Corwyn:I just emailed you with my draft post, lol.
Here's the forum post I drafted before seeing Russ' reply::
"Well, the official position is that the game was forfeit. Had Bonalyau claimed meter issues before or at the beginning of the match, then it would have been reasonable for ROW to request an alternate, but abandoning after 7 holes means that it is clearly a done deal (as Eric states in his edit; so the point is Team USA's as soon as they want to claim the match).
However, Russ and I have been talking about the factors, not least that he deserves the chance to finish a Singles game, and to be honest, I'd rather the competition closed with a 'clean' record of all matches played to a finish. As Rock says, we don't need unnecessary controversy.
A couple of days have passed now, and there's been no further communication from Jean. It's clear to me that Bonalyau does not intend to take up Russ's offer to resume from where they left off.
Russ does want to play a real match if it can work and has asked for us to provide an alternate, but he also acknowledges that it's an awkward situation were the game to actually matter.
Since none of our alternates overlap with Russ' weekday availability anyway, this match could only happen at the weekend, by which time it may be a dead rubber (which I guess would make things simpler, lol).
So, it's not an ideal situation by any means, but that's where we're at..."
Russ has since written me to say:
"I would like to play the match. Got a kick out of LOLservers response since he would probably be the alternate to continue the match....
... If my match with BONALYAU is the deciding point, then I will play the match to completion with BONALYAU or an alternate just so there is no doubt about my intent after the fact."