Call me Miguel!

Just call me Miguel! The rioja worked; well for 9 holes anyway, it wore off after that but for those first 9 holes I played my best golf ever finishing on 52. The following 9 were back to form with a 69.

I managed 3, yes read that 3, pars! The third hole is a par 3 I did a perfect tee shot and then 2 putted for the par. The seventh was an amazing par. It’s a long par 5 hole and my tee shot was wayward, very wayward. I hit it beautifully, it flew high into the air, but alas it went off to the right and hit a tree, which was out of bounds, bounced off the trunk and went thirty yards forwards and back into play. The lie was in the rough but sitting in a great position and I hit a perfect shot down the fairway. The third shot was the right distance but off to the left leaving me with my best ever chip with a sand iron, leaving the ball about 8 feet from the hole. A perfectly judged putt saw the ball drop into the hole for a genuine par 5. I held my club aloft with both hands, 4 points, 4 bloody points woohoo.

We were playing Stableford and, although we don’t have official handicaps, I was playing off an assumed maximum of 28 and Ross was playing off a 20. After the back 9 I had scored on every hole and had 17 points. I have never even got near to 17 points after 18 holes, the best I’ve ever done is 9. This was fantastic and having shot 52 I was looking forward to breaking 110 for the first time and, with a bit of luck, close to 100. Ross was disappointed as he too had shot 52 up to this point but was only on 14 points. It was now that the rioja wore off and I reverted to my normal standard. The tee shot from the tenth was good, 210 yards but the second rolled across the fairway 20 yards into the rough. The total for this hole was 8. The eleventh tee shot was also good, over 230 yards leaving just over 150 to the green. This went slightly awry, rolling into the gorse by the green. I took a penalty drop as it was unplayable and made a marvellous chip onto the green with 2 putts to finish the hole. The twelfth was a disaster. I cannot describe how awful this was and I ended up with a 12. Still the next hole was a very short par 3 so surely I could recover a couple of points here. No, no I couldn’t. I put my tee shot off the back of the green, the ball remaining stubbornly lost in the rough. This ended up as an 8. 

We took a welcome break in the clubhouse in order to recuperate.  As we walked towards the fourteenth tee I said to Ross ‘ We’ve had a good rest so now we’ll play like demons’. Ross then proceeded to put his tee shot into a bunker about 220 yards up the fairway. My tee shot wasn’t too bad and ended up about the same distance but on the short stuff. The distance to the green was only about 140 yards but was uphill and the sun was high in the sky right on line with where I needed to aim. I hit a 7 iron beautifully but I had no idea where it went as the sun was right in my eyes. Ross got out the bunker but only 20 yards further. His next shot went up and onto the green.. As we got to the top of the hill there was Ross’s ball on the green but mine wasn’t visible at first, then I spotted it over the far side on the fringe about 25 feet from the hole. Two shots later I had completed my third par and 3 more points. It certainly looked like demonhood beckoned.  Alas the fifteenth confirmed my mortality as I scored 5 on a par 3. The sixteenth saw me to the green in 2 and a par was there for the taking but my putting let me down leaving me with a 5. The seventeenth was the worst of the day, I scored a 13. A 13? What a load of old cobblers. This destroyed my round; I had now taken 62 shots for the last 8 holes and Ross had caught up, I was on 26 points and he was on 25.  There was only one hole to play and I was perfectly capable of plucking defeat from the jaws of victory. Ross put his tee shot off the right close to the trees. Mine went onto the first fairway. The ball was sitting there begging to be hit so I hit it, 40 yards down the first fairway. I could still salvage a par with a decent third shot, provided I could knock it over the trees.  Guess what? I rolled it along the floor and into the trees. I saw exactly where it went into the rough around the bottom of the trees. I looked, and I looked and I looked again. The ball had disappeared. Those fairway fairies had struck again, either that or it had gone down the gaping rabbit hole by the base of a tree. I dropped and hit through to the eighteenth. It took three further shots to finish. No points for me here so I had to hope Ross had duffed up. He was, however, on the edge of the green for two. He had 3 shots to win, 4 to draw. He got close with his first but missed the putt. He made no mistake and finished with a 5, 50 for the back 9 and, more importantly 2 points to finish on 27. He had won by 1 point. I had successfully snatched defeat, not from the jaws of victory, but from its stomach. I was, ironically, gutted. Still I had nearly tripled my previous best and scored 3 par holes in 1 round. All in all, a very good day. In the pub afterwards we looked at the scores; Ross wasn’t too happy with being over 100 but he made some very good shots. I was very happy with the first 9 but that made me unhappy with the second 9. If I hadn’t completely cocked up the twelfth, thirteenth and seventeenth holes it would have been a cracking round. 

I started the round as Miguel Angel Jimenez and finished as Maurice Flitcroft. Maybe instead of a beer break I should try a wine break, just to top up my Miguel factor.