Over the past few weeks I've played in some of the club's early matches that traditionally kick-start our season, the first being a Foursomes Medal where the top 16 pairs go forward to the knockout rounds. I was kindly asked to partner a very steady and great striker of the ball 7 handicapper, and I duly accepted, we were allocated 13 shots between us and so off we set.
Dave, my partner, told me just to play my own game and not to worry about him, although easy to say, you can't help be conscious of putting your single figure playing partner in the trees or in a bunker, so at times I didn't take on some of the long approach shots into the green, and although I think I did play my own game for most of the round which surprisingly meant I only put him into the trees once, although his drive did leave me in an awkward position to be fair, but then again I should and would have normally chipped out onto the fairway, but I didn't, but hey, if I had of chipped out I wouldn't have seen a club throw and kicking of the golf bag when he didn't get out first time and the ball rebounded off a large Oak deeper back into the woods!
so overall I think I contributed well and we played well together and comfortably qualified with a Nett 70.5, which if not for a couple of silly throwaway shots I believe we could have troubled the winners with their Nett 65.
The following week was a Greensomes, my B-team partner of last season asked me to play so we teamed up again, we were unbeaten last season in our first 5 B-team matches with him before I injured myself, so, we knew each other well, got on and played well off each other, so, in the back of my mind I fancied ourselves and was up for this as I knew I was currently playing very well. The 2 opponents in our 4-ball came second in the foursomes the week before and straight away as they both drove the ball very well and split the fairway, you could see and sense they were good together and had played together for some years, in fact, it turned out that 1 (one) of them had been at the club for 59 years!
We had 17 shots allocated and our opponents had 13.4, so I was keeping track of the scores in my head and using them as a barometer knowing we had to be inside 3 shots of them to win, or at least, beat them!
On the turn we had used up less than half our allocation of shots so I knew we were in good shape, but a double on 16th (we started on the 7th), a bogey on the 17th & 18th saw us slip behind quite quickly against our opponents. We battled on and although we were both playing well, our opponents were draining long putts for pars and the odd birdie which was slowly killing us off, the 1st & 2nd were both double bogies after finding bunkers and that saw us drop too many shots in quick succession, however, I then played some great approach shots on 3, 4 & 5 after taking my partners drives which gave us the opportunity to par those holes and bring us back into contention, unfortunately we bogied the 6th, our last hole against their par, which again was a huge 30ft putt, so it wasn't good enough on the day for us but overall we put in a decent shift and finished with a credible Nett 68 against our opponents, who went on to win the day's competition with a respectable Nett 65.4.
I know I previously reported I didn't like these kind of formats, it's very difficult to get into any kind of rhythm or tempo when taking alternate shots, you can find that you're not putting or chipping for ages but then suddenly are required to do so at a critical time, so, it's a very testing format but on these 2 occasions, I really enjoyed them.
