One of my fellow hackers at The Glamorganshire astounded the entire club last weekend when he won one of our major competitions with a record score of nett 62.

For a 28 handicapper who, at the age of 67, has been playing golf for only 13 years it was an amazing achievement and an inspiration to hackers everywhere — particularly me.

Roger Alban, like me, has been trying to break 100 for years and after scoring 111 in the monthly medal the previous week was not holding out much hope in the hotly contested Barbarian Cup.

And when he took an eight at the third he thought he was on the familiar road to a score well over the century mark.

But, although he didn’t feel he was playing particularly well tee-to-green, he was putting like a demon and although, out of habit, he didn’t keep a close eye on his score he felt a sub-100 might be in sight.

When he got to the par three 18, which is 190 yards, he decided not to risk his driver, the club he would normally take, and hit an iron straight but short of the green. He took a four and asked Chris, who was marking his card: ’ Did I break 100?’

He could hardly believe it when Chris said he’d scored 90 which meant his nett score was 62 and he was the clear winner of the prestige silver Cup presented to the club in 1924 by the Barbarians rugby side who played at the club during their Easter tour of south Wales each year from 1901 to the mid 1980s.

Modest as ever, I may have made a small contribution to his success. The Barbarian Cup always carried an 18 handicap limit and when CONGU introduced the full handicap allowance for competitive golf a few years ago some of the club, ie the low handicappers, said that tradition demanded we should retain the 18 limit.

I led the fight for the full allowance and the club eventually agreed. Inevitably, there have been mutterings about such a high handicapper winning it but why not?

There is no way he is a bandit. Indeed, he went out on Wednesday and played, he says, his ’usual rubbish’.

His success was mainly due to putting. He rattled them in from all over the greens, from 30 feet and longer. It seemed every time he swung his putter the ball went down.

Incredibly, his round didn’t contain one birdie. He just played steadily and holed most of the putts. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Being a hacker involves much merriment and derision when you have one of your worse days, which for many of us is quite often, so what is wrong when the odd bit of glory comes your way?

Before he played his first medal round in the year 2000, having just taken up the game, a friend gave him a Nick Faldo training video to study.

He watched it three times and went out to score a 147 — which is another club record. Everyone thought that was hilarious but a begrudging few were unable to credit the progress he had to made to knock 57 shots of his first ever score to take a top prize.

Roger, a retired chartered electrical engineer, is not expecting a rush of trophies, especially as he‘s been dropped to 24.

‘If I drove my car like I play golf, the police would have a moral obligation to lock me up,’ he says.

One aspect of his victory that didn’t please him was the first prize he collected of £70. Not having received prize-money before he thought that was a ridiculously high sum.

’There was a time when the prize money was divided up between the three categories which is much fairer. With cash like that available no wonder they don’t like high-handicappers winning,’ says Roger.

It wasn’t quite the shot that ran around the world but on a wild and windy day in west Wales last weekend it was one of the best I’ve ever hit — a true rarity.

And it was lucky I was there to hit it. It was so cold that had any of my three playing partners shown the slightest inclination to get the hell of it we’d have been in the bar.

But you know what it is like when you are on a golfing weekend; you don’t want to be the first to weaken.

There were 28 of us on our annual trip to play Newport, Pembs, and Cardigan and, as much as we enjoyed it, the weather was horrible.

It wasn’t too bad on the Friday when we played Newport. It was windy and showery but we had an enjoyable Texas Scramble and our four thought we’d done well with a nett 67. In fact, we finished last.

It was blowing so hard on Saturday we put several layers on plus our waterproofs, even through it wasn’t raining. But the cold still reached our bones and scoring didn’t come very easy. I had a measly seven points on the front nine and a few were even lower than that.

I managed to reach 14 points by the 16th but enjoyment was not coming easy. The 16th is a short par three and a spectacular hole, running sharply downhill over rough and gorse with the double-tiered green framed by Poppit Sands and the Teifi Estuary.

It didn’t look very inviting that day, especially with a gale-force wind directly into our faces. It was the nearest-the-pin hole but nearest the green would have been hard enough.

It was 164 yards to the pin and I took my driver, not expecting it to reach. But my companions watched amazed as the ball soared towards the green with a slight fade, pitched just on and rolled towards the hole.

How it didn’t go in, I don’t know, but it finished just 11 inches behind the hole. We duly registered the distance and my name in the little greenside board.

Some in the following groups got close but when they went to enter their distance from the hole they could hardly believe the 11 inches and even less who was responsible for it.

I was quite nervous about the putt because if I missed it I would never hear the last of it. Happily, it went in and, since I had a shot, gave me four points helping me to a final total of 21 which was almost respectable.

The prize of three balls was incidental to my pleasure at hitting a shot that neither Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy would disown. Of course, they hit shots like that every day while I hit one once in a blue moon.

But it supports my theory that hackers are not bad golfers they are just inconsistent golfers which puts an entirely different slant on our image.

Mercifully, the following morning was neither as windy nor as cold and we happily set off. Half an hour later, the heavens opened and it poured unmercifully. Once again, I would have thankfully called it a day but we were playing a team game ,with the best two shots on each hole to count, and no-one wanted to be the first to suggest it.

We managed to finish in second place but were wet through to our socks and underwear. So the three balls each we got as a prize came at a price. But we did have a merry time off the courses and profuse thanks went to David Virgin, the organiser.