Day 207 - Doh!

Time for another Captain Pro Challenge.  Today was the opportunity for friends Roland and Colin to challenge Mike and me. This was always going to be one of these matches to which I was looking forward, though I was less keen about the fact that we would be giving lots of shots to our opponents. The usual maths followed: Mike was off scratch, I am off 10, Colin 14 and Roland 27 (don't ask!), meaning that we worked out that our challengers were to receive 21 shots.

And that is a lot!  One shot on every hole and two on the three most difficult of them: clearly life was going to be tough. Fortunately, for us at least, for the first few holes our opponents struggled whilst we played solidly. A fine birdie on 3 and a few well placed pars meant that by the turn, we were 2 holes up.

At this point Colin and Roland woke up and started to string some good shots together...and life got tougher as a result. Our birdie on 13 was a high point as it meant that we had won a hole where we were giving 2 shots, but some fine play by our challengers, including a par on 17, meant that we ended up the match all square.  A pretty good result, we thought.

At least until I got home and rechecked the handicap calculations: 41 less 10 is 31 and half of 31 is 16 shots... Doh! 

How embarrassing: all that mathematical training and this is the result... though as Kathryn said - "that means that you played off scratch and still drew". That made me feel much better.

The plan for the afternoon had been to go home to watch the final cricket ODI of the season. This had sounded a great idea until I quickly checked the scores as we sat down for our post-round drinks: 8 wickets down?! How many?  Time for a rethink. I know - how about another 9 holes?

Those played, it was time for a drink on the terrace (courtesy of Tom Parrish's hole in One!) and the opportunity to congratulate Annette and her team of Lady mentors who had each been competing with their Junior Girl for the Acorn Vase. Very impressive and great to see so many girls playing golf together.

Home to make dinner and meet up with Lawrence Junior who had just returned from his vacation in China: lots of stories to share from what sounds like a fantastic time!