The evil of trees....

As you are aware, The UK has been brought to a standstill by heavy winds over the past week. Motorways have been shut, Town centres cordoned off and rail services cut to just 10% efficiency (Although it only usually takes a badger to fart near a rail line to reduce it to 50% efficiency). You would imagine with all this chaos that the Friday knock would be out of the question, but miraculously the wind and rain died down for a few hours allowing the said game to continue as usual. Quent handled the course conditions brilliantly and carded a fabulous 74, whereas I managed to play well but suffered my usual arguments with the trees. No excuses, they are there to be avoided, but what is really hard to take is the fact that outside our house stood a large solitary tree doing nobody any harm and looking pretty until the storms came and ripped it up, destroying it totally. Werneth Golf Club has quite a few hundred of evil round-destroying trees, and yet not one of the buggers were felled by the storms. When the day comes that I finally flip my lid and wander round with a chainsaw don’t worry – I’ve made a mental note of every tree at WGC that has ever caused me problems and I reckon I could fell all 486 of them in a single night.

Another thought that crossed my mind whilst looking for my ball on Friday, was the rule regarding lost ball penalties. Now, I reckon if you know it is in “That patch of grass over there” it is not strictly lost, it is in fact only out of sight. What will inevitably happen is that someone else will come along at a later time and find it and put it in their pocket. My argument is that this person does not have your permission to claim ownership of the ball and is effectively stealing it. Why then, should you suffer penalty strokes when a person who is committing a real crime gets off without punishment? It is clearly a miscarriage of justice and needs to be addressed with immediate effect. Anyone have the phone number for the R & A?

Still on the subject of lost balls, the only reason I have never bought one of those ball retriever things is that I have yet to hear of anywhere that does a re-gripping service for them, and I feel sure that it would probably end up being the most used item in my bag.

I have found that on occasion I am standing too close to my ball. These occasions are always after I’ve struck it, and look up to see it has travelled only 10 feet. It is then that I feel I am standing much closer to my ball than I would have preferred.