We fell just short of playing 100 holes in a day

FRIDAY, JULY 27: Is 100 holes in a day even possible?

Assuming you play 13 hours of non-stop golf (7am to 8pm), you need to average almost exactly 2hrs 20min per 18 holes.

I thought that it would be a relatively easy task and with a nice cooling breeze and plenty of cloud cover I was thinking that we may even finish early.

The arrangement was to meet at 6am, and make up the pairings from there. Many people had expressed interest in playing and some had even said they would definitely be there. Knowing human nature, I knew that only a very few would actually turn up, so at 6:20am eight of us started off in the gloomy light. Myself, Jack Bridges, Nick Mansell, and Aaron Smith in one group, and CJ Bean, Chris Grantier, Ryan Roberts and his friend from the UK.

Breeze

I started poorly with a double bogey on the first — it is much harder to score when your rushing to play. Playing as a foursome was also making it harder to keep the 2 hours 20 minutes that we needed to play to.

At 8:40am we started our second round so were just on pace and feeling confident of finishing, again scoring was not what I had hoped for but I was keeping cool with a fresh breeze coming into the cart.

Balls were being lost but just on the odd hole. We had not decided on any kind of competition as the overall target had been just to complete the 100 hole mission.

However, birdies were being monitored and a friendly banter of birdies recorded was being relayed back and forth.

Rain

It was clear that a storm was approaching and lunch was declared at 11:14am, which was just as well as lightening at that point really made it too dangerous to continue.

And then CJ had to go to work reducing us to seven.

At 12:35pm rain had stopped and I decided that we should split up and try to pick up the pace, which bizarrely made me play better or at least that’s what I recorded on the scorecard.

Jack and I finished this round at 2:07pm, less than 90 minutes. Jack’s lower back was starting to act up and in the interest of his health we decided he would stop, so then there were 6. I had time for a quick change as the other groups were a little behind.

At 2:30pm I started my fourth round of the day feeling a little tired thinking that I was going to hurt by the time I finished, but still the weather co-operated and feeling cool we marched on. I was now was playing with Chris Grantier — a nicer partner I could not find. I was making a few birdies but the course was feeling longer and my legs heavier.

At 5pm we started our fifth round with the other threesome some four holes behind. We pushed harder with the end in sight and my back starting to stiffen up I was playing consistent, if not good golf.

Looking at the radar another storm looked like it was coming but with some of it breaking up on the reef and we became even more hopeful of finishing 100 holes on the completion of 90 holes.

At 6:43pm we finished our last 18 and started the final 10 holes. It was now looking really gloomy and the spot of rain was falling.

By now my back was really tight and my legs felt like lead weights but my spirit was up and thinking that we would be finished in just a little while.

Amazing

Fast forward to 7:15pm — as I am standing on the 7th green with a 20 foot eagle putt and huge ‘BANG’ of thunder and a flash of lightening, with our next hole the horribly exposed our thoughts were that we would stop again and hope that it would pass over quickly, sadly the heavens opened and an amazing thunder storm continued well into darkness and our quest was abandoned just three holes short of the 100.

We hope to repeat the feat next year with up to 30 players taking part and even more money raised.

Paul Adams is the PGA director of golf at Rosewood Tucker’s Point.