It seems like only yesterday but it is nearly three long years ago that the Stags rebellion started. Since that time the rebels, as I like to call them, have had three leaders. The first when he realised that they had won the rebellious vote gave up immediately and retired to his garden shed to write a thesis on how to play golf on courses in Europe when the value of the pound made it too expensive to play. The second laboured long and hard to be be strong and stable and reach a deal but eventually frightened the horses too much and was voted out by an even more rebellious rump of the rebellion who wanted a complete rout of the system and an end to the Stags as we know them. They then persuaded one of their kind (or is he?) to become the new leader but insisted he had a little poisonous aide to make sure he didn't cave in and not achieve their wishes. This new leader is a strange cove, previously a man of words who made his living peddling lies about the Stags, he is prone to agree with anybody he talks to, so we really don't know what he really thinks or perhaps he doesn't know what he really thinks. He seems to be very happy with his role as leader however. It seems he has achieved his life's ambition.
It is against this background that the Stags continue to organise events and competitions, hoping that the rebellion will die away or they will agree to rerun the vote and we get back to a more normal life.
Meanwhile it is Autumn of 2019 and we have our Away day to play in. About 37 Stags plus three interlopers played at Coventry Golf Club, a malodorous course which is in beautiful condition but suffers from the waft of Finham Sewage works and the noise of the Kenilworth By Pass. But the greens were superb and the fairways great. A pity we didn't grace their excellence by posting some big scores. But is is a tough course especially the back nine. We started with coffee and a very good bacon roll as we looked out on the course and thanked the organiser for his innate ability to pick good courses and fine weather. The first hole is better played from the white tees about 10 yards back but with an extra shot given. This happens again on the tenth hole. We of course were off yellows so no pars were recorded on this hole and only 5 bogeys and the rest of the scores were worse. Now I am not going to analyse every hole in this fashion, suffice it to say it was a difficult start. We then entered into the mephitic area of the course which was especially effected by a south west breeze wafting across the fairways. Too many people must have had curries the previous night I think. However the quality of the course shone through and people started scoring better. The nearest the pin was on the 7th and quite a contest ensued, eventually won by Roger Burton even though he missed his putt for a birdie. The second nine are tough and include some long Par 4's and very difficult Par threes. Scoring was not so good on the back nine but the longest drive was the scene of a massive tee shot from Rohit Shah who made birdie , equalled by Nick Kirby who duffed a chip straight in the hole for birdie also.
Ham Egg and chips followed plus some delightful Tribute ale and Captain Paul gave out the prizes to the aforesaid Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive winners and the top three who each made a less that impressive 31 points but were ahead of the rest. In third place, unusually for him, was Bill Griffin, second by a whisker Charles McTear, visiting us from outer Wales, and in first place was slimline Ron Maudlin with a better back 6 score.
Full results were as follows
POS | PLAYER | Total | Back 9 | |
1 | R | Maudlin | 31 | 15 |
2 | C | McTear | 31 | 15 |
3 | B | Griffin | 31 | 15 |
4 | R | Shah | 30 | 19 |
5 | R | McNally | 30 | 18 |
6 | C | Langridge | 30 | 17 |
7 | N | Palmer | 30 | 14 |
8 | M | Lunn | 29 | 15 |
9 | K | Owen | 29 | 14 |
10 | N | Kirby | 28 | 14 |
11 | T | Devlin | 27 | 15 |
12 | K | James | 27 | 15 |
13 | M | Jephcott | 27 | 13 |
14 | M | Brown | 27 | 12 |
15 | R | Pickering | 27 | 11 |
16 | R | Burton | 27 | 10 |
17 | M | Gilbey | 26 | 14 |
18 | T | Britton | 26 | 12 |
19 | S | Kenny | 25 | 13 |
20 | W | Feely | 25 | 12 |
21 | R | Parham | 25 | 9 |
22 | P | Youett | 24 | 14 |
23 | P | Jamieson | 24 | 13 |
24 | JD | Woodward | 24 | 13 |
25 | D | Ridley | 24 | 12 |
26 | M | Lloyd | 24 | 10 |
27 | P | Steward | 24 | 10 |
28 | R | Pedrick | 23 | 11 |
29 | J | Westwood | 23 | 7 |
30 | D | Templeton | 22 | 12 |
31 | R | Whitehouse | 22 | 11 |
32 | R | Perry | 22 | 9 |
33 | T | Wing | 20 | 9 |
34 | D | Spillane | 19 | 11 |
35 | R | Cathcart | 18 | 11 |
36 | R | Hamilton | 18 | 9 |
37 | J | Gallagher | 16 | 10 |
38 | M | Lovie | 16 | 9 |
39 | A | Heatley | 16 | 4 |
Lets hope we are still able to play next year, unless the rebellion wins. We might even have more of this rubbish to read.