At the Toffs End of Season Dinner, it is the practice of the Toffs Captain to present awards earned by players during the year. These mainly refer to misdeeds and accidents, although occasionally reflect more successful performance.
For the Awards this year, we are indebted to a great extent to the match reports so expertly written by Mark Garrod which have supplied a great deal of information.
1. When we introduced the Toffs website, with its on-line sign up for matches and competitions, we knew that some might struggle a bit with the technology.
Most seem to have coped pretty well but not so Donald Galbraith. Donald was very keen to register for the Texas Scramble in May. So keen in fact that in doing so, he managed to obliterate the details of all other entrants. Donald gets the Toffs technology award.
2. Our match organisers do a sterling job in sorting out the arrangements for our matches. This includes selecting the team and they would normally expect to select themselves and often captain the side on the day.
This wasn’t the case with Joslin Lewis for the match with Mid Herts in September. All the arrangements were fine but Joslin was unavailable as he had a prior engagement…for lunch with the Lord Mayor. Joslin gets the Dick Whittington Award.
3. Talking about match organisers, David Benaim had made immaculate arrangements for our match with Dyrham Park in July. Richard Stell’s report explains how all David’s hard work was destroyed within seconds of their captain arriving:
The day started with a complete fiasco as Dyrham Park changed their team at the last moment, rendering all the cards produced by match organiser David Benaim useless. Matches started late as handicaps and allowances had to be re-calculated.
David gets the Frustrated Match Organiser Award.
4. At the Away Day at Hendon in June, we set up a nearest the pin competition for the 9th hole. Richard Davison thought he would just ensure that he won this prize by getting a hole in one, so this award is just to commemorate that achievement.
5. Talking about that day at Hendon, their course is numbered in the same way as all courses, with the holes following on from 1 to 18 in consecutive fashion.
For some reason, 6 of our players couldn’t fathom that out and to quote Mark’s report: Richard Davison clearly couldn’t wait to get to Hendon Golf Club’s 100-yard ninth hole. So much so that he and playing partners Ray Lovell and Terry Hunt went straight from the third green to the seventh tee and proceeded to drive off. Just to be clear, they thought it was the fourth and it was only the arrival from the sixth green of another of our groups that brought their error to light.
Goodness knows how far they might have gone if they carried on. Just ask Terry Barnes, Richard Stell and Rab Butler- they went from the 7th green to the nearby 12th tee, thinking it was the eighth. And they played the entire hole before Mr Stell’s yardage watch told him they were nowhere near where they should be.
So, could I ask Richard Davison, Terry Hunt, Ray Lovell, Terry Barnes, Richard Stell and Rab Butler to come up and collect their Course Management awards.
6. I am sure that John Baldwin is very kind to animals but he came very close to causing grievous bodily harm to a squirrel when playing at Sandy Lodge in June.
His award pictures a squirrel running along with a golf ball in its mouth- not sure if John actually achieved that but the squirrel did collide with his ball when crossing the 17th fairway. The squirrel was apparently unharmed, so John gets the World Wildlife Fund award.
7. One of our better performances this year was the 4-2 home win against Sandy Lodge Wags in August. Richard Stell reported that Alistair Fraser had the putt of the day – a reported 54.5 feet on the 12th for par. The cheering from the gallery was only partially muffled by the munching of sausage rolls from the halfway hut. Alastair gets the Putt of the season award
8. In the match at Brookmans Park in July, Mark reported an incident involving himself. “A lesson learnt – don’t hit your ball anywhere near a greenkeeper in a tractor cutting grass. Mark Garrod had taken out a shiny new Titleist Pro-VI for his game alongside Terry Barnes, but on the par five third hole a second shot into the rough had tragic consequences when the ball was rendered useless. A deliberate act of sabotage maybe – we’ll never know”. Mark gets the Greenkeepers Revenge Award, complete with a picture of his (sliced ) ball.
9. Some of our opponents arrange a nearest the pin competition as part of our match, one of these being Essendon. Terry Barnes won it there in June and this Award is just something to enable him to remember that success.
10. Tim Longman normally carries his bag but decided to use a trolley for the match at Mid Herts as he was due for a hernia operation. As Mark reported, that worked fine until he had a brain fade after playing a fine recovery from a bunker. Out he climbed and grabbed the shoulder strap staring him in the face, momentarily forgetting that said strap was not only attached to his bag, but said bag was also attached to the (partially obscured) trolley.
The weight of the trolley, suddenly unstable due to his sudden heave, was so much that over Tim went onto the ground, with the handle of the trolley digging into his ribs as he went.
Fortunately, Tim recovered quickly both mentally and physically and was able to chip in at the next hole, helping him and his partner, Alastair to victory. Tim gets the Health & safety award.