Last Saturday we played the final event of the summer season at my club - a Texas Scramble. It's a funny old format where it's possible to go mega-low if you have a bit of luck and the putts are dropping. But it's also possible to return a fairly disappointing score even if you all play reasonably well. It's a format that emphasises the importance of putting.
My partners in the scramble were - dad (off 9), Raymond (an 8-handicapper) and Chris playing off 10. As we're all competent golfers capable of good gross scores playing as individuals, we thought that combined we'd be able to shoot the lights out.
On the first hole, dad found the middle of the fairway; I fired a wedge to eight feet and a birdie three looked to be a dead cert. But we all managed to narrowly miss the putt and we walked off with a four. It was a similar story on five of the first six holes. We'd played well but had managed only one birdie from six chances.
In the pro-game this week, Doug Barron became the first player to receive a doping ban. The PGA Tour announced the 40-year-old had been suspended for a year for violating their anti-doping policy. At this stage the Tour is not revealing what Barron had taken so we can only speculate whether he was on performance enhancing steroids or had merely taken something accidentally that's on the PGA Tour's list of "performance-enhancing drugs" - Vicks VapoRub is on there! Remember Alain Baxter?
The Alliance was cancelled again this week owing to the heavy rain that's been plaguing the country. In a way I was quite happy as I'd been out the night before to celebrate the news a friend is to be a dad for the first time. On Wednesday morning I would have argued a strong case for why alcohol shouldn't be considered "performance-enhancing."
