I just played my match against kilcourse1975 (Mike).
First and foremost, Mike's a gent and I greatly enjoyed meeting and playing with him. Great company, nice sense of humour, very sporting.
Secondly, he's a class player too. Some of us (cough...me) tend to just blast everything as hard as we can, but Mike frequently played tactically for position, which is smart golf. Some pinpoint approach shots showed he was right, and there were plenty of resulting birdies.
I felt as if I was hanging on by my fingernails the whole way quite frankly, and it was only Mike's mistimed shot on the 3rd that gave me a glimmer of hope. He pulled left into the sand while I hit mine 3 yards from the pin. But then he played a marvellous bunker shot stone dead so that made the putting nerves jangle. I just squeaked it in to go 1 Up though.
And Mike took it right back on the next hole with three solid, straight shots to leave a tap in birdie, while my putt was wild, wide, long....ugh.
And then we were toe-to-toe all the way to the 9th, halving everything. We were both 6 yards from the pin after our tee shots on the 9th with me to putt first. Fortunately (and I do mean fortunately as it was slightly mistimed) it curled its way in, and Mike had less good fortune with his.
That's was it, I win 1 Up on the last.
Thanks very much for the game Mike, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
Nigel.
