THE SWING REPORT

A net 34 on the last day of the year. Walk us through it.

I got lucky with the group, honestly. Nobody dawdled, nobody was hunting in the weeds for ten minutes, and when you're walking at a decent clip you don't have time to stand over it and talk yourself out of anything. Pace of play won that round. I was just attached to it.

The weather did the rest. Seventeenth of September and it behaved itself — no wind worth naming, nothing coming off the foothills. You could aim at something and it went roughly there. That's not a skill, that's a forecast.

There were two birdies on your card. The second and the ninth.

Three weeks ago somebody in this league told me to stop trying to steer the ball and just finish the swing, and I've been thinking about it ever since, so really that's theirs. The one on the second was a three on a par 4 and I'd call most of it the bounce. The four on the ninth, par 5 — that's a hole where if you keep it dry you get rewarded, and plenty of people didn't keep it dry today.

Gross 34, no strokes. Which mostly means the handicap committee has my number and always has.

Nobody else came close to that ninth hole.

Nobody else was trying. If you're going to put a crooked number on a card in the last round of the year, put a real one on there. A seven is embarrassing. A 10 on a par 5 is a story. Five over on one hole — that's the biggest anyone posted, and I'd like that read into the record.

I'd already warmed up for it, mind. Eight on the first, a par 4, four over before I'd finished saying hello to anybody. So the ninth wasn't a collapse, it was a theme. The round had structure.

And there was a tree.

There was a tree, and I want to be fair to it, because it was there first. I hit it flush and the ball came straight back at me. Not near me. At me. I had to move my feet. In eight rounds of this season I have never been returned my own golf ball by the golf course, and I found it personal.

The funny part is the net 40 — 5.2 better than my season average of 45.3, which tells you everything you need to know about the rest of my season. My best round of the year had the worst hole in the league in the middle of it.

The biggest improvement against form in the field, and you still look unhappy.

Because I lost it on the last hole and I'd rather say so than have somebody find out. I was playing the best golf I've played all year, I knew it, and knowing it is what did me. Standing on the ninth doing arithmetic is not a golf swing, it's a spreadsheet.

Then it went sideways and I said a word my mother would recognise, and then I said it again with more feeling, and Carr very kindly looked at the trees while I did it. Nine on a par 5. Four over. In the last round of the year, which somehow makes it worse — there's no next week to fix it in.

Net 36 off a season average of 41.8. Five point seven better than I've any right to be. I should be delighted and instead I'm going to carry that ninth hole through the winter like a stone in my shoe.

You won the league. Say something gracious.

I'll say something true instead, which is that I won the league by turning up. Ten strokes today, gross 45, net 35, second behind a man playing off scratch who then apologised for it. That's the season in one card.

The thing nobody tells you about winning a nine-hole league of your friends is that they don't stop. I got exactly one handshake and then a full minute of analysis about whether my handicap is a work of fiction. It isn't. Look at Hecht for that.

Last round of the year. Any ceremony?

We stood in the car park in the good light and nobody wanted to be first to leave. That'll do me. I'll take the trophy, whatever it is, and I'll be here in the spring playing worse.

The sandbagger award, on a day you played worse than your average.

I want it noted that I collected an award for having a suspiciously generous handicap immediately after posting a net 39, which is 2.6 worse than my season average of 36.4. If I am running a con, I am running it at a loss. Eight rounds. Eight rounds of allegedly cheating my way to nothing.

The second hole is where the day went. I lost three balls on it. Three. On one hole. The first one I could explain, the second one was bad luck, and by the third I'd stopped looking and started grieving. Lemoine made a birdie on that hole and I'd like it known I contributed the entire supply.

I'll take the award. It's got my name on it and a small element of truth, which is the worst kind.

You birdied the hole that ate Hecht.

I did, and it was a strange thing to be pleased about, because the man had just donated three golf balls to that hole and was standing there like a widower. I made a three on a par 4 and I honestly did not know whether to celebrate or apologise. I settled on quiet.

After that I did nothing much of note. Gross 47, eight strokes, net 39, tied with two other people, which is the most Mile High Swingers result there is. Three of us on 39, all arriving there by completely different routes.

Last one of the year, though. I'd rather finish with a birdie in the pocket than a good total and nothing to talk about.

You went home with the last place award.

I did, and I'll have you know I earned it over seven rounds, not by accident in one afternoon. Somebody has to hold up the bottom of the table or the rest of you would fall off it. Net 44, and it was 2 better than my season average of 46, so I improved my way into last place. Very on brand.

And the discovery of the season?

Three beers. Three is the number. One and I'm thinking, two and I'm still thinking, three and something lets go in the shoulders and the ball goes where I looked. I hit it dead straight for a stretch out there and everyone was far too surprised, frankly.

Then the ninth happened — a 9 on the par 5, four over, and I can tell you exactly which beer I was short of. But I've got the award, I've got the data, and next spring I'm starting the round at the correct dosage.

The seventh.

Eight on a par 4. Four over. I was having a perfectly pleasant afternoon up to that point and then the seventh hole asked me a question I couldn't answer, and I kept answering it anyway, over and over, out loud.

Nineteen strokes is a lot of help and I used every one. Gross 59, net 40. On any other week I'd sulk about that, but Pennington posted a 10 and got a golf ball thrown back at him by a tree, so the sympathy was allocated elsewhere and I think fairly.

The steadiest card of the day.

Gross 43, six strokes, net 37, which is 0.6 off my season average, and I want you to understand how deeply boring that is. I have the golfing personality of a bus timetable. People use me to check whether the course is playing hard.

I was in Lemoine’s group when the ninth went wrong and the language was genuinely inventive. I said nothing. There's nothing to say. You look at the trees, you rake the bunker, you let the man have his moment. That's what the last round of the year is for.

A tie for fifth to finish the year.

Middle of the pack on the last day, 1.6 worse than my average, which is the golfing equivalent of a firm handshake. Ten cards went in and I'm in the pile somewhere around the middle of it, exactly where I've been all season.

Beaker shot a gross 34 and then spent ten minutes crediting the weather, the pace of play and some anonymous benefactor who told him something three weeks ago. I was there. It was the swing. But if he wants to thank the forecast, let him — it's the last round of the year and he's buying either way.