Ryder Cup Continued.
As the morning’s flights arrived back at Tianma’s club house, the teams gathered after scoffing down Hot Dogs and a beer, to hear the results of the afternoon’s pairing for the Foursome event. The morning’s drizzle had now picked up to a breezy constant shower and did it let up – NO WAY! Teams paired up and made their way back to the Tee Box to battle it out again. A normal golfer would have called it off and at one stage on the back 9, a few of us gathered to seek professional advice about the conditions. We could hear thunder in the distance and could make out what looked like high altitude lightning. The ruling came through – keep playing until your Captain calls the game off or if it becomes dangerous. In other words, get out there and play. Even the guys with their designer rain gear were soaked through. Unless you used 50mm masking tape to seal the neck opening, you were going to be wet. Ian Watkin’s and his fabulous crew at Tianma went scurrying around the course re setting pin positions to make sure we could, “sort” of, putt it out. Common sense took over in a couple of instances and players were granted relief and allowed to re position their ball on the green so they could putt without hydroplaning through 1cm puddles on the greens. This situation has never happened before in a SGC completion to my knowledge so it was a learning curve for all of us. Regardless, all groups made it in to the club house to hand in their results. Can you believe it, after getting up at 4.45am, playing all bloody day in horrible conditions, the overall results was a DRAW.
Friday Afternoons Results: TEAM AMERICAS 5.5 REST OF WORLD 4.5
DAY 1 RESULT: TEAM AMERICAS 10 - REST OF WORLD 10
The tension mounted as the captains announced their playing orders for the all important Saturday Singles 22 matches, one against one!
Both Captains opted for the “get the big guns out first” approach, obviously trying to get the early points on the board to take home the Trophy without the tailenders needing to bother. The draw produced some heavyweight clashes with the early starters giving very few shots away.
Friday night saw many simply fade away and collapse at home to recharge for the singles match on Saturday morning, Day 2 of the SGC Ryder Cup. On the other hand, as we discovered in the morning that some had ventured out, and got themselves totally wasted at a famous Irishman’s birthday party. (Happy Birthday Sammy). ROW’s Mr. Goble who has a reputation of going AWOL or Walkabout, arrived on the edge of play in a most happy happy state. Cups of coffee and gallons of water came from everywhere to revive him.
Straight after the Team Photo, it was back to the Tee Box to find the weather had improved to a slightly overcast 26 degrees. Team USA’s Captain Craig, was there and had elected to let his team carry the singles matches. He supported his teams all through the next 4 hours plus popping out from behind bushes and trees, just being there to encourage his team.
It came down to the Singles matches and all teams knew it.
