Scouting Report
Seven Masturds and the 8th Man in one pool, two captains, alternating picks. What follows is what the record says about each of them — which is not always what the handicap says.
Every format this week is played at handicap. The question is therefore not who is best. It is who finishes higher than his number says he should.
Rank the eight men of Lisbon by index. Then rank them by where they actually finished in the net. The difference between those two positions is the only column that matters on draft night, and it is not close.
Beswick finished seventh of eight on index and first of eight on net. Six places better than his number, in a field of eight. There is no second place to that.
Leigh went the other way by an identical margin — second on index, last on net. He is not travelling, which spares one captain an awkward decision.
And note what it does to Church. Lowest index in the field, second on net — he plays to his number almost exactly. In a handicap event that makes him fairly priced rather than a bargain, which is not a sentence anybody expected to write about the best golfer here.
| Four-ball 90% | Greensomes 60/40 | Singles stableford 95% | Low / high ball 90% | Scramble 25·20·15·10 | Singles matchplay 100% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gus Beswick | ●●● | ●● | ●●● | ●●● | ● | ●●● |
| Tim Forton | ●● | ●●● | ●● | ●● | ●●● | ●●● |
| Jack Church | ● | ●●● | ●● | ● | ●●● | ●● |
| Liam Wilkinson | ●● | ●● | ●●● | ●● | ●● | ●● |
| Alexei Stretton | ●● | ●● | ●● | ●● | ●● | ●● |
| Tom Cartwright | ●●● | ●● | ● | ●●● | ● | ●● |
| Guy Mitchell | ●● | ● | ●● | ●● | ●● | ● |
Four-ball rewards strokes on the stroke holes and one good hole in nine. Beswick and Cartwright receive the most shots in the field and need only turn up once a nine. Church, who receives the fewest, has to play genuinely well before his partner sees any benefit at all.
Greensomes takes the better of the two drives, which means Cartwright's refusal to hit a driver becomes an advantage for the first time in his career. His tee ball is in play. The liability simply moves to the second shot.
Singles stableford is a consistency format — a blow-up costs one hole and nothing more. Wilkinson went round six different courses in Myrtle Beach inside a six-shot spread. Balfour on the Saturday is his session and everybody knows it.
Low ball / high ball is decided by the high point far more often than the low, which means the partner you need is the one whose worst hole is still a hole. Church and Cartwright took this six and four in Lisbon.
Scramble at 25/20/15/10 is the one session where raw striking outweighs strokes. Forton hits a two-hundred-yard shot close every time; Church's short game finishes it. That is the pairing that wins Sunday afternoon, and both captains can see it.
Singles match play is nerve, and the head-to-head record is the only evidence there is. Beswick has never lost one. Mitchell has never won one, and now captains a side.
Six places better than his index in Lisbon. Unbeaten in singles match play. The highest individual cup return of anybody on either team. He beat Church three and two and Cartwright four and three on consecutive days, and posted forty-four points in August off an index still falling. The best pick in this draft by a distance — and the only thing that could see him slide is a captain who keeps looking at the gross column.
An unknown on paper and the best ball striker in the field in practice. Four of the six sessions are played on a course he plays constantly. He wins the scramble more or less on his own. The risk is that he gives strokes to everybody in the net formats and there is no record anywhere to check it against.
Lowest index, best form, home course — and giving strokes to all seven of them. He won the Lisbon gross by forty-nine shots and finished bottom of his own winning team on cup points. Worth the most in greensomes and the scramble, worth the least in four-ball. A captain should take him for the pairs sessions, not for the singles.
The most consistent scorer in the archive and four shots better than a year ago. He wins the stableford session. He is also the reigning captain, which means whichever side does not have him is playing against a man defending a trophy that has been in his house for twelve months.
Top-three value if the shoulder holds. He posted the best net round of Lisbon, lost Flight A by a single shot and beat Wilkinson in the singles. He has barely swung a club since June and plays once a day. A high ceiling with no floor underneath it.
A twelve-month-old handicap on a man who has played three rounds in a year, which cuts both ways and nobody yet knows which. He owns the worst round in the archive and finished joint-top of the winning team on cup points. He beats Mitchell every time the two of them meet. Worth the most in four-ball and low ball, worth the least in the scramble.
Three singles matches, three defeats, and the four-ball and low ball lost as well. Every point he has scored in this tournament came from a scramble in which four men were credited the same two. A simulator winter, a fitting and a couple of lessons suggest he may be better than this. The record suggests nothing of the kind — and he is picking a team in September.
This is where the draft gets interesting. An unknown 8th Man with a fair index is worth more than a known quantity with a bad one, and nobody will have any idea until the cards come in. One of them goes early. One of them goes last, and has to stand in the room while it happens.