Fluffed Chips Shouldn’T Count

© 2014 Barry Hynes. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/14/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7918-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7917-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7919-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Coral Harbour and Early Friendships: The Seventies, Nassau, Bahamas

First Venture Abroad: 1979, Scotland

The First Tour: 1994, Scotland

Not Royal nor Honourable, but an Unofficial Society is Formed: 1996, Northampton

Early Signs of Aging: 1998, Canada

The Group Grows: 2000, East Anglia

Sometimes It Rains and Sometimes It Pours: 2002, Ireland

Junkanoo and a Fish Fry: 2004, Grand Bahama

The Quest for Crozier’s Corner: 2004, Nassau

Back to Links Golf: 2006, Scotland

What Happened to My Game? 2008, Canada

Heat and Age Take their Toll: 2010, Florida

A Sad Ending: East Anglia, 2012

Conclusion: A Rebirth

Appendix 1 Honourable Society of Coral Harbour Golfers

Appendix 2 Honourable Company of Coral Harbour Golfers

Appendix 3   Honourable Society of Coral Harbour Golfers

Appendix 4

Preface

The third hole on the Cypress course in Solivita is a straightforward, harmless par three, about 140 yards from the seniors’ tees. For me, it can be anything from a six to an eight iron depending on wind and pin position. It was a warm and pleasant evening as Chris and myself teed our balls up. We had both begun surprisingly positively with bogeys on the first two par fours and our tee shots now were close to the green. Chris had finished in the grassy fringe about four yards off the green. He ruefully realised he could not, in all golfing honesty, fall back on the safety of his trusty putter. There is always some doubt, some questioning before taking out the wedge. ‘No’, you decide, ‘I have to chip’ Many practice swings, many thoughts, mostly of the negative variety (‘don’t do this, don’t do that…) and then (eyes closed, fingers crossed so to speak) go for it.

Chris’ wedge thumped into the ground about an inch before the ball and bounced completely over it; the ball never moved, content to stay nestled in the comforting grass, and with what looked like a smirk. As, in all stages in his golfing career, Chris did not get angry, did not pretend that it was a practice swing, but simply looked at me and then, somewhat philosophically, at the ball. He knew he had my sympathy—since chipping has relentlessly plagued my golf—and he then proceeded, not unexpectedly, to ‘thin’ the next shot straight across the green to the fringe on the other side, where, thankfully, it wasn’t so thick, so at least he could put the dreaded wedge back in the bag and putt.

Casting knowing looks at each other, we both saw that what had just transpired encapsulated much of the essence of our golfing careers. With an accepting look in his eyes and a shake of his head, Chris lamented: You know, Fluffed chips shouldn’t really count! ‘Yes’, I thought, ‘how true,’ and a slow realisation took hold that this would make a good title for a golf book. It wasn’t a big step from there to further realisation that I had just the context to write such a book; a book filled with the serious but, in a wider vein, humorous exploits of my golfing buddies with whom I have played innumerable rounds.

Chris and myself had met over 40 years ago while teaching in the Bahamas and, together with John and Alan, two other teachers, formed strong and enduring friendships based on our common love of golf. It is not that usual for golfers of such extreme levels of skill—John and Alan had single figure handicaps whereas Chris and myself were aspiring 24s—to join forces on a regular basis. But these differences did nothing to impede the friendship that was cemented. Our lives separated when we returned to different parts of the world in the late 1970s, but after families had grown up we reunited again in 1994, motivated by… golf. We started what we came to call our first tour and appropriately it took us to Scotland, the home of golf, where Alan lives

We enjoyed it so much, that there and then, we agreed that we should repeat the idea every two years (finances and wives prevented any serious discussion of meeting every year). From 1994 to the present day we have been faithful to that and played golf in Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada Florida and The Bahamas.

I have read several golf narratives—‘Four Iron in The Soul’, ‘A Season in Dornoch’, ‘A Course Called Ireland’—and thoroughly enjoyed them. In those books as well as many others, the writer has tried to convey far more than accounts of golfing episodes. So in Fluffed Chips Shouldn’t Count, I try to tell the reader about our travels and about our changing lives, the serious and humorous episodes that have made us the people we are. And of course, as such, we are no different from the average club golfers who may go away with friends from time to time on a golfing holiday and excel or suffer with respective golfing games in the same way that we have done over the years.

The writing of the book galloped along for the first seven or eight chapters, but I was constantly thinking and worrying about the ending, and as I got closer to that point, it almost stopped altogether. But life can sometimes have a way of providing an appropriate ending, and this is what indeed happened.

Acknowledgements

One of the main themes of this book, oddly enough, is golf, or the golfing exploits of a small group of people over 40 years. It includes accounts of golf courses, golf shots and golf scores. Almost all the golfing material for these came from John; John took up the unofficial position of recorder; he has all the score cards from every round; he has all the charts which show who won what in which year, all of which appear in the index. What he doesn’t have written down, he has in his memory. As his brother, Ian recounted.

One thing about John, when he is asked if he can remember a particular hole at a particular course that we played maybe ten or more years ago, he proceeds to tell you about the difficult pin placement on the day, the contours of the green, how his putt broke more than he thought etc.

John assiduously sent me scanned copies of every card and many other written records which gave this book the necessary golfing substance. He also took an interest in the content and style, and once I showed him how ‘Track Changes’ worked, I couldn’t stop him from contributing in matters of style content and corrections of spelling and punctuation. His ‘flavour’ is evident in many places in the book.

Chris is an Ofsted inspector (amongst other things) and can always be relied upon to correct any technical aspects of this book. It is perhaps to Chris that thanks must mostly go for the many humorous incidents recounted here. It is his very nature for him to laugh as much as any of us when he reads the accounts of his involvement in these incidents.

All the other golfers—Phil, Brian, Alan, Don and Ian—sent me their favourite memories of the times we had on the course or in the bar or elsewhere, and I have tried to use these in appropriate places. Except for deliberately omitting Phil’s vehement insistence to this day that Chris and myself ‘cheated’ him and Brian when we claimed a half in a match at Lucaya, Freeport where they were three up with three to play, when the mother of all thunderstorms opened and we dashed for the shelter of the golf cart shed.

The main thanks goes to all the people who played in these ‘tours’ over the years, for their humour and their friendship.

Coral Harbour and Early Friendships: The Seventies, Nassau, Bahamas

One hundred and fifty four! This seminal event in my life was played in Nassau, Bahamas, at The Coral Harbour Golf and Country Club, as it was grandly named. I can’t remember the details of a single shot, but the score, for some reason, remains fixed in my mind. Looking back, I’m not sure whether this was more of an achievement or an embarrassing disaster. It’s certainly a score higher than I have ever heard any other golfer admit to shooting. However, when you consider the difficulty and run-down condition of the course; the old, hastily acquired equipment (I actually had a two wood), and my own obvious lack of ability, it can be possibly viewed In more realistic terms. What I don’t remember, and what is more worrying, is whether I cheated. Did I give myself putts of an interesting and challenging length? Did I count air shots or fluffed chips? Did I know about and use mulligans? Perhaps another ten shots (at least) could be added to this already sizable score.

Although I was happily unaware at the time, Coral Harbour was a monster of a course for the average amateur golfer in the 1970s. I simply thought that scoring between 120 and 160 on a hot, sun-baked Saturday morning and losing a dozen (old) golf balls was par for the course, as you might say. I can’t say that I remember it as fun but as more of a challenge, one that I later came to realize as not so much unrealistic as bloody impossible. The course, designed by George Fazio (that was its claim to fame for the many tourists who visited the island of New Providence), measured 6,710 yards and was only a par seventy. Seven of the par fours were well over 400 yards with the odd lake to cross. However, all of that was the easy part.

To understand the difficult part, you need to know a little bit about the course history. At its height in the 1960s, it was a top-rated course in a select, remote, and gated part of the island more than twenty miles from Nassau. Coral Harbour was a private development on the south coast (the James Bond movie Thunderball was shot in the area), with marinas; private housing; restaurants; a hotel; and a beautiful, tree-lined, private, and expensive golf course. Sadly, I never got to see the course in its original state, since only months after we arrived in the Bahamas in 1970 to take up teaching positions at government schools, the whole development went belly up.

Rumour has it that in the process of building a new hotel in 1970, there was some degree of overspending. The bank pulled out, and within a couple of years, the hotel had closed, much of the housing became deserted, and the roads became pot-holed. The bank had to decide what to do about the golf course. It was a valuable asset, and the bank, in a fateful decision that would impact many of the characters you will soon meet, decided to run it on a minimum budget with minimum maintenance with the hopes that a benefactor would come along.

One such character was a slightly built but overly confident American named Lenny Feldman. In due course, he became course manager, maintenance manager, and, by default, golf pro. Lenny, bless him (now departed but much loved in his time at Coral Harbour), did many of the jobs around the course: managed memberships, cleaned the clubhouse, repaired golf carts (a task not dissimilar to painting the Forth Bridge), taxied potential money-paying players from the airport, and burned the ever-encroaching reeds. However, his title as club pro was most questionable. He claimed a handicap of seven, which was flattering at best, but was a source of embarrassment for club members, particularly when we played against other clubs.

Okay, you guys, can you all enter your handicaps on the sheet so we can pair you off? the captain of the Exclusive Lyford Cay Club, our opponents of the day, routinely asked.

Then later, when reading from the completed list, What’s this! Your club pro plays off seven?

On a good day, if the wind is at his back for the whole round was our grimacing but best reply.

Lenny was a hive of activity, though, matched only by his optimism and assertion that Coral Harbour was the best course in the Bahamas. I have met such people with blind enthusiasm who also tend to have a self-destruct button, and Lenny was such. We (the members) were fully behind Lenny’s efforts in all respects in regard to the improvement and promotion of the course, and we organized regular tournaments; sought sponsorship; and asked, begged, and cajoled friends and colleagues to come and take part.

One notable example of how Lenny’s eccentricities at Coral Harbour impacted on our club occurred at a tournament we had billed as a major national invitation. It had attracted all the leading players on the island. A group of us had worked tirelessly for days, begging for prizes for such things as longest drive (a gallon of Johnny Walker) and nearest the pin (a set of gold-plated goblets). We got Lenny’s assurance that carts (best on the island, he claimed) would not break down halfway down the long third hole, leaving irate golfers struggling with mammoth golf bags in ninety-degree heat and that Peter, the Haitian bartender, would have an abundant supply of cold Heineken. We were up early and at the course on the morning of the competition to put the final touches on the tournament. This included such things as waking Lenny’s unemployed son from his makeshift bed on the changing room floor and sharpening pencils for the scorecards. We stepped out to admire the course from the raised elevation of the patio and stopped in jaw-dropping fashion as we gazed on the ninth green—or should I say, the ninth brown.

Lenny, Lenny, we said. Our voices were a mixture of disbelief and growing realization and anger. What the @#$%^ing hell has happened?

I always verticut the greens at this time of year! He could have been telling us about the routine of his toilet habits, such was the matter-of-fact calmness in his voice.

There was simply nowhere to go from here as we heard the sounds of the first competitors arriving in the car park. We got through the day somehow. Golfers will understand the implication of playing on such bad greens. For cricketers, it is like being asked to play cricket on a pitch featuring a mole’s tea party. For the non-cricketing world, particularly our American friends, it is like playing basketball on an old potholed car park. Needless to say, that tournament was a disaster, and we never really recovered our credibility among the other, more upmarket courses in the islands. Coral Harbour, despite Lenny’s inflated comments to the contrary, cemented its reputation as the poor sister among the island’s golf courses. After that fiasco, heated words were exchanged between ourselves and Lenny, who incredulously and stoutly defended his actions. As the chances of finding someone with any small degree of sanity to run the place were non-existent, we all had to live with Lenny’s foibles.

On another occasion, Lenny demonstrated his resourceful greens-keeping skills in an attempt to beautify our lakes. Some of our tree-lined fairways and clear lakes were now gone, and in their place, the fairways were bordered by an ever-encroaching and impenetrable jungle of constantly growing reeds. During one round, I remember looking in alarm from the inner depths of the course toward the ninth hole and clubhouse. A tower of smoke rose fiercely into the blue sky. We ran, dragging our trolleys (pull carts to Americans) to the clubhouse, thinking Peter had burned down the kitchen. As we neared, we saw Lenny and the hired help deliberately burning the reeds in the water bordering the ninth and tenth fairways. The dense smoke, shooting flames, and incessant and menacing crackling sounds were frightening and certainly not the sort of thing done at Wentworth or Sunningdale on a Saturday afternoon! But this was how it was done at Coral Harbour. To preserve golf sanity, a local rule was adopted that a ball which strayed off the fairway and was undoubtedly lost was deemed a one-shot penalty, and a ball was to be dropped at point of entry (well nearby, at least). Not sure the if the R&A or USPGA would have sanctioned this, but it saved many a golfing career that would not have survived more than a half a dozen rounds at Coral Harbour under normal golfing regulations.

Two other figures were an integral part of the Coral Harbour staff: Peter and Hubert. As mentioned, Peter was the Haitian bartender and hamburger cook who quietly referred to everybody as Mr Barry, Mr John, etc. He was also the keeper of the playing cards for the post-golf game of Crazy Eights, which often lasted at least as long as the round itself. It should be said that the time taken for a normal round was supplemented by how many golf balls you were keen to try to retrieve and how many times your golf cart (for those non-teachers who could afford the small extras) broke down. Peter was a nice man, and I often wondered if behind his quiet, acquiescent smile, there was a realization that we were all so much above ourselves with our talk of birdies and bogeys. It was Peter who caught up with me on the third tee very early one Saturday morning to tell me my wife had called with late pregnancy problems and that I had to go home at once. For some, that could possibly have been a difficult decision, but since I had opened with the customary seven and eight on the first two holes, I could retreat with honour.

Hubert was the Bahamian greenkeeper whose nonchalant attitude toward playing golf (and he was no mean player) was demonstrated by his habit of lodging his tee in his considerable afro after teeing off. A man of few words, he did his best with very limited resources to keep the condition of the course playable.

And so to the members. Who were we? Well, you have probably guessed by now, we were mostly a collection of teachers and other lowly paid expats with a light sprinkling of others who appreciated Coral Harbour’s quite modest membership dues and liked the novelty value of playing on a non-manicured course. Our main rival was South Ocean Golf and Resort, just a few miles away. It had a hotel, tennis courts, swimming pool, and an immaculate course that was matched, of course, by corresponding green fees and membership costs. We were generally looked down on, but in a sympathetic and understanding way, by the affluent members of this club, many of whom were quite close friends and shared a similar social life in other respects. These people, however, came from the accountancy and banking worlds of the expatriate professional life and could easily afford membership at South Ocean. Tony, one such friend, would declare that South Ocean fees could go up tenfold and that he still would not consider joining Coral Harbour. He did come to regret this when, not the fees, but the lack of camaraderie, friendship, and laughter at posh South Ocean would cause him to join us a few years later. The difference between these two clubs is perhaps best illustrated by explaining how your postgame drink was served. At South Ocean, after taking your order, a waiter, dressed in black bow tie, would pour part of the bottle into a glass. Standing erect, he would place your drink carefully on the table using a napkin with the club logo and hand you a bar bill, which would include a gratuity that would cause you to blink several times. At Coral Harbour, after handing him a dollar, Peter would casually put your can on the table, leaving you to pull the ring tab. I may have been biased, but I always found that the beer tasted better at Coral Harbour.

So this was the situation when my wife and I took advantage of the cheap housing and moved into a small one-bedroom condo literally on the beach in the run-down Coral Harbour Resort. We had no real thoughts about playing golf, but cared more about taking the long drive home after a day’s teaching and lazing on the beach on a home-strung hammock and gently swimming in the warm ocean. It is difficult to understand why I traded a Saturday’s peace in such a setting for a hot, sweaty, often bad-tempered thrashing in and out of trees.

At the time, I knew a group of four teaching colleagues—Brian, Keith, Clive, and Dave—all expat teachers who would meet on the first tee at six thirty every Saturday morning, usually with one or two bottles of wine. This may sound idiotic or admirable, depending on your attitude toward golf, but even the most ardent golf fans would have questioned their sanity on realizing that they appeared despite the heaviness of the previous night’s drinking. And believe me, they all enjoyed a good Friday night. Debates in the golfing world rage as to whether a heavy hangover improves one’s golf. Some say the swing is a lot slower, and others say throwing up down the second fairway is good for the soul, but most would shy away from it, perhaps having the best of intentions late on a Friday night but either realizing it was not such a good idea when the alarm rings at five on Saturday morning or blissfully sleeping through the whole thing until lunchtime. I was never tempted to join such a group, but their tales at work on Monday mornings did arouse a sort of curiosity. It was more the hilarity and camaraderie among them with tales of three balls in the lake at the eighteenth or the relaxed conversation and games of cards as they downed welcoming Heinekens in the clubhouse at lunchtime. Regardless, now living so close to the course, I was tempted.

I needed a partner. My main sport at the time was football, playing in the local league with Red Lion on a Sunday, but most of my colleagues scoffed at the idea of playing golf or knew that managing a Saturday away from domestic chores and shopping, in addition to football on Sunday, would not even be a remote possibility. (This did also become a problem for me later, and as a result of negotiation, it became the origin of me doing the family ironing on a regular, weekly basis. Strangely, both my sons, now married, also iron. The more I think about it, I think it’s because they grew up thinking that this was what the male in the household did.)

Chris Green and his wife, Diane, arrived in Nassau in the summer of 1971, a year later than we did. They both worked at a private school on the island. Our paths had crossed socially at parties through mutual friends and with the occasional game of badminton at one of the school sports halls. They were both open and affable, and we all enjoyed each other’s company. Friendships grew to the dinner party level, and while Chris had no real interest in football, he was of a sporting nature, running being his thing. While Chris and I were alike in many ways and are still, forty years later, the best of friends, physically we are most unalike, with me being 5’6 and he being 6’3, making us a rather incongruous golf partnership.

He was and still is both an unusual and admirable character. He had and still has the ability to be both a dedicated and ambitious educator. He later became head teacher, advisor, inspector, deputy director, and director of various educational authorities. At the same time, though, he would never take himself too seriously and was at ease in all kinds of company. He was often the heart and soul of the party and would knowingly laugh at and make fun of himself. I always envied this ability of his to be taken extremely seriously at one level and to be chatting away as the group jester at another. One paradoxical aspect of Chris was his dress. He was always smart and professional when at work in a variety of well-fitting suits. Yet his choice of attire on the golf course was usually a lime-green or pink top that hung unevenly over his khaki shorts, which themselves were baggy and gave evidence to the absence of a backside of any substance. Some of his tales are still repeated years later and are seeming funnier each time.

One time, his parents, who were from Lancashire, were visiting in Nassau, and as they slept one night, they heard someone breaking in. Chris later described the incident, with the burglar fleeing in alarm when he was faced with an elderly lady saying shoo