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The Golfblogger and gentleman partner suffer rare defeat at Hazlehead Golf Course after ungentlemanly conduct by the opposition

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The scene was set after the pre-match banter for 9 holes at the below pictured Hazlehead Golf Course, Aberdeen, Scotland on Saturday 16 March 2008 involving the GolfbloggerUK and his gentleman partner Eaen McKenzie versus the Golfblogger’s son young Graham and Steve ‘Seve’ Glass.

No one had played for several weeks for one reason or another and it was agreed that Steve ‘Seve’ Glass and Ian ‘Gentleman’ McKenzie would receive a shot from young Graham. I would also receive a stroke at the 5th and 6th holes.

I was bag of nerves on arrival at the 1st tee - this was not a fear of the opposition but was still shaking from the off course driving, after arriving in young Graham’s red bat mobile, pictured below. If Graham does not make it as a touring golf pro, he may have a future helping out ‘The Stig’ in Top Gear!

Steve ‘Seve’ Glass had left his money in the cash machine yet again and here Eaen could be seen putting his hand in back pocket and contributing to the payment of Seve’s green fee.

The CV’s and standard of play were as follows.

• Young Graham - former European & Challenge touring professional recovering from long term back injury, ex European Boys Champion, Scottish Mens Amateur Champion, winner of record number of Scottish Golf Union ranking events and former Walker Cup player;
• GolfbloggerUK - runner-up in Scottish Professional U-21 Championship, county player, and +/scratch rated player for 14 consecutive seasons;
• Eaen McKenzie - 18-24 handicap standard who does not play regular and who has the rare claim to fame of having played up the 4th, 3rd and 6th holes before holing out on the the 5th hole at Hazlehead 9 hole golf course and nearly decapitating spectators off the 1st tee at the same course;
• Steve ‘Seve’ Glass - 18-24 handicap standard & renowned for his ‘Andy Cap’ headwear, inventor of wallet security electronic chips and intruder software and for the idea of introducing golf ball finder devices

It was more than apparent that young Graham could learn a lot from his playing partners. Perhaps not to be so hard on himself on the golf course, new levels of patience and lots more about the environment after helping Steve to look for so many golf balls!

A hole by hole diary of the round was kept as follows:-

Hole 1 - My dog decided to make his feelings about the opposition known straight away and made a deposit on the 1st hole. I’m sure this clearing up operation after a social night out the evening before, where I consumed copious amounts of beer, may have perhaps resulted in me not being at my best and having a bearing on the end result!?

My partner Eaen (pictured below) made a solid start with a par four, nett birdie 3 despite some off-putting tactics by the opposition.

Unlike Steve ‘Seve’ Glass, pictured below with his shirt and built-in slice sticking out, we are not from Arbroath - the generous Aberdonians that we are, we conceded young Graham’s 18″ gimmee for a birdie at the 1st hole. This was not heard by young Graham and we must state for the record that, if he had missed this putt, we had conceded a half. Status of Match - All Square

Hole 2 - Eaen yet again made par at the second hole for another nett birdie 3 which was good enough to win the hole and put us one up after 2 holes. It was only but right for clarity that we asked the opposition what the score was! Status of Match - 1 up to GolfbloggerUK team

Eaen would appear to be smiling far too much at the views as he approaches the green, when Steve puts in a marker for him. I hope the marriage to Judith works out!

Hole 3 - At the the third hole young Graham (pictured below) had a par three and we missed an opportunity to go two up when I missed a six foot putt. We headed to the third tee with the Status of Match - 1 up to the GolfbloggerUK team

Hole 4 - At the 4th hole Steve ‘Seve’ Glass (striking a matching sweet ‘en vogue’ pose with Graham below) decided to join the game and contributed with a nice putt for a four nett 3 to win the hole. Not that they were slow to remind us that the Status of Match was now All Square.

Hole 5 - Steve and Eaen decided to go off the radar screen at this hole and I received some verbal abuse from the opposition for hitting the out of bounds wall up the left hand side of the fairway and bouncing back into play. Surely they could see my tactics was to get an extra 30 days run off the ball! I managed to salvage a par for a nett birdie three to win the hole from young Graham (pictured below as camera unable to get Eaen and Steve in range of a picture).

There was twice the anxiety on Steve ‘Seve’ Glass’ face as we headed to the 6th tee - apparently after holing a nice putt to go back to all-square at the 4th hole, his putter had mysteriously gone missing! At his age he did not fancy trekking back to the 4th hole. After a search it would appear someone had accidently put his putter in my bag!?

Status of Match - 1 up to GolfbloggerUK team

Hole 6 - The sixth hole is a long par-5 where we were all receiving a stroke from young Graham. Young Graham managed to score a birdie four.

Steve ‘Seve’ Glass was slightly put off by a practice ball landing near him when getting ready to play and could not recover his composure and duffed his third shot to the green. The end result being a divot the size of a jumbo haddock supper from The Ashvale Chip Shop in Aberdeen.

Eaen and myself did not see where this ball came from but the person should have shouted “fore!”. In hindsight and as a matter of fairness, we should have let him play the shot again, but too late now.

On arriving at the green pictured above, I was only 30-40 feet from the hole but unluckily my second shot was stuck at the base of a tree where I could not take my stance. I must place on record, I was met with off-putting tactics which were very costly for my partner and I. If these opponents were gentleman they would have offered me extended preferred lie since we were playing winter conditions of play, but this offer was not forthcoming.

I played my next shot onto the green which hit a pine cone and bounced left to about 20 feet from the hole much to the laughter of my opponents. I had to take two putts from this position to half the hole and advised my opponents that, “I hate taking 5’s at par 5’s!” - I was safe with this statement as I proceeded to three-whack and make six!

Incredibly when I hit my putt which was going into the hole it hit a scarifying mark and stayed short and left! If I did not know better I’d think that pair of scoundrels engaged a gopher out of Caddyshack to stop the ball reaching the hole! There’s one thing for sure, the last time they seen a mouth like mines, it had a hook in it! This was an odd one and may feature within the next edition of Caddyshack trivia?!

I feel it was grossly unfair that they put me under immense pressure when faced with a 3 foot putt for a half. I believe the above Caddyshack poster sums it up, with the addition of, “Some People Just Don’t Belong” - “on a golf course that is!”

Readers can make up their own minds as to whether this was ungentlemanly conduct or not!?

Status of Match - All Square

Hole 7 - At the seventh hole Steve decided to join the game after going AWOL and halved the hole with a four nett three to tie with young Graham and I. We headed to the eighth tee. Status of Match - All Square

Hole 8 - The position of the eighth tee was dangerously placed further right than normal and very close to the out of bounds wall. It was only but fair that Eaen and I should remind Steve ‘Seve’ Glass that he had a tendency to go over the wall and out of bounds at this hole and “to be very careful”.

Much to our surprise he did not heed this advice and his tee-shot was last seen rising going over the wall and out of bounds. Eaen and I did provide sympathetic support and told Seve not to worry about this, as these things happen! Despite such comfort, Seve was still very distraught and inconsolable at the thought of perhaps having to spend money on a new golf ball?!

Eaen decided to hit his second shot over the ball out of bounds just so that Seve had company and to ensure Steve did not feel so bad about this!

In the final analysis, young Graham secured a three and it all came down to me holing a three putt under immense verbal onslaught and intimidation from our opponents. I was most surprised that young Graham had been led astray by Seve’s and was copying bad habits. Graham can be seen below covering up handsome Harry, our black cocker spaniel’s eyes and stating Harry could not bear to watch this putt!

I could handle this banter, but what I could not deal with was Seve spread along the ground taking a close-up picture of my silky putting stroke. I could hardly see the hole for the shadow! I did notify the green keeping staff so that they could carry out the following repair when we finished our nine holes.

Whilst I could not take a photograph of Steve ‘Seve’ Glass, the below picture is a close resemblance of him stranded on the 8th green!

Below is a picture of the missed putt which resulted in us being one down with one hole to go of the match.

Status of Match - 1 up to Hinge and Bracket with one hole remaining

Hole 9 - We responded to immense pressure at the last after young Graham (pictured below) was just off the par 4 green with his tee shot and Seve hit a good opening bat. Eaen hit a fine tee shot and I managed to get 30 yards from the green after strategically bouncing my ball off the right out of bounds wall.

My opponents classified this shot as “lucky” but my position is that it takes a lot of skill to do this twice in a round - I will let viewers of this blog be the judge!

Things were not looking good when Seve hit his 2nd shot to be nett one 20′ from the hole but Eaen did manage to respond and nearly made a three nett two but had to settle for a nett three birdie to match my gross birdie three. Young Graham was about eight fee away in two and Seve had a similar length putt to win the game but failed after all Eaen and I’s encouragement to do well!

We could not have written this script! It all came down to the final shot on the last green and young Graham, who had perhaps never experienced such pressure in the Walker Cup or on the European Tour, to slot this home for a gross birdie three to win the match by one hole!

I’m sure the experience of playing with Eaen, Seve and I will stand him in good stead once he gets over his sciatica!

Stat Attack

Since my arithmetic is not as good as it should be a count-back/ recollection of the nine holes is required just incase that Steve ‘Seve’ Glass has distorted his golfing process when the “bragging rights” were debriefed to his “posh bit of totty”, the lovely Jo-Jo.

Scores against a par of 35, oops meant par of 34, of the Hazlehead 9 hole course in Aberdeen, Scotland (4 4 3 3 4 5 3 4 4) as follows.

Graham ‘Chopper’ Gordon jnr: 343 344 333 - 30

Steve ‘Seve’ Glass: 5 5 4 4 , AWOL for hole, Visit to Ashvale Chip Shop, 4, OFF GPS, 5

Eaen ‘the Gentleman’ McKenzie : 4 4 4 5, Echo warrior for 1 hole, AWOL for 1 hole, 4, Off Sat Navigation System, 4

Eaen’s fellow-gentleman partner, the GolfbloggerUK : 4 4 3 4 4 6 3 4 3 - 35

A good day was had by all and we had a debrief of this major golfing upset at the Palm Court Hotel, Aberdeen for a bite to eat and a very rare occurrence - no, not an eclipse of the moon

but the opening of Steve ‘Seve’ Glass’ wallet twice in one day!

A wild Wallet in flight!

My fellow-gentleman partner and I feel that it was the embarrassing conduct and this travesty of justice forced him into this very rare airing of his wallet.

We have had a word with Joanne and she has promised to book him in for gentleman classes before our planned return grudge match in approximately 3 weeks time. Young Graham’s back injury would appear to have returned - this is not surprising after carrying Steve ‘Seve’ Glass around for 9 holes.

Steve and Joanne are away to Tenerife on vacation with the children in a week’s time and we hope they have a nice ‘chill-out’ for 7 days. We have still to establish how much this cost Joanne!

Eaen’s wife Judith is expecting a baby in May (being an old married man, forgot to ask how they managed this) and they are now in countdown mode of 9 weeks to go and according to reports Judith is looking well after recent scans. We hope all goes to plan as I believe triplets, quads or sextuplets can be quite an expense & a lot of work!

I’ve got to go, I’ve loads of ironing to do, the dog to walk, bit of home cooking and the car to wash. It’s either that or I put my feet up, I am served nice’n'cold Budweiser by my adorable and beautiful wife Linda (the prospects are looking better by the minute after that post) and I watch live soccer which is a really tough choice!? must say I’m feeling a bit dry!

Below is a picture of the ‘high five’ Hinge & Bracket winning pair! last time I seen the likes of this, morris dancing was involved!

Watch out for the rematch blog in 3 weeks time when my partner and I look forward to a resounding victory and a resumption to normal winning service!

The Ed aka Big G