The Gritters Golf Society : the 2008 Tour Members

Chris "Cock" Roach
The first thing to say about "Cock" is that he does all the organisation. Every year he carries out intensive research and spends hours on the internet and on the phone booking the ferry, the commodore cabins, the hotel, the restaurants, the golf courses, the buggies and the start times. It is then a matter of no small mystery why we have always managed to end up in France playing golf and not at a "Save the Whale" protest rally in a field somewhere just outside Oswestry. Cock has a golf swing of tremendous, though too often misguided, power. The huge body turn combined with wildly flailing arms produces an extremely strong and big hit. Not only is the swing speed very high but he has a good eye for a ball so the quality of the strike itself is usually very good.
The ball regularly comes off the exact centre of the club face together with a satisfying click and, as the ball rapidly departs, it makes that whooshing sound so beloved by the top pros. So, given all of the above, why is it that Cock is not a scratch golfer? Well....the explanation for that could take up an entire book and would consume more column inches that we have time or space for here but, suffice to say that the problem can be summed up quite neatly as follows. As the ball leaves the face of the golf club it will begins its journey about seventy percent of the time with a massive slice. The rest of the shots have an enormous amount of top spin and go bullet straight but thirty degrees left. Cock has no control over this and no idea of which option will occur with each swing. CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO SEE COCK IN ACTION
	This repeating slice (or hard left smash) means that, although the ball has travelled a very long distance, it all too often ends up in the trees on the right. (see video opposite). The laws of random chance however, dictate that, every now and again, Cock will hit one straight. When this happens the ball sets off down the centre of the fairway like a scalded cat, disappearing at a huge speed and finishing a very long way away on a perfect lie. Following this rarity any amount of grumpiness that has been on display immediately evaporates to be replaced by a huge grin. Cock always then says something like "that's better, why can't I always do that"? The answer is painfully apparent to the rest of us but no one says anything. It is a rule of the universe that Cock inhabits that any good shot he may accidentally make will always followed by an over ambitious knob and so, instead of the simple flick onto the green that would normally be required after such a shot, Cock always manages to thin it painfully through the back.
Cock loves his golf and manages to get around the course somehow despite massive sleep deprivation by the third day. He is hampered by having to play every second shot from the middle of some bushes and a complete inability to chip.
Handicap: Was down as low as 12.1 and by his own admission unable to be competitive. Several desperate showings in medals finally led the handicap committee at Copt Heath to look kindly upon this most beleaguered of men. His handicap is now 15 and he hopes that 16 is not too distant a dream. Last year (hampered by the 12 handicap) Cock finished in last place. An analysis of the scores reveals that, has Cock been playing of 15 instead of 12, then he would have finished er..... last.
Tours Attended :	17/17
Tour wins	Surprisingly only Two. 1993, 2001
Hall of Shame Entries:	Two. 1997 and 2007.
2009 Form Cock usually starts poorly and then gets even worse and in 2007 opened up with some of the worst golf that we have ever had to put up with. 2008 was better but still a struggle. 2009 was to prove to be the best we have seen for some time. Opening rounds of 34, 33, 32, 34 and 31 were quite good but nothing could prepare us for the shock of a 41 pointer around Val Andre. Surely this must be a return to the winner's rostrum. Alas, it was not to be. The sleep deprivation and huge alcohol intake kicked in and the round at Clecy amassed only 16 stableford points. A closing 24 at Tadmarton was enough for third place.
2010 Outlook Cock only tends to reveal true star quality following a very late night out drinking red wine and singing old sixties ballads. He is always a dark horse for the winners spot having managed to achieve this twice. He should always finish in the top half but, apart from the two wins, never has yet except for 2009. The 2007 last place was, in fairness a rarity. He will come back fighting and should do well. If only he would go and get a good night's sleep just once.
Napster Forecast: Top Three and a possible winner.
Star Sign: Lapsed Patisse
Distinguishing Marks Has a very high "mouth in" to "anus out" ratio and has been known to dash in from off the golf course after only 16 holes at Dinard desperate for a dump.
Bad Habits: Always having one more beer in here
Catchphrase: Difficult to choose just one from so many. Obvious top contenders were "À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents"* but more commonly* "I shall need a dump soon" and "Anyway, as I was saying....." and "shall we go and have a look at the moon shining on the sea" but, in the end, the top place went to "Lets just have one more beer in here".
Contents of Golf Bag: Spare toilet roll, Ping Driver, Callaway irons, spare wedge (never used). Deck of cards with the 7 of diamonds missing, a book of first class postage stamps, a signed photograph of the over eighties Bacup and Nelson line dancing team, a well thumbed copy of "the AA official definitive guidebook of British trees", an unopened packet of raisins, a corkscrew, a roll of sellotape, a Boots "intellisense" Home Blood Pressure monitor kit, a framed print of the 18th hole of the Ailsa course signed by William Grandison (number 262 of a limited edition of 500), a calculator with a broken equals key, a tape measure, a red mousemat, a can of "Spring time in the Austrian Alps" air freshener, a 13 amp fuse, a purple plastic thing used for drawing parabolic curves on graphs, a titliest 4 golf ball (red), ticket stubs for the opening night of Evita, a portion of curry duck, a stapler, a tube of hair gel, a box set of three Queen CD's entitled "The Platinum Collection", an A3 sized Collins "teach yourself Spanish" reference book, a travel scrabble, a macramé horse, a set of three Tupperware containers, a rubber brick, a 1996 Copt Heath Golf Club B team fixture list, a 50 ml miniature bottle of Teachers Whiskey, a backgammom board with no pieces, a yellow stabilo boss highlighter, a 1963 Wisden, a 1975 Beano annual, 4 place mats depicting the glory days of the Great Western Railway, a pencil sharpener, a tesco store card, a packet of barbless carp hooks, a return "Day Saver" economy railway ticket from Carlisle to Preston, a gearbox for a 1973 Vauxhall Astra, an apple tart and a banana, a hand blown glass figurine of a leaping horse with wings (broken tail), a sugar cube, 4 black and white photographs of "Leeds working life", a 1936 Cup Final programme, a dead badger, a blue enameled plaque announcing that "Robert Louis Stevenson once lived here", a plastic frog, a large shuttlecock, a hovercraft (no batteries), a junior hacksaw set with 3 blades, the sheet music for "My old man's a dustman", a large aquarium with a sunken galleon, an unopened Anne Summers Purple "My First Strap On" kit, an Airfix Messersmit, 3 packets of long red plastic golf tees, a set of irons, a putter and a driver and a three wood that he is no longer allowed to use.