What a week. What a stunner. An excellent rate of return was had
this week. A slim trim staking plan minimalised losses and maximised profits. I
truly was Maximus Decimus Meridius. Well. Not really. A bit though. I felt
pretty powerful. Well that isn’t completely true. I felt useless. Maybe the
metaphor does work.
On Sunday I was, somewhat ill. Maybe not ill. But I felt ill. I
was certainly hungover. Which is basically the same. I was the world’s most
hungover man. Yet I was to find no pity in the arms of Mrs Golfing Greg. At
first, I thought she would take great care of me. I was humbled in a most
inhumane fashion, hungover to the point of poisoned, and she asked me, was
there anything she could do for me? Finally, salvation was mine. I knew for
what I would ask. I knew, in my heart what I had to do. And I asked for it. I
said “Yes, there is something that you can do for me, please murder me.”
And would you believe it, she had the cheek to refuse my one
request. All I wanted in those dark hours was to depart the realm of the living
and inhabit a more comfortable land, but I was denied. Were I, an Englishman,
to live in Switzerland, I surely would have not suffered the same indignities.
Although perhaps that’s for the best because I don’t think I could afford to be
continuously put down every time I’d over-indulged on the vodkas. I also can’t
afford to have radical cognitive and behavioural therapy to prevent
continuation of such activities. I also have no real desire not to continue to
push the boundaries of what my liver will save me from, so perhaps I should
learn not to be so whiney about everything.
But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here for Golfing Greg to
regale you with heart-breaking stories of how he came so close to winning
millions of pounds and how that made me want to join an electrical appliance in
the bath or some such other nonsense. Usually for you haters, you cynical
people who come to hear me drone on about how woefully unlucky I am, you are rewarded. But not
this time. This week I was clever. Not clever enough, but still sort of semi
intelligent.
On Wednesday I placed three bets. £5 each way on Hoffman at 25s
(six places). £5 each way on Aphibarnrat at 14s, and a £5 each way double. I
decided against Brandon Stone in favour of Aphibarnrat, much to the lamentation
of my each way double dreams, but oh well. Hoffman did the business for me. He
didn’t do it easily, and I would suggest that at times, he didn’t even do it
particularly well, but he did do it.
On Thursday Stone was playing excellently,
so I had £5 each way on him at 40s, but he was 80s to start so that
wasn’t as good as it could have been. Then I had another £10 on him at 22s to
win because he seemed rampant. At this point, for some reason, I opted not to
have another each way double. More idiocy. Finally, early on Sunday I had a
double. £10 win, Hoffers and the Stone.
Although I was nowhere near recovered from my terrible illness, I
powered through and watched the golfery. It was most enjoyable. Some of the
major contenders were falling by the wayside and my man was puttering along
nicely. Hoffman (Boffman) was helping cure my sore head. A good couple of
putts, and some bad mistakes from his opponents meant that all of a sudden,
around about the 11th or
12th hole, cheeky
Charlie found himself in the lead. At this point I found myself getting
worried. Now there was pressure. And I did not fancy my man to hold up to the
strain that well. And then the horrible sports-casters at CBS or the Golf
Channel or whatever decided to try and stick a dagger in my abdomen and give it
a right old wiggle. They decided to put up a stat that shows how Hoffman was
something like 26 over on his final rounds during the current season, the worst record of anyone on the tour.
I understand that showing interesting and pertinent stats is
probably part of some initiative in golf broadcasting but it really makes me
want to do murder. Raikkonen’s race engineer did it to me a few weeks ago and
everyone always wants to point out how the lead guy can fail. But chipper
Charles didn’t fancy listening to their stupid stats. He continued to carry on
like a trooper and just hummed on making pars and the odd birdie. This
unfortunately opened him up to someone like Patrick Reed to decide to come
storming up and around Charlie (didn’t help that they were playing together),
then I started really having heart attacks. Every time Charlie stood up to the
ball my poor heart stopped and I would be blue until Boffers found the green.
Truthfully, and anyone who watched will know this, Patrick Reed
should have won. Over the last four holes he played much better golf, but his
putting was letting him down. I was having more and more hearters (heart attacks) and it was all his fault. He moved within one shot at 17 and proceeded to 18.
18 at San Antonio is an excellent Par 5. I find
that this is always conducive to climactic finishes, if not slightly ruinous.
Reed was in the rough off the tee. It didn’t look like he could get to the green in two.
Hoffington bear was in the fairway and it appeared as though things would be
ok. Reed then decided that he would go for the green. This prompted a solid 10
minute delay whilst they waited for the group ahead to clear the green. During
this time my heart rate became somewhat erratic. My breathing was ragged and I
felt dizzy. The hangover from hell was back. My head started to hurt and my
vision grew blurry. If I had backed Patrick Reed, that shot would have gone in
the water. But somehow, it landed just outside the hazard, and rolled onto the
fringe of the green. This, in effect, forced Hoffer’s hand and he had to go for
the green now too. Which I’m sure he would have anyway. Adrenaline probably
slightly had the better of my man and he flew the green landing in the bunker
short-siding himself a little. If Reed made his eagle attempt, Charlie would
have to be chip in Charlie for the win, or up and down Charlie for a play-off.
Reed then stood up to his eagle attempt and damn near chopped my
head off. He came perilously close to holing out and I was left needing a new
heart. Again. He had a gimme left for birdie. The Hoffmeister would need to get
up and down for the win, and had three for the play off. A very poor bunker
shot from and understandably nervous Charlie left him wanting. He was left with
a nervy nine footer down the hill, with a slight break to the right.
Any normal man would be scared. But Charlie is no normal man. He
is a titan of the game, a magnate of golfing excellence and he stood up to that putt with testicles reminiscent
of Willett at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and absolutely boshed it in.
Whilst my crippling hangover prevented me from
dancing around physically, mentally I was doing back flips. Lately I’ve had
some success backing players before or during the final round, which is nice,
but nothing compares to picking someone out of a 140 odd runner field before it’s
even started.
Now, to Stone. The Stone man certainly seemed to
have the stones for the job. He was one behind with four to play, and it would
be a Monday finish in China thanks to some extreme weather. I believed that he
would do the business for me, for some actual golfing reasons, and some other
factors. The other factors were thus, his compatriot Branden Grace had won the
week before. Now for a yankee doodle dandy, a fellow country man winning
probably doesn’t mean too much, seeing as they basically win every other week. But
for a South African, I think it’s a huge boost. Also, perhaps more tenuously,
Stone’s first name is Brandon, which is basically the same as Grace's first name, which is Branden, so it
was as though he had already won last week, if you think about it like that.
It was however, not quite to be. I was now tucked up
in bed and watching the golf on my phone with my headphones in, so as not to
disturb Mrs Golfing Greg. The first thing I saw was Stone lipping out for
birdie. Same story on the next hole, and the next, and the last. Whilst he was
at one point in a tie for the lead at -14, it would not be enough. Soomin Lee
was on the hunt for victory and he would find it. An excellent birdie at 16
gave him a one shot lead over my man, and he progressed to the Par 5 17th.
The commentator then decided to attempt to reassure
me by being really heinous. He reminded everyone of how Lee had put his second
shot here yesterday, straight in the water, and taken a seven.
“Excellent,” I
thought, “He’ll start shaking like the proverbial dog soon and will promptly
dump his ball in the water three times and take a twelve.”
He did not put it in
the water with the driver. Bugger, I was running out of time. But then the
commentators piped up again with their awfulness and caused us all to remember
that it was Lee’s second which went wet. This was, in his opinion, because Lee
had made the ballsy decision to go for the green in two on his third round,
which had cost him.
The chirpy commentator said something like “He won’t
do it this time everyone at home, that would be silly, he’ll lay up and then
try to get up and down for birdie.”
“Dreadful,” I thought. That kind of behaviour is
frankly unacceptable from someone whom I need to drop several shots at this
hole. However, Mr Commentator was wrong. He isn’t wrong very often, and I
rather enjoy listening to him, but thankfully, on this occasion, he was wrong. Lee
was an attacking player, and he absolutely was going to attack this hole. I started
to get somewhat excited. A lot could go wrong here. A relatively treacherous bunker
was to the right of the green, and there was water right of that, and long of
the green, there was also water.
Unhappily super Soomin was able to land his ball
with drone like precision and was left with a 20 or so footer for eagle. The
careering Korean’s career then went from good to God like when he absolutely
railed the putt in. The ball never looked as though it was going to go anywhere
else and it found the cup in a heart sinking kind of way. I was happy for him,
but I was already researching Asian tropical diseases that I hoped he might succumb to down the final hole and be forced to retire, allowing my man to enter
a play off with Luiten, a feat I’m confident he could overcome.
Soomin entered 18 with a three shot lead. He found
the bailout area off the tee. There was a bunker there which would have been ok, but unluckily for him, he found an awkward lie in the rough just short of the bunker. The intention was pretty smart. Don’t go anywhere near the water
if you don’t have to. The commentator then correctly told Lee what to do, lay
up, try and get up and down for par, if not bogey would do, and so would double
bogey, and a triple would get him in a playoff. He seemed to be trying to take
too much club and Mr Caddy successfully talked him down to an eight or a nine
iron. After all, he only needed to knock it 100 yards down the fairway, which
he did, very well.
Lee was not able to get up and down for par, but did
make his bogey putt, and cemented his first European Tour win, and put the
final nail in my double. Oh well. I was happy for him. Stone had had his
chances, and he wasn’t able to take them, and there was nothing I could do
about that any more. I had still had a very good week, and I was looking
forward to the very brief period on Monday in which I would consider not having
a bet on the Golf the coming weekend, and chuckling at my foolishness.
No comments:
Post a Comment