The Players - The Beve Legend 2011
Andy Young
Vroom, that was the noise of Andy Young’s car as it whizzed past the practice putting green at Cawder Golf Course two minutes before the official first tee time of the 2011 BeveTrophy. Captain Tonner greeted him with a single figure salute as he drove past, a customary greeting between these two ‘friends’. The lateness was a particular shock to everyone as it meant that Andy had missed breakfast and double shock as Andy had already paid for it and thus missed out on a FREE breakfast. The reason may have been more deep routed though, as this is a man whose typical breakfast is Coco Pops washed down with a pint of coke, so breakfast rolls might simply not cut the mustard. Though lateness is in Andy blood and this is not the first time he has been unable to get out of bed. This is the man who famously once slept in for work and had to phone up asking for not just the morning off but the whole day after waking at 3pm. Before we start on the actual golf we can’t miss the opportunity to mention one of the best put downs in golf history, Team Rush player David Walker, having never played golf with Andy, asked Dave Bickley what Andy’s golf game was like. Dave responded that he ‘progresses the ball’ and a very apt description of the unadventurous Mr Young!
Onwards to the golf then, and after a mad scramble and missing the team photograph, Andy made it to the tee for his morning greensomes match, playing with Stuart Grieve against the Team Tonner partnership of Steve Law and Ally Mitchell. Andy was overjoyed to learn that Ally was just as short as him but then disappointed when he had to stand next to the Giant that is Steve Law in the game photograph. Out in the third game directly behind his nemeses Captain Tonner, Grieve and Young made lightening start paring the front nine and going in to a heavy lead. The pain for Captain Tonner was palpable as every time he looked over his shoulder, Young was there with a smile as wide his underpants, telling him that they were 3up, 4up, 5 up. In the end they ran out convincing winners 7&5 and Andy recorded his best win ever and a victory that would lead to Mitchell and Law getting the 2011 pish cup, with Andy’s picture on it for good measure. The victory was made even more sweet when he founded out that he had contributed to a 5.5 to 1.5 Team Rush lead thus making it almost certain that Captain Tonner would be handing back the trophy to Captain Rush in the evening. Andy then proceeded to spend the whole of lunchtime telling Captain Tonner that he ‘should have never traded him’ failing to understand that Beve Trophy team selection is entirely down to a random draw of two identical teams out of a rather small hat.
Wee Drew did not think his day could get any better, but how wrong he was and it was to get so, so much better than this. The afternoon games saw Andy matched up with McGill convincing winners in there last match together in 2009 against Boo Bickley and the already suffering after morning pumping, Mitchell. Things started off quite slowly for Andy and in his partners words Andy was ‘useless’ for the first seven holes. Then, standing on the 8th tee, the sight of the afternoon closest to the hole competition, Andy pulled out an iron for this short hole (likely a five iron for this notorious short hitter). Customary five practice swing each followed by a ‘no’ and shake of the head, then sixth practice swing, ‘yes’ that’s the one. He then hit ‘the shot’, it flew through the air landing just short of the hole and preceded to run straight in to the hole for a hole in one and the Beve’s first ever Ace. Andy then raised his hands in delight and was swamped by ‘The Unit’ that is Boo Bickley which flattened Andy on to the Cawder turf. To top it off Andy and McGill went on to romp to victory and seal a double victory for Andy and romping cup victory for Team Rush.
Could it get any sweeter for Andy, well yes it could. On Team Tonner was another of the men that Andy loves to hate, Ryan Montgomery. The man that famously led Andy half way round Cyprus to his non existent aunts summer house, pulled out his birthday trip to Florida the day before the trip, left him to sleep on his flats doorstep while Ryan fired in to the bird Andy was trying to pull at night, ruined his chances of pulling in Dublin while not even present and generally borrowing money that he will never pay back and being more than a little annoying.
Well what you get after all that pain and suffering is the Beve Day to beat them all:-
- Two wins in one day
- Best win of the day and Pish Cup awarding partnership
- 10 up in one day
- A hole in one
- First victory as part of Team Rush
- Part of the team with the widest margin of victory AND against Team Tonner
- Team Rush Man of the Match
- Topping the all time Beve Trophy points table
- The ability to shut up Tonner and Montgomery on the golf course for at least one full year
Andy managed to make it out to Asda in Bishopbriggs to purchase the cheapest bottle of champagne ever produced along with a bottle of Jagermeister that was promptly mixed in the trophy and drank by the Beve hordes. Captain Tonner assisted Andy to take a proper drink and promptly split half the cup contents down his shirt but nothing could dampen the spirits of wee Drew, the sweet, sweet taste of resounding victory over Captain Tonner sweeter than anything he had ever tasted and oh man did it feel good to have ‘progressed’ the ball so well!