The Election Challenge at Caldecott Hall
Thursday 8th June (remember that date) saw round 11 of the Round Norfolk Golf Tour summer comp take place at Caldecott Hall. Holidays, sickness and better offers conspired to limit the participants to three - Chris, Jill and Bob.
Everyone turned up 45 minutes early, including Chris unencumbered by her other half. The pro shop suggested teeing off straight away which put paid to any pre-match shopping.
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| Early Risers |
Bob teed off first by virtue of his gender and despite Jill trying to put him off by talking about what she hadn't been wearing under her Trilby Tour caddy outfit, he just managed to keep his ball out of the trees and ended up on the downslope of a grassy mound. He discovered this was a common feature of the course.
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Female action on first tee
'Can you make out the red tee - hang on a minute let me get my telescope out' |
The girls then set off to find the ladies tees which was just visible in the distance. Now that he had to write the Blog, Bob found himself starting to adopt a Kevin view of the world.
The first three holes saw Jill off to a strong start with 6 points, followed by Chris with 5 and Bob, exhibiting his usual slow start, scoring on every hole but only making 3 points.
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| Chris in full flow on the 2nd Tee |
Jill then hit a sticky patch, Bob rallied and Chris hung in so that by the halfway stage Jill and Bob were level on 14 with Chris one behind on 13. All to play for.
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| Jill hitting a nice shot on the 4th but losing her ball in the bushes to the right of the hole. |
The back 9 started well with Chris and Jill making good pars on the high plateau 10th green for 3 points. Chris just failing with a birdie chance. Bob played out well from the rough greenside to scramble a 5 and 2 points.
The 11th saw Bob attempt to deploy his course management skills, using a recovery club to tee off. Unfortunately, the intention was well founded but the execution was poor and he ended up losing the ball and deploying 'Bob rules' for a penalty. Further mishaps followed and he scored no points.
Chris started well but put her 3rd shot into the gorse when aiming for the green and ended up not scoring. This left Jill to open up a gap at the top with a solid 6 and 2 points.
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Jill starting to find her rhythm
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The short par 3 12th saw Bob scramble a ridiculous long putt par 3 after unintentionally laying up on his tee shot 120 yards from the hole. The girls both only managed a point!!
After this, Jill found a consistent run of form scoring 2 points on each of the next 5 holes. Chris was either very good (2 pars) or poor (blob and 2 double bogeys). Bob similarly hit a par, 2 single bogeys and 2 blobs. On the 16th Jill managed to find Bob's ball twice but he was still unable to score any points.
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Bob demonstrating how not to use a recovery club
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By the time the 18th hole was reached, Jill was in an unassailable position with 30 points. Chris and Bob were tied on 26 points and fighting it out for the wooden spoon.
For those of you who have played Caldecott Hall you will remember that the red tee is about 115 yards ahead of the yellow tee and avoids a screen of trees making the mens tee shot a tad tricky with out of bounds on the right.
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If you squint you can just see the yellow tee on the 18th from the back of the red tee!
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Well, despite some trepidation, Bob managed to hit his best tee shot of the day and avoided all the hazards, landing his ball 150 yards from the pin in the middle of the fairway. Chris responded with a long drive ahead of Bob and Jill quietly went about her business and did what she had done for most of the game and hit the fairway 130 yards from the pin.
Bob played his second shot just wide of the green and chipped on and putted out for a 5. Chris played her next shot into a fairway bunker, played out but left herself a long putt and ended up with a 7. Deep joy for Bob.
Meanwhile Jill ignored all of this tension and pitched in 3 feet from the pin and sank her putt to finish with a birdie and 4 points! Well done.
The final results were Jill 34, Bob 28 and Chris 25 (post match scoring revealed an error in Bob's scoring of Chris).
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the course which was in good shape. The weather was a bit windy at times but the rain held off. It was agreed that Caldecott Hall deserved to continue to be included in future Round Norfolk Golf Tours.
Next week sees the Tour move on to Gorleston which will be the venue for this year's US Open and normal service should be resumed with the blog.
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