Tuesday the 19th of June was the first dry sunny day Derby has seen in a long time but more importantly the date for the 21st Derby County former players association golf day at the Chevin Golf club. An event held to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness.
This year Viking Canoe Polo Club entered a team comprising of Andrew Newberry (team ringer), James Bowers (Captain), Nick Archer (best golfer) and Johny Smith (team talisman). As we were representing the club we felt it only right we turned out in our Joules polo shirts.
This gave us an advantage from the offset, as you could see the other teams clearly daunted by our professionalism! One chap even commented when he saw us all warming up “these kids really mean business”.
The 1st tee saw all of us buzzing with nervous excitement made worse by two factors, the first is that you are introduced on to the tee over the PA system so if you mess up everyone watching can identify you by name and the other factor is in this competition the 1st tee is also the hole for the longest drive competition so everyone might swing a little harder than they perhaps should – a recipe for disaster. Thankfully we all got our tee shots away relatively clean, not quite worrying the longest drive but 4 happy/relieved golfers nevertheless.
For the remainder of the round there were lots of ups and downs. Lost golf balls, lost tempers, moments of sheer brilliance and moments of despair. When playing team golf you take the best 2 scores from the hole to give you points. Everyone had their moments of glory but they rarely came on the same hole as another team member which is the key to scoring well. This saw us finish with a respectable 2 under par 74 points. By our own admittance we didn’t play as well as we all know we are capable of, and numerous missed putts made us dream of what might have been.
On reflection a great day of golf was had by all, the weather was glorious as the sunburnt arms and faces can testify. Unfortunately we didn’t win any trophies but if there was a prize for best turned out team we would have won hands down.
Bring on next year!!