February 13, 2025

Left to Right #4: Cavendish

Don't get in your own way

The Chatsworth Bowl & Palace Trophy 36-Hole Singles Medal Open at Cavendish is a pure stroke play format, i.e. lowest score wins. The ‘Chatsworth Bowl’ is awarded to the best nett (score adjusted after handicap allowance), the ‘Palace Trophy’ best gross (actual score). Everyone has a chance to shoot the lowest nett but only the primo golfers will be vying for the lowest gross score.

The other common singles format is a Stableford; points awarded for each hole, more the better, highest total wins. Stablefords are somewhat easier, your handicap allowance is allocated during your round on each hole rather than at the end, and one bad hole is just that. You are incentivised to take it one hole at a time in a Stableford, and even encouraged to grab your ball and give up if you’ve fucked it on one hole and can’t score.

In a Medal format, there is no hiding – if you blow up all those shots count – but if you score well you’ve thoroughly earned it. I found Medals at home daunting and, at times, demoralising in my first season playing club competitions but have gradually learned not to place too much significance on them. In fact, they are now simply the benchmark examination for me navigating 18 holes, instead of avoiding or dreading them. You still get your gross score from a Stableford, which will be recorded towards your handicap, but the jeopardy is capped.

In Buxton, where we’d organised a B&B for the night afterwards, a mate and I were due to tee off at 10:30 for our first round at Cavendish. Five hours allotted to complete your first round in groups of three and be on the 1st tee prompt for the next one. Eight hours playing with another person making up our group – and we got lucky. A 20-something ex-tennis pro, Elliott, from Staffordshire, came over on the putting green to ask what time we were off with only a few players left to go out. Relief all round.

Elliott played off +1 (receiving -1 shots on the par 68 course) seemingly one of those annoyingly talented people who are just good at sports. I was off 11 (receiving 11 shots) and marking Elliott’s card which was a doddle as he persistently made pars. I always enjoy playing with better players – not only are they worth studying and listening to, very good golfers are often a pleasure to walk with. Everyone needs to understand course etiquette, not least for pace of play, but Elliott was effortlessly neat and tidy with bags of time to assist and chat to us. It helps being in play rather than wayward all day. Scratch golfers are all measured, purposeful, and generally unflustered.

36-holes is a marathon but I like that it’s not all-or-nothing. Fuck up the first? No drama, you get another go later. Combined with leaving my phone in my pocket, photos already banked, and having played Cavendish earlier in the year, I was in a good spot mentally at the start. Once the pressure of the first tee had released, I tried to relax, remain present, take each shot and each hole as it came, not worry about outcomes, and enjoy playing with others. Full cliché.

There are many theories and books written about how to remain present for 18 holes. Advice includes: don’t think about golf between each shot and instead focus on being outside and your partners; keep devices to a minimum and look up more often; minimise thoughts about technique over the ball and trust that your brain knows what to do. Getting into a flow state is the holy grail of excelling in an activity and difficult to articulate exactly, let alone produce, but essentially you are doing without thinking. Being in this state on the golf course is fleeting and magical.

The weather was a concern, though. Overcast, dry, mild, pretty good for Buxton in September, with patches of heavy rain forecast later in the day. The first three holes are unremarkable par 4s which run parallel out and back until the course really sets off. The moorland ground was relatively firm still and understanding how the ball would react pitching into sloping greens off sloping fairways helped. My driving and long irons felt shaky but around and on the greens I felt confident. I got up and down on the 1st to save par, bogeyed 2, and had back-to-back birdies on 3 and the par 3 4th. The putter was solid and my chipping was giving me chances.

On the 5th tee box, a long par 4, stroke index 1 (1 being rated the hardest, 18 easiest), with a carry needed to hit the fairway and a brook running down the right, I was one under par. Which is fantastic and not normal for me. It was, however, only four holes so I focussed on the pressing task in hand, landing on that fairway in front of me, and made two more bogeys and three more pars.

Now I was one over on the 10th. Had I peaked? Or am I just good at golf now? Hang on, how many shots have I got left? 10?! So... I could just make bogeys for the whole back nine and still come in under par nett?? Instead of simply concentrating on the next hole, the next shot, I was getting way ahead of myself here. It was easily done because a) at this halfway stage you should count up and verify scores with the person who’s marking your card, and b) it was obvious I’d had a ridiculous front nine from the score alone. Neither of my partners verbalised this situation and I, from memory, mumbled something and moved on. If you know someone’s flying or on a score and you call it out to them you’re either lacking self-awareness or you’re being a cunt, and nine times out of ten it’s the latter.

Privately, those racing thoughts about my card meant that I was doomed: I had got in my own way. Furiously doing arithmetic and looking too far ahead brought me immediately out of the present and, due to the event, I heaped further emphasis on this imaginary potential score.

10 and 11 are fantastic back-to-back holes and, unfortunately, this is where the wheels came off, then the heavens opened and I struggled to keep the club from slipping out of my hand. I managed to salvage some pride on the closing holes rather than succumb to a sliding scorecard but it was too late. 16 over on the back nine. Yikes!

Round two was similar in less dramatic fashion but included another strong finish rather than total capitulation – now apparently a trait of mine – and playing again meant I wasn’t able to stew on the previous score. A top day with good people and the only real disappointment was the excellent Buxton Brewery Taphouse had stopped doing food by the time we hobbled down to town.

Elliott won the Palace Trophy with a gross 71 and 70, a combined five over par. It must run in the family as it turns out his father’s name features on the honours boards in the clubhouse (my father’s does not, I checked) in 1993 and 1997 when I was a junior there. I’ve entered this year’s competition again and, as I’m writing this, messaged Elliott to let him know what slot I’ve booked. I can’t wait to do it all over again.