After many months of silence, and a dead end of a plan involving Stonebridge, with just a couple of weeks to go, the newest event sponsor announced that our first ever double hander would be held on two of the, ahem, more accessible courses in the Solihull area.
There was a lot of derision from the WHV backbenches, as there usually is for most things, and calls for the board to sort themselves out, but we still managed to get 8 brave souls lined up to play at Royal Widney Manor and the equally prestigious West Midlands track.
I’m not sure that RWM has ever hosted a WHV event – possibly one of the Noz/TD specials back before there was an OoM. For the format proposed by the society’s leading idiot savant, it seemed a good choice. The short par 4’s and reachable 5’s created realistic opportunities for the team scramble to get sponsor cash bonus payouts. Millers was offering cash for gross birdies too.
Typically for the day of the Donk Download, the weather was unusual. We have had biblical storms and sweltering heat – this time most of the members arrived dressed for a tricky ascent of an alpine mountain. Boyce was resplendent in top to toe Galvin Green weather protection – some form of birthday present and deal was involved in how it came into his possession, and some very confusing discount, but nonetheless he looked very dapper. And there was no useless logo embroidered on his sleeve.
I actually reckoned that the showers would burn off and we’d be in for a reasonable day – shorts and shirt for me on the first, turned out to be a good choice.
There was no nosebag at the Mindtwist. Other societies seemed to be having bacon rolls, but Millers spluttered some odd words about massages and happy endings and starting on the 10th and watched him mess up the ball toss. Team 1 saw Milmore, Boyce, Martin and Noz give one shot to the Donk, Pres, Bacon and Special K line up, and we were off.
I can only speak for my team, but we did a good job of managing our round – opened with a birdie, but missed a chance at the short par 5. There were some odd club choices on the tee by Mike and PK when they had a chance to go for it, especially with me hitting last as a banker, when I could have been trying to win cash for driving the green. We got to the turn 2 under, but had still to record a drive by Baxter – which we didn’t do until the 11th. A bit of banter with the Miller team suggested they were three under after 9. Of course Millers was close to birdies greens and eagles with every shot. He writes his own history.
I got pin high and apparently very close to cash on the 10th, but we dropped a shot on 11 after a tactical error picking a Baxter drive. But then we clicked into form – reeling off birdies galore even with PK heading off to some kind of gay pride party in Leamington after 14 holes. Mike and Dug were on their games and all three of us got close to the elusive Eagle on 16.
As we queued for the 17th and heard about all the near misses by the boy Miller, we seemed to be a shot ahead – but needed to get one more Bacon drive in. They had to get a Martin drive in. We watched them spray it everywhere on 17 — leading to a bogey, and then watched Mike paint the pin nicely in a challenging wind. We got our par and were two ahead. Millers and co attempted to drive the 18th – I’m sure Paul in particular was just off the green. We laid up to wedge in, and watched Mike stick one to two feet for a closing Birdie – despite losing solid team player and the well oiled short game of PK, we ended up six under and looking at a Birdie bonanza of two pounds each.
You can see the detail of our round on a different post, but a tidy 65 sets a marker for future Mindtwist teams.
I personally enjoyed the format a great deal, everyone contributed on our team and we took a great deal of satisfaction in taking the team victory – it’s just a shame that the sponsor made no effort to get a trophy, or even a small token like a lapel badge for the winners. We had to hustle across to Barston for our pie and chips as the shambles of a day continued.
