THE SWING REPORT

A net 32. Five point four better than your season average. Congratulations.

Don't. The pins were in places pins shouldn't go. Back left on greens that were rolling like they'd been ironed, and the group in front of us treating every putt like it was for a house. I spent most of the afternoon standing still with a club in my hand, which is not how I play golf.

Gross 42. Ten strokes off the 19. Yes, that's a 32, I can do the arithmetic, and I'd like the record to show I did it in spite of the conditions rather than because of them. If they'd cut the greens the way they cut them in July I'd have shot the same number and enjoyed it less.

Tell me about the drop on 6.

That has been exaggerated in the telling. I took my drop, the ball sat down in something I'd describe as four blades of grass. Four. I counted them because I knew somebody would count them for me.

And it made no difference whatsoever. The lie felt forgiving, the score was not. If anything it cost me, because I then stood over it believing I'd done something clever. That's the course again, really. It gives you a lie like that and dares you to touch it.

Walk me through it.

That's the thing — I can. Tee shot was fine. Not long, but fine, in play, sitting up. Second one was a little right but it was a club I hit well. Little pitch after that, nothing wrong with it. Chip was good. Two putts, which is a normal number of putts.

And it comes to nine. I've been over it in my head on the drive home and I can't find the bad shot. There isn't one. Each of them, individually, you'd sign for. Together they add up to something I don't recognise as mine.

And then a ten on the 9th.

Ah, now, that one I was experimenting. I'd decided somewhere around the turn that I was going to try something different on the last, and then I got to the tee and realised I hadn't actually worked out what the different thing was going to be. So I stood there having committed to a change of approach with no approach to change to.

Net 44 in the end, which I'm told is better than my season average, and honestly that's the part I find strangest of all. Two holes I'd pay money to forget and the card still came out ahead of where I usually am. Golf is not a serious sport.

You had the birdie of the week — a four on the par 5 ninth.

I did, and the best thing about it was that it didn't hold anybody up. Straight off the tee, straight down there, on in three, in. No searching, no re-teeing, no conference about a ruling. The whole hole took about as long as it takes to read the hole.

That's the round, really. We moved. Gross 43, eight strokes, 35, and I'd honestly rather talk about the fact that we were putting clubs in the boot while there was still sun on the practice green. Pollard will tell you the group ahead were slow. The group ahead were slow. We played around it. Irey found considerably more of the golf course than the rest of us and still never once had us standing about waiting, which I think is the mark of a gentleman.

Only 7 cards in today, out of 12 players.

Seven cards out of twelve. I don't know whether that's telling or whether it's September. People have kids back at school and jobs that have noticed them again. But the ones who came got round quickly, so there's a lesson in there for the five who didn't.

And the top four going into the last week is close enough that somebody is going to have to sit down and run scenarios, which is the least quick part of this whole league. I'd like it on the record that I want the scenarios run fast.