I don’t know how the name of the competition came about, but I’m guessing it’s the captain’s opportunity – after a year of hosting (and buying) many a liquid lunch, forking out on various prizes, and generally putting up with a lot of moaning – to watch members lose their cool as they struggle to accumulate 20 Stableford points.
Yes, ‘Captain’s Revenge’. Just for fun, the captain selects the pin positions for the day. However, rather than making them accessible, as they might be during the week, the idea is that they’re tucked away behind bunkers, cut into slopes, and generally put in awful/wicked spots.
Obviously it’s not for everyone. Why on earth would you put yourself through the misery, especially after a week in the office? Come Saturday, you just want to go out and enjoy yourself. There’s no fun in four-putting, or missing a birdie putt and walking off with a blob? Madness. I put my name down, as did another 126 golfers, which helped to raise a healthy four-figure sum for Marie Curie.
As a ‘Captain’s Revenge’ rookie, I teed up with a great deal of optimism. I believed, wrongly, that the pins wouldn’t be placed in spots where it was impossible for the ball to stop unless it clattered into the flag. Despite having played at Formby Golf Club for approximately 20 years, I also massively underestimated some of the slopes on the greens (especially the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 15th, and 17th).
I’ll spare you most of the gory details. It started well with a par on the 1st, after sinking a downhill 12-footer that would have disappeared from sight had it not hit the flag. And I followed that with a respectable bogey at the difficult 2nd. Four points. Cruising.
The testing 9th hole at Formby Golf Club
(Image credit: Getty Images)
On the par-5 3rd, my favorite hole on this Merseyside beauty, I said to one of my playing partners, after hitting the green in regulation, that it appeared as though the captain had “gone easy” with the pin position. A few minutes later I watched my birdie effort come to rest further away from the hole.
I was still simmering by the time I arrived at the par-3 5th; then, after hitting a 4-iron dead straight into the teeth of the wind, I perked up. After rolling in a downhill left-to-righter for a birdie from some 25 feet (maybe 30), I was back on track. Not only that, I had won much gold. Twos in comps are normally good for at least a dozen Titleist Pro V1s in the pro shop. Kerching!
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