Capella
Journeyman Pro
I played in our club's biggest open competition of the year this weekend. It is a two day event, but I only played the individual Stableford comp on Saturday (Sunday was a fourball comp). The weather has been crazy in Germany the past week or so, and I mean crazy. Meteorologist say we have a monsoon like situation, with a bubble of hot very moist air encapsulated in colder air masses around it and that leads to the most vicious thunderstorms and very heavy rainfalls that can occurr pretty much out of the blue (and seriously, I understood just this week that that is where the phrase 'out of the blue' comes from). The weather forecast for Saturday wasn't much better, there had been a severe thunderstorm warning, so we left the first tee with instructions on what the procedure was going to be if the game had to be interrupted. All bunkers had to be taken out of play because they were flooded.
My group started at 10.50 am, so somewhere in the middle of the field, and we were relatively lucky with the weather. It was stuffy and hot, and there was the occasional rolling thunder in the distance, but it held up until we came to the 17th tee. There our club president appeared in his golf cart and told us to quit and head back to the club house asap and then sounded the alarm. I had played very solid up to that point, I think I was at 35 Stableford points after the 16 holes, so I was a bit frustrated, because my playing partners (at least two of the three) took the signal to mean that the comp was over for good and started packing their golf bags away into their cars. One headed to the showers straight away, the other proclamined that he was having one beer in the club house and would then be heading home. All my protests about "it surely is just an interruption" went unheard.
Almost everyone assembled on the club house terrace (a few groups who had been on the far side of the course did find refuge in the lightning shelters there) and it did become apparent that the game was indeed not cancelled yet, but everyone (except my two now awol playing partners) expected it to continue after a 30 min break. The interruption was very well timed by the committee, btw. We just made it back to the club house before the rainstorm hit in earnest. It only lasted 10 minutes or so, and then cleared up again, but there were reports of lightning strikes close by, and the official regulation for that in Germany is that you have to wait at least 30 minutes after the last lightning event before you are allowed back on the course. We had quite a few golfers killed by lightning in the last couple of years, one on a neighbouring golf course, so people are very cautious about that.
When it was finally time to head back out, both the missing playing partners had miraculously reappeared. One, refreshed after a couple of beers, was so eager to get back out that he ran off even before the clear signal had been officially sounded. The lady who had insisted on the shower now insisted on finishing her beer in peace before she would start getting her things back out of the car. It was complete and utter chaos. One group had not even interrupted their game at all (or maybe for five minutes or so after the alarm) and was now happily teeing off on the 17th when we finally showed up there again. They were later disqualified for disregarding the official interruption. We had to let one more groups through before the shower lady finally showed up again. The two guys from my group decided to re-hit their tee shots, claiming they could not re-establish were their balls had ended up before the interruption (which was crap ... the guy who had wanted to stop had picked his ball up and the other one had hit his first tee shot oob and his 'provisional' was still clearly visible in the middle of the fairway). We ladies had not teed off yet, so we were okay.
All that confusion let to me being completely out of sorts, though. I sliced my tee shot, could not find it (letting another group through while we were searching), had to head back to the tee and hit again, shanked it ... it was a disaster. I managed to scramble one meager point on the 18th after a three putt, so I just got my 36 Stableford points together. I ended up tied for third place (and lost in the card playoff, so I did not even get the shabby glass bowl they gave away for that). I was really annoyed at myself for the last two holes, but all that back and forth and the 45 minute wait completely killed it for me. I don't know what I could have done to stay focused more. Maybe I should have done a bit of a warm up while waiting on the 17th tee, there was time enough for it, but it did not even cross my mind.
With the interruption and waiting time the round took well over 6 hours which meant that everything else had to be pushed back as well. There was a candlelight dinner afterwards, which, because our club house restaurant is not really equipped to feed that many people at once, let alone with a five course meal, took almost as long as a round of golf. I made it home just about midnight and was absolutely knackered.
My group started at 10.50 am, so somewhere in the middle of the field, and we were relatively lucky with the weather. It was stuffy and hot, and there was the occasional rolling thunder in the distance, but it held up until we came to the 17th tee. There our club president appeared in his golf cart and told us to quit and head back to the club house asap and then sounded the alarm. I had played very solid up to that point, I think I was at 35 Stableford points after the 16 holes, so I was a bit frustrated, because my playing partners (at least two of the three) took the signal to mean that the comp was over for good and started packing their golf bags away into their cars. One headed to the showers straight away, the other proclamined that he was having one beer in the club house and would then be heading home. All my protests about "it surely is just an interruption" went unheard.
Almost everyone assembled on the club house terrace (a few groups who had been on the far side of the course did find refuge in the lightning shelters there) and it did become apparent that the game was indeed not cancelled yet, but everyone (except my two now awol playing partners) expected it to continue after a 30 min break. The interruption was very well timed by the committee, btw. We just made it back to the club house before the rainstorm hit in earnest. It only lasted 10 minutes or so, and then cleared up again, but there were reports of lightning strikes close by, and the official regulation for that in Germany is that you have to wait at least 30 minutes after the last lightning event before you are allowed back on the course. We had quite a few golfers killed by lightning in the last couple of years, one on a neighbouring golf course, so people are very cautious about that.
When it was finally time to head back out, both the missing playing partners had miraculously reappeared. One, refreshed after a couple of beers, was so eager to get back out that he ran off even before the clear signal had been officially sounded. The lady who had insisted on the shower now insisted on finishing her beer in peace before she would start getting her things back out of the car. It was complete and utter chaos. One group had not even interrupted their game at all (or maybe for five minutes or so after the alarm) and was now happily teeing off on the 17th when we finally showed up there again. They were later disqualified for disregarding the official interruption. We had to let one more groups through before the shower lady finally showed up again. The two guys from my group decided to re-hit their tee shots, claiming they could not re-establish were their balls had ended up before the interruption (which was crap ... the guy who had wanted to stop had picked his ball up and the other one had hit his first tee shot oob and his 'provisional' was still clearly visible in the middle of the fairway). We ladies had not teed off yet, so we were okay.
All that confusion let to me being completely out of sorts, though. I sliced my tee shot, could not find it (letting another group through while we were searching), had to head back to the tee and hit again, shanked it ... it was a disaster. I managed to scramble one meager point on the 18th after a three putt, so I just got my 36 Stableford points together. I ended up tied for third place (and lost in the card playoff, so I did not even get the shabby glass bowl they gave away for that). I was really annoyed at myself for the last two holes, but all that back and forth and the 45 minute wait completely killed it for me. I don't know what I could have done to stay focused more. Maybe I should have done a bit of a warm up while waiting on the 17th tee, there was time enough for it, but it did not even cross my mind.
With the interruption and waiting time the round took well over 6 hours which meant that everything else had to be pushed back as well. There was a candlelight dinner afterwards, which, because our club house restaurant is not really equipped to feed that many people at once, let alone with a five course meal, took almost as long as a round of golf. I made it home just about midnight and was absolutely knackered.
