Bonanza!

Something of a bonanza today as 12 players show for Mike's farewell do. Kudos to Dean, too, for bringing out his cousin, another new player! And also to Pete and Sharon for coming out from Aylesbury - always good to have more players playing our lovely courses.

What's the highlight? Well, there's two. Steve gets 38 in Headington Hill, a PB, and a significant -5 points for the league.

And Jonny gets 34 in Headington Hill, and *still* describes it as "disappointing" - apparently he missed some easy putts. How cruel this sport is, to leave us unhappy with a whopping five below one's handicap. But, a 32 would have been something pretty special.

Looking at the scores, though:

FirstName	Points	Avge	HH Avrge	HH Best	SP Avrge	SP Best	Num rounds
Jonny	-25	38.84	38.27	34.00	39.63	37.00	19
Mike	-17	39.91	39.22	35.00	40.69	38.00	34
George	-14	40.70	39.80	38.00	41.60	38.00	20
Andy	-13	41.43	40.79	36.00	42.07	38.00	28
Neal	-11	43.28	42.90	40.00	43.75	40.00	18
Steve	-9	45.00	43.80	38.00	46.33	42.00	19
Bud	2	39.14	38.14	35.00	40.14	38.00	14
Pete	3	48.56	48.78	43.00	48.29	45.00	16

Jonny's now on -25. Can anyone catch him? Mike's leaving us this week, so it's down to the rest of us to find some seriously good rounds to even get close. It is going to be tough...

Geek corner:
The link at the top of the blog now downloads the latest Access database - no longer a spreadsheet. Download and open it, you can run various queries, the names of which, I hope, are relatively self-explanatory. Over the next week or so, I hope to give this a proper interface so that it makes sense. But, for the time being, if you're in desparate need of the numbers, this is the best I can do, I'm afraid.

Post-tourny lack of talent

Last weekend was the British Open, so no action in the summer league as we focussed on that. With some success, no less!

But, come Wednesday, it's all eyes back on the summer league. We welcomed along Jeff, another new player, for the second week. And I suffered from post-tourney blues. Misdirected drives, missed putts, generally all a bit poor, and a weak arm didn't help.

A blistering roller on SP11 did make the round feel good though. My drive was way behind the trees that block the entrance the flat plateau. Mike suggested a roller. Well, why not have a go, the round's blown anyway. And what do you know, it went all the way to the hole. Nice.

Others had good rounds though, and now the league's getting tight.

Here's the scores:

FirstName	Points	Avge	HH Avrge	HH Best	SP Avrge	SP Best	Num rounds
Jonny	-19	39.12	38.70	34.00	39.71	37.00	17
Mike	-17	39.94	39.24	35.00	40.73	38.00	32
Andy	-13	41.35	40.69	36.00	42.00	38.00	26
George	-10	40.89	40.00	38.00	41.78	38.00	18
Neal	-8	43.19	43.11	40.00	43.29	40.00	16
Steve	-3	45.18	44.44	39.00	46.00	42.00	17
Bud	2	39.14	38.14	35.00	40.14	38.00	14
Pete	4	48.86	48.88	43.00	48.83	45.00	14

(Mike, you're only on -17. There was a maths error on the spreadsheet. Sorry!)

You'll see in the above stats that there are plenty more numbers being crunched. I've moved it all into the Access DB now, so no spreadsheet updates any more. I will provide more stats.

Here are the scores I have for the last two weeks, in case you want to check I am putting the right data in:

FirstName	Date	CourseName	Score
Andy	20-Jul-06	Headington Hill	40
Andy	20-Jul-06	South Park	44
Andy	26-Jul-06	Headington Hill	41
Andy	26-Jul-06	South Park	43
Bud	20-Jul-06	South Park	38
Bud	26-Jul-06	South Park	40
Dean	20-Jul-06	South Park	47
Dean	20-Jul-06	Headington Hill	45
Dean	26-Jul-06	South Park	45
Dean	26-Jul-06	Headington Hill	42
George	20-Jul-06	South Park	38
Jeff	20-Jul-06	South Park	53
Jeff	26-Jul-06	South Park	47
Martin	20-Jul-06	Headington Hill	44
Mike	20-Jul-06	Headington Hill	39
Mike	20-Jul-06	South Park	38
Mike	26-Jul-06	Headington Hill	38
Mike	26-Jul-06	South Park	38
Steve	26-Jul-06	South Park	43

When I took my shoes off.

Yesterday was hot. How hot? When I took my Teva sandals off at the end of the round, bits of the sandal has melted off onto my feet. Let me tell you know, the smell and the look did not go down well with Liz!

Along with the hot weather, there was some hot play. Not from me, though, I am stuck in the World of Average at the moment. South Park saw the good action, though. Bud fluffed up SP6, triple putting and carding a six.

"That's the last of him this round," we all thought. But his tournament experience showed and over the next six holes he got three birdies to level it with George and Mike after 12 holes. One play off later saw Mike take the final victory.

Welcome too to Jeff from Colorado. He told me he wasn't too hot, but then proceeded to launch his first drive with a crisp snap and send it a long way towards the hole. We'll have to watch him!

In nerdy news, I am moving the league over from the spreadsheet to a database. Better for pulling out meaningless numbers and easier to maintain. Should be ready next week. But it will make this kind of thing easy:

FirstName	Average of all scores	Par	Number of rounds	HH Average	HH Best	SP Average	SP Best
Bud	39.08	38	13	38.14	35.00	40.17	38.00
Jonny	39.12	39	17	38.70	34.00	39.71	37.00
Mike	40.07	39	30	39.31	35.00	40.93	38.00
George	40.89	40	18	40.00	38.00	41.78	38.00
Andy	41.29	40	24	40.67	36.00	41.92	38.00
Neal	43.19	43	16	43.11	40.00	43.29	40.00
Martin	44.00	45	1	44.00	44.00
Dean	44.33	43	3	45.00	45.00	44.00	41.00
Steve	45.31	43	16	44.44	39.00	46.43	42.00
Pete	48.86	47	14	48.88	43.00	48.83	45.00
Rob	51.00	53	3	51.00	50.00
Jeff	53.00	46	1			53.00	53.00
Dan	58.00	50	1			58.00	58.00

Current league scores are as follows:

Rank	Name	Score
1	Jonny	-19
2	Mike	-17
3	Andy	-13
4	George	-10
5	Neal	-8
6	Rob	-6
7	Steve	-1
8	Bud	2
9	Dean	4
9	Pete	4
11	Dan	8

Mike has about ten days left to pip Jonny before disappearing into the Canadian wilderness for a year. He needs at least two 37-or-better rounds to make it though. And Jonny needs to buck his ideas up - he's been on the same score for quite a while now...

Golf is best in the summer

This morning was the first time it really really felt like 'proper' summer. Sure, we've had sunshine, and plenty of warm temperatures in the last few months. We've had many days that required shorts and t-shirts. Days that made us sweat out on the course.

But today, the warmth felt that bit more settled. A day where you don't really notice the fact that it's sunny, because it just is. As we move through July and into August, this is the point at which the season establishes itself, and we relax into the warm days.

What does this mean for golf? Better scores all round for most, and a gentle breeze that assists rather than annoys. Today, I started well (how many 2's do you see on SP1?!), and then played averagely for the rest of the round.

Here's the scores:

Rank	Name	Score
1	Jonny	-19
2	Mike	-16
3	Andy	-12
4	Neal	-8
5	George	-7
6	Rob	-6
7	Dean	-2
8	Steve	-1
9	Pete	4
10	Bud	5
11	Dan	8

It's 1am on a schoolnight

Why am I still awake? Well, I've been doing work, can you believe it?

Before a late night money-making session, there was golf. New people, new faces, and a gorgeous summer night. A slight breeze helped the discs go that extra yard and everyone managed some pretty spectacular drives on holes here and there.

The summer league score table is getting a bit hectic now that there are lots of players, but I hope you still find it managable.

The scores (there is a glitch somewhere: Mike is on -13, but for some reason the table in the sheet shows him as -12. It's too late to try and debug it now...!):

Rank	Name	Score
1	Jonny	-19
3	Andy	-12
2	Mike	-12
4	Neal	-8
5	Rob	-6
6	George	-4
7	Dean	-2
8	Steve	2
9	Bud	5
10	Dan	8
11	Pete	11

wOw I can now blog too!

Headline: Ace no. 3 of the summer.

And this time, it was me! Finally, an ace on Giggsy (so named because there's a big 11 painted on the tree).

It's a hole I have doggedly thrown my beat-up JLS at, knowing that the right-fade of the disc will sink it right into the tree. Most times, something goes wrong: height, distance, release, and it misses. But today, in a strong wind, it all came right. Thwack - 3 feet up, into the trunk. Very satisfying indeed.

Inevitably, I then double-bogied the following hole.

In other news, George had two potentially great rounds. But he got an OB6 at hole 12 on South Park, the wind carrying the drive over the trees and beyond the railings. In Headington Hill a great start was wrecked by a huge overput on the 4th. Into a hedge, close to OB that left him no choice but to declare an unplayable lie and card a 7. Ouch.

Steve got into double figures on SP11 - 10 shots to get in the basket. An utter disaster.

The wind was very challenging today, but made for some great excitement.

Scores:

Rank	Name	Score
1	Jonny	-19
2	Mike	-11
3	Neal	-8
4	Andy	-6
5	George	-3
6	Rob	0
7	Steve	2
8	Bud	8
9	Pete	11

Full details on the spreadsheet (link is above)

Cor blimey!
Things are getting a little tighter. As we all push our averages down, we're all in the negative or heading towards it.

Great night tonight: the weather broke, but we were spared the downpour that began when we finished.

Personally, another average-feeling round that came in 2-below. Always nice, particularly a huge shot on the final hole to recover from a shocking drive. Definitely the biggest intentionally-thrown double-helix I have ever managed, and it landed pretty much where I wanted it to.

I finally broke my jinx on our Theatre-toilet hole, too. Having always managed to throw it into the rough and end up with a four, a good drive and great putt finally saw a 2.

Enough about me.... Mike nearly aced HH11 again, and did a comedy jig as it sailed past.

Here's the scores:
Rank Name Score
1 Jonny -19
2 Mike -10
3 Neal -8
4 Andy -5
5 George -1
6 Rob 0
7 Steve 7
8 Bud 8
9 Pete 11