“Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.”
During the more than 60 years the society has been in existence there have been many notable and worthy accomplishments, both on and off the golf course, and it is as much these shared memories as anything else that binds the individuals within the society together. Formally noted during the Friday dinner by toasting with the Chairman, the following are a few of those notable and worthy achievements.
I had come into some relative form in the early summer of 2022, breaking 90 and my handicap falling below 19, both for the first time. After a summer holiday break the swing didn’t feel quite so good but a couple of trips to the driving range in the week before Lytham seemed to sort that out and I was looking forward to the annual treat of a few days on Lytham’s fairways and greens.
Thursday didn’t go so well with some heely shots but I was still looking forward to Friday notwithstanding the atrocious weather forecast. Atul suggested a Tiger Woods style warm up routine may help me get back into the groove and the 20 swings in the practice net, nearly all of which felt from the middle, seemed good. An opening 4 suggested that things were back on track.
However, somewhere between the first green and second tee Tiger departed for a cup of tea and my subsequent drive flew straight into the left rough not to be seen again, the first of many Lytham drops. A few hacks and three putts later added 10 to the score. Another lost drive on the 3rd, followed two shots later by a lost ball on the right, resulted in two Lytham drops and an early 13. Thereafter the ball would go either 30 degrees left or right, but rarely straight. I had more chance of finding the G spot out there than the club’s sweet spot. More double figures came on 6 through 8. As the heavens opened and the forecasted weather arrived by the bucketload I managed a good tee shot on the 9th to finish within 6 feet only to three putt as we rushed to find shelter by the 10th tee. By that time my card had fallen apart both figuratively and literally but I agreed a halfway score of 77. Things didn’t improve thereafter but I did at least manage to keep anything higher than a dozen off the card on the back nine (though I did manage that mark more than once).
My playing partners did their best to distract me: Atul putted into Frazer’s bunker to out-high score me on the 8th; and Simon six putted on the 11th before distracting us both with a thankfully false alarm medical incident on the 17th.
I managed to finish with two double bogies which encouraged me to come out again in the afternoon and we had a respectable mid table score in the RAT. So, my thanks to Atul for his arithmetic skills, him and Simon for their patience with me while playing, and to Terry for his golfing Samaritans pep talk in the bar. And thanks to the rest of the company for your only gentle ribbing over dinner and not too many drinks taken with the chairman. 77 out, 82 back, 159 in total, net 138, here’s hoping that’s a total that won’t be beaten.
Trevor Connor
Richard Sheridan enjoying the view from Frazer’s bunker
The year was 2001 and the competition The Blyth Putter. Thursday night had, undoubtedly, been a fun filled event as I remember feeling distinctly shabby as I stood on the 1st tee. However, the first few holes had been acceptable, producing bogey golf. But the cracks started to appear on the par 5 6th hole when I mustered a 10, which was quickly followed by another on the par 5 7th. The details from here are hazy because, I suspect, all my attention was focussed on the devilishly cheeky 8th hole, where a good drive followed by an exacting long iron, 2 putts and a quick walk to the 9th is the ideal strategy. Having successfully found the fairway with my tee-shot my strategy collapsed when I managed to turn my long iron over and I found the evil little bunker short left of the green. The constant rain that preceded in the weeks beforehand meant the sand was compact but it had drained well. But I knew I had my work cut out when several attempts to knife the ball into the bunker face (in an attempt to move it further back in the bunker to allow me a full shot) failed and all I managed to do was pop the ball into the air to then plug each time.
The red mist lifted for a few seconds and I thought coming out backwards would be a good option, alas the gorse bush directly behind the bunker put paid to that idea. Eventually, perseverance prevailed and after 15 shots in the bunker I eventually walked off with a 22, 18 over par for the hole.
On leaving the green my playing partners sensibly avoided eye contact as we walked to the 9th, needless to say I didn't have the honour. A few deep breaths later, to calm my scrabbled brain, it was my turn and I teed off….I thinned it into the rough to the left! Ahh, at least the ball had gone forward I thought! Realising the medal round had escaped me, and deploying the ‘WTF’ attitude, I came home in 46 shots, somewhat a minor miracle and testament to the capricious nature of the golfing Gods.
No harm done (!) and legendary status achieved I suppose - thanks in no small part to my good friend Alistair Anthony who arranged for each attendee of the prize giving dinner that evening to have a banner with "22" written on it on their chair which was waved furiously many times that evening in celebration of the feat.
Frazer Clark
In a rash late Thursday night move in 2003 the bookmaker, Mr Ian Manson, took a £10 bet at 100 to 1 from Steve Bennett that there would be a hole in 1 in the Blyth Putter competition the following morning.
Ian Manson was also the starter and he confessed to me that he had taken this unaffordable and uninsured bet and that if there was a hole in 1 he would be in a fast car back to Glasgow. As fate would have it on the 12th hole I hit a truly wonderful 6 iron, high, steepling and drawing into the South Westerly wind. It just cleared the left hand bunker, took one hop and rolled unerringly straight into the hole!
After some negotiation Steve Bennett's bet was settled for a more manageable £100.
Ron Amy
At the other extreme in one particular year, the specifics are a little hazy now, I was afflicted by a severe dose of ‘Sherman tanks’. The affliction becomes particularly acute at the 9th hole (see right) where, predictably, my first tee shot went well right never to be seen again.
With great concentration my ‘3 off the tee’ shot was only a semi-Sherman, which landed in the trees to the right of the green but, sadly, in an unplayable lie. Having taken a drop and playing five, a great pitch was executed, I watched it land gently on the green and then, for some undeserved reason, continue to roll until it toppled into the deep bunker back left.
After 4 failed efforts a very nice shot was played backwards out of the bunker leaving me with a pitch over the same bunker. By this time hopes of scoring well have long gone but, with new found confidence based on the well known ‘WTF’ principle, only three more shots were required to complete a ‘lucky for some’ score of 13 for the hole. A mere 10 over par!
Ron Amy
Such is the dedication of some society members that domestic and work calendars are sacrificed in order to ensure attendance at the event. However, one individual, the inimitable Mr Dick ‘Slash’ Stratton, displayed such dedication in 2018 that he attended the Friday night festivities despite the fact he was incapacitated and had been unable to attend the previous two days or participate in any of the golfing activities. It is rumoured that as a result of his briefer than usual visit the club had to lay down the additional cases of Chablis they routinely stock in October for him.
Dick completed a more than 500 mile round trip to have dinner and lead the assembled throng in raucous song in the Dormy Lounge until the small hours - he’s proper rock ’n’ roll.
Anon
Long standing members will recall Mike Parker as one of the society’s stalwarts who, as noted in the history, put much time and energy into arranging the event in the early 21st Century, sadly he no longer attends.
Mike was allegedly partial to a large G&T both in the clubhouse, and sometimes during his round, and the morning of this particular Blyth Putter, circa 2008, had been no exception, you could almost taste the haze of juniper and quinine around him.
Mike is a solid, single handicap golfer and even when full to the brim with gin he put his tee shot to the middle of the 1st green with ease, leaving about a 10 ft putt. Meanwhile myself and the other member of the group displayed the usual first hole rubbish of sprayed shots, dunched chips and refusing to commit to our bunker shots. On finally making the green, we noticed that Mike had crouched down to look at his putt, and in the long wait for us to make the green, had nodded off, with his forehead resting on the grip end of his putter.
Mike was un-impressed with our decision to quietly putt out and leave him snoozing on the green. Shouts of “FORE!” from the first tee and our guffawing from the second awoke him and his mood was not improved when we laughed at the word “Ping” written backwards on a large red dot on his forehead. I can’t imagine why he no longer attends?
Terry Holloway
Allegedly, Mike “Tommo” Thompson was always careful with his money and stopped attending once free qualifying ceased, although goodness knows how he managed to make it through the regional qualify round? We all suspected he had compromising ‘photos of Frazer, but then again, we’ve all got some of those.
Tommo would let Frazer chauffeur him from Hampshire to Lytham and back again, believing his companionship and conversation was his payment for half the petrol. Poor old Frazer even had to share a room with Tommo, and there were more than a few evenings when Frazer muttered his apologies for leaving Brangan’s at 9.30pm because “Tommo was waiting up for him to come home”
I had the pleasure of being on the course a few times with Tommo, watching him knobble a 1.62 inch golf ball around with some ancient iron that had a name not a number and a club face like a butter knife. On one particular round in 2000, the heavens opened and we all put on our waterproofs. Except Tommo, he didn’t believe in wasting money on waterproofs, he put on an enormous, Fair Isle style knitted jumper that looked like it had been purloined from a dogs basket. As the rain continued to pour down, the jumper soaked up more and more water and, as a consequence, stretched further and further down his bean-pole torso (Tommo measured over 6ft but only weighed about 8 stone), until it finally, it reached to below his knees. Never one to waste his energy on such frivolous things as a sense of humour, Tommo failed to see any reason for our laughter as he shuffled his way around the Links.
To this day Tommo is still the only man to wear a muu-muu around Royal Lytham & St Annes.
Sadly, dry rot in his niblick and inoperable tightening of the fists, means Tommo’s playing days are long gone
Terry Holloway