I was back out again this evening in our Sweet 16 Dispatch Trophy match. We had a sharp rain shower for the 15-20 minutes right before we teed off, so I didn't really warm up at all, and promptly necked my opening tee shot into gorse to the left of a hugely wide fairway and then skulled my next shot (a 50-yard wedge) into gorse over the green. Nice. I proceeded to have a pretty abysmal first 11 holes, during which Bill and I fell 5 down - and on the 11th tee, a flipping crow went into my partially opened golf bag, poked its way into an unopened granola bar and ate about two-thirds of it, which was absolutely a metaphor for how I was feeling at that point. Our teammates in the front match were doing well again, though, so there was still plenty to play for; we pulled one back at the 13th, and my game suddenly started to come around, but at the same time Bill's was kinda falling apart, and we lost the 14th and 16th without much resistance. So we were 6 down heading into the par-3 17th...but we got word that our partners in the other match were 6 up, and let me tell you, it's a very odd feeling to be getting killed and yet have to still steel yourself to play important holes. On the 17th I found the green, about 30 feet right of the hole, but after our opponents left their 40-footer fully 10 feet short, Bill then did the same thing and left his putt 8 feet short, and neither of us could make our par putts (I made a decent stroke but played too much break).
After our partners hit the tee shots on the short and very, very quirky par-4 18th, word filtered through to us that our colleagues in the top match had lost the 18th with a bogey (ugh), and therefore we needed to win our final hole to take the match into extra holes. I faced a really weird blind shot of around 75 yards with a 20-foot bank maybe 10 yards in front of me and the pin in the back-right corner of the green, with no more than 10 feet of green between me and the hole on my direct line of approach. My counterpart hit first, and I heard "nice shot" from his partner; I didn't get any more intel than that, but I figured I needed to take dead aim. I felt I had a good read on the line, and I thought I put a good swing on the shot and hit it where I wanted to, but I didn't hear any response from anyone after that, so I thought that was probably game over. But when I got to the top of the hill and approached the green, I discovered my ball was three feet from the hole - one of my teammates told me that it lipped out and probably should have gone in for an eagle - and that our opponents were off the back-right edge of the green. They hit a good chip, but Bill calmly rolled in the birdie putt, and that meant everyone had to go down the 19th for a dual sudden-death playoff.
By now, it was well after 9:00 and starting to get very dark, so both matches teed off simultaneously before the top match went ahead and finished first. We saw both teams make pars in front of us, so it was down to us, and Bill's approach finished 25 feet right of the hole, while our opponents were a bit inside of us. My putt was slightly uphill, and I absolutely didn't want to do what Bill did at the 17th, and I wanted to go for glory and give us a chance of instant victory, but I was too aggressive and went four feet past the hole. Our opponents lagged up for a gimme par, and then I decided not to tell Bill what I thought my putt had done past the hole - it turned a bit to the left, but I didn't want to impose my thoughts upon his lest they influence him negatively. Of course, Bill then read the putt as straight and it drifted past the hole to the right - so that was that. From absolute goat to near-hero to goat again in the space of half an hour.