Another recent Trotter ‘happening’ was 846 weeks (which equates to 5922 days!) in the making.
Friday 12 January was a dry but breezy day and the buggy restrictions meant a number of the usual ‘Chickens with Wheels’ couldn’t take part so only 17 Trotters entered their scores into the computer (yes, the Chickens are fully embracing this new-fangled technological advancement apparently called ‘a computer’!).
One of the usual ‘buggy boys’ – an Antipodean chap known endearingly as ‘Big Al’ – decided that the 12 hole course could just about be managed on foot so off he wandered. He came to the 12th tee with a decent card going. He took out his trusty 7 wood and hit his ball – a Srixon Z-Star for you curious ones – greenwards into a slightly cold breeze. Both he and Stan, his playing partner, saw the ball land by the green but Allen formed the opinion that his shot would have ended up somewhere near the bank at the back. However when they got onto the green there was no ball by the bank at the back, nor in the sprinkler heads, so they decided to have a quick check in the hole and there it sat! An Ace for Allen!
Big Al was keen to tell the world and approached the pair ahead of him as they came off the 13th green to enquire if they had seen his tee shot drop into the hole, but they hadn’t! Allen modestly admitted to the on-course enquirers that this wasn’t his first hole-in-one – he had ‘had loads of them before’ apparently.
His five pointer helped him get to a 12 hole total of 27 points which gave him 1st place on countback. He won £1.20 which is 4 free weeks for being the ‘Chicken Supreme’.
In accordance with Trotter Rules, 5p from the 30p entry fee from every player on the day goes to the Twos Kitty and the Rules dictate that an Ace scoops the whole Twos Kitty – all 85p of it – which slightly annoyed the 5 players who had had a Two so they all missed out on their would-be prize of 17p!
As an acknowledgement of the rarity of Allen’s achievement he was also rewarded with an extra TEN FREE WEEKS!
Allen’s handicap has risen slowly over recent times and off the yellow tees he gets 14 shots (we use 100%!) but due to the unique handicapping system operated by the Trotters, a winner will lose 5 shots from his handicap for his next three outings so next time out he’ll be off 9 – a single figure handicapper again.
This Trotter Ace was only the 4th time this century that this has happened and Allen’s name now sits alongside Vince Shaw (on the 12th on 12/10/2001), Pat Rees (on the old 9th on 24/1/2003) and Ken Gouldsborough (also on the 12th on 26/10/2007) on the list of ‘Chicken Acers of the 21st Century’.
Maybe it won’t be 846 weeks before the next one!?
Report written by Steve Cole