky. Things got better after this though. Campo collapsed early under the pressure, but Idiot and Donk were both playing well, we all scored within a point of each other on the front 9 and things were tight, Bruce won the shark on the 12th and the dog (with the biggest drive I’ve ever seen) on the 10th. Donk got 3 pars on the 10th 11th and 12th and also won the hulk. It was getting really tight and for the first time some doubt entered my mind. News had filtered through that Bruce had scored 26 points on the front bringing himself right into contention.
The 15th proved to be decisive. Rob R4’d, Campo bunged him right into some coarse unplayable rough, Donk started to feel the pressure of being Claret Jug winner and duffed an iron, neither of them scored and I picked up a par and the lead was now virtually unassailable. The final few holes were played out and we went to the bar for the prizes. Donk did some class donking and the scores were up quickly so we could all get home in time to play FIFA with our online friends. Baxter came third, Bruce 2nd after a hugely impressive 46 points, Baxter got king of the 3s and I picked up king of the 5s.
A cracking weekend, thanks to Bruce who organised everything and made sure everything ran smoothly, bring on 2013!!!
