Almanac Golf: What Are The Chances?
It was a late decision to front up for a Saturday round in a stroke competition at my local Penfield Golf Club, located at Edinburgh Parks, north of Adelaide not far from the old GMH site at Elizabeth. It had been wet and cold during the week, but a sunny morning convinced me to give it a try. I’m playing with three blokes, just slightly younger with similar handicaps to me, who work at the nearby Edinburgh RAAF Base.
Now, the Penfield Golf Club has been described by a couple of my guests over the years, as quite a nice little 9 hole course with a lot of trees and fantastic greens. There are 18 separate tees, 2 holes with separate greens and 2 greens with two pins (red flag for the first 9 and a white flag for the second time around). There is a very true practice putting green, two areas for practice pitching and chipping, and a driving range. Equivalent to a good country course, with a lot of unique features. And even better, it is quite flat.
So the round started fairly average for all of us but no-one seemed to mind too much. It was the first round of our B and C grade club championships, so the tees weren’t friendly. The 4th hole is a 135m par 3. It has a large, slightly elevated green with two flags, the red one to the right which is a little closer to the tee than the white flag on the left side. Three large bunkers at the front and a safe, grassy, pensioners entrance bailout to the right of the green. There is also a clump of large gum trees on the left with one encroaching on the approach so you need to either go around, or over.
I teed off first (ready golf) and was quite happy with a fluky draw around the gum trees into the left half of the green, pin high around 25 feet away. One of my better golf shots. The second player in the group teed off and proceeded to do almost exactly the same, hitting the green and my ball on the full. He ending up 22 feet away (closer to the pin than me) and me off the green. What are the chances? Thankfully we all saw it, and were able to identify the spot where a rather large plug mark was, and continue on.
So we returned to the scene just short of two hours later to play the 13th which is a slightly longer and harder 150m par 3 to the white flag. I teed off, pushing it slightly right of the green on the grassy pensioners entrance, pin high. The next player (not the same one) tees off, also heading right of the green, and hits my ball after around three bounces. His ball stops and I’m a further 15 feet away from the green. What are the chances?
A very funny and eventful afternoon. Should we have gone around again to give the third player a chance to do the same? One bloke reckoned a billion to one. I thought 3 billion might be a better estimate. The Tooheys Old on tap always goes down a treat after any game at Penfield.
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Sounds like a good day out Daryl. My course Seaview on the Indian Ocean in Perth is a similar 9 hole layout with double tees & greens (3rd oldest in WA). But ours is anything but flat. All uphill or sidehill lies as the long gone sand dunes rolled down to the sea.
Have never had an incident like yours but I often marvel at how the shots on the first 9 are frequently repeated on the second 9. The inability to learn from experience.
Thanks PB. Yes how often do you hear “over there again” or “same as last time”. I never looked it up but just how wise is a golf ball anyway? For it the happen twice, both off the tee from some distance away . . . I told the story to some local old stagers and they’d never heard of it happening before. That’s golf.