INFERIORITY COMPLEX

Friday 28th April 2023
PENWORTHAM SPORTS SPRING FLOODLIT SINGLES
1st Qualifying Round
v PEDRO YATES L 11-21

Entering certain competitions might require more careful consideration than pure bravery and bold ambition in future.
It all went a bit wobbly here at Penwortham Sports, a green I really enjoy playing, but ultimately was too complex for myself in this sort of company.
My practice session started well, but as a decent sized crowd started to gather (as is the case when top player Callum Wraight is on the card) I had a ropey ten minutes of chucking all over the place and got a bit paranoid as laughs and chunners could be heard in time with my wayward deliveries. It may just have been coincidence, but I let it knock my confidence and concentration a bit. I even clipped a player's heels without shouting the warning shot of "Feet!!", then briefly lost the location of both my woods and could hear the cackles and chunners again.
A wave of uncomfortable self consciousness that I've not really experienced for a very long time flushed over me. Incidents of bungling idiocy continued during my match when I completely misread a situation and threatened to pick up the block from another game - it was Callum's block - and he rightly shouts at me accompanied by a piercing stare that I won't forget in a hurry. The ground could have happily eaten me up. Such is Callum's sheer class though, thankfully I didn't distract him and he still landed a front toucher!
A guilty pleasure of mine is the TV show Below Deck, following the captain and crew on high end yacht charters for the super rich. Ok, so my wife is the real big fan, but I'm more than happy to pick it up wherever she's up to. To the point then, and Captain Lee's analogies are never less than compelling.
Using one of Captain Lee's lines to sum up my feelings after this Friday night in Penwortham, "If you can't run with the big dogs, you'd better keep your puppy ass on the porch".
I'm being a bit rough on myself perhaps. Pedro is a very good player, gives little away and is well seasoned on this green. I started the game well and we were close for a while. In front of the seated stand, a bowl that just pegged behind Pedro's near perfect lead got some applause and even a personal commendation from the spectating crown green legend that is Simon Coupe.
On that note, another moment to savour if things never get better!
Sadly though, the game just got away from me after the first dozen ends as Pedro did damage at the far side of the green. Over there, I also scored a few but was more comfortable bowling in to this green's wild contours that ran against peg, whilst my opponent found joy rolling over the top of it and got himself towards the finishing line.
Three of four times I went narrow and looked like a dick, bowling in to the side ditch when the back ditch would have been a more acceptable failure. But I gave Pedro a slightly better game than last year when we met at Farington Cons and on that note, can grasp a small positive to counter the overall inferiority complex that descended upon me that evening. Overall though, not one of my more pleasant competition experiences.